Jake laughed. "Whose war is it? The capitalists'. You're fightin' for Morgan and Rockefeller to save their investments and to help 'em to grind you into the dirt. England and France and America are all land-grabbers. They're no better 'n Germany." The workers wanted a scapegoat, and Jake unwittingly volunteered. They welcomed him with a bloodthirsty roar. They called him vigorous shipyard names and struck at him. He backed off. They followed. He made a crucial mistake; he whirled and ran. They ran after him. Some of them threw hammers and bolts. Some of these struck him as he fled. Workmen ahead of him were roused by the noise and headed him off. He darted through an opening in the side of the _Mamise_. The crowd followed him, chased him out on an upper deck. "Throw him overboard! Kill him!" they shouted. He took refuge behind Sutton the riveter, whose gun had made such noise that he had heard none of the clamor. Seeing Jake's white face and the mark of a thrown monkey-wrench on his brow, Sutton shut off the compressed air and confronted the pursuers. He was naked to the waist, and he had no weapon, but he held them at bay while he demanded: "What's the big idea? What you playin'? Puss in a corner? How many of yous guys does it take to lick this one gink?" A burly patriot, who forgot that his name and his accent were Teutonic, roared: "Der sneagin' Sohn off a peach ain't sorry _die Clara_ is by dose tam Chermans _gesunken_!" "What!" Sutton howled. "The _Clara_ sunk? Whatya mean--sunk?" Bohlmann told him. Sutton wavered. He had driven thousands of rivets into the frame of the ship, and a little explosive had opened all the seams and ended her days! When at last he understood the _Clara's_ fate and Nuddle's comments he turned to Jake with baleful calm: "And you thought it was good business, did you? And these fellers was thinkin' about lynchin' you, was they? Well, they're all wrong--they're all wrong: we'd ought to save lynchin' for real guys. What you need is somethin' like--this!" His terrific fist lashed out and caught Jake in the right eye. Jake in a daze of indignation and amazement went over backward; his head struck the steel deck, and his soul went out. When it came back he lay still for a while, pretending to be unconscious until the gang had dispersed, satisfied, and Sutton was making ready to begin riveting again. Then he picked himself up and edged round Sutton, growling: "I'll fix you for this, you--" Sutton did not wait to learn what Jake was going to call him. His big foot described an upward arc, and Jake a parabola, ending in a drop that almost took him through an open hatch into the depth of the hold. He saved himself, peering over the edge, too weak for words--hunched back, crawled around the steel abyss, and betook himself to a safe hiding-place under the tank-top till the siren should blow and disperse his enemies. CHAPTER VI