"Aye, aye, tell 'im yourself," echoed the others.
"So I would if I thought you'd stand by me. But you're such a set of white-livered skunks that, at the first word from this one-eyed skipper, you'd turn on me. Why, if you were men instead of a damned pack of slaves, you'd take charge of this packet yourselves and clap that lunatic aft in irons. Then you'd take the ship into the nearest port and claim salvage, and a nice little fortune you'd make out of it. It'd be every man his own pub then and don't you forget it."
"What about the orf'cers, old son?" inquired someone.
"Treat 'em the same if they refused to come in with us. One of them would have to do the navigating, and if he had any objections we'd soon get rid of them. A bit of whipcord tightened round a man's head is a wonderful persuader."
"So's the wooden 'orse," cried a fireman, referring to the manner in which the fiery orator had been induced to waive his claim to be regarded as a passenger.
There was another burst of laughter at this sally, but the would-be righter of wrongs, though annoyed, was not to be put down.
"Whose fault was that?" he demanded. "One man couldn't fight the whole crowd of you, and if that swivel-eyed swine had given the word you'd have been on me like a pack of dogs. But I haven't forgotten, and I'll lay my life against a mouldy biscuit that I get even before I leave this stinking slave-dhow."
"You oughter be in 'Ide Park, you ought," said the sceptical fireman. "You'd look fine on a Sunday afternoon standin' on the top of a tub."
"If it pleases you to be funny, it doesn't hurt me," retorted Skelt. "But wait till you're up before the beak on a charge of piracy on the high seas; maybe you'll sing a different tune."
He stuck his hands in his pockets and, with an expression of utter contempt on his face, turned away. But, despite the scornful incredulity with which his remarks had been received, they had not fallen on entirely barren soil. As a general rule, the sailor-man is hopelessly ignorant of the law, and, in consequence, has a vague but very real dread of it. For him, it possesses all the terrors of the unknown; its very jargon cows him, and the wording of a summons sounds more terrible in his ears than the worst abuse of the worst skipper that ever sailed the seas. Skelt, it was true, had not served out any fear-inspiring legal phrases, but he had mentioned piracy, which is an ugly word to use on a ship whose character and mission savour somewhat of that offence.