But the three fellows. They were small men, all; and young men, anywhere between twenty-five and thirty. Though roughly dressed, they were well dressed, and under their clothes their bodily movements showed physical well-being. Their faces were keen cut, intelligent. And though I felt there was something queer about them, I could not divine what it was.
Here were no ill-fed, whiskey-poisoned men, such as the rest of the sailors, who, having drunk up their last pay-days, had starved ashore until they had received and drunk up their advance money for the present voyage. These three, on the other hand were supple and vigorous. Their movements were spontaneously quick and accurate.
Perhaps it was the way they looked at me, with incurious yet calculating eyes that nothing escaped. They seemed so worldly wise, so indifferent, so sure of themselves. I was confident they were not sailors. Yet, as shore-dwellers, I could not place them. They were a type I had never encountered. Possibly I can give a better idea of them by describing what occurred.
As they passed before us they favoured Mr. Pike with the same indifferent, keen glances they gave me.
"What's your name--you?" Mr. Pike barked at the first of the trio, evidently a hybrid Irish-Jew. Jewish his nose unmistakably was.
Equally unmistakable was the Irish of his eyes, and jaw, and upper lip.
The three had immediately stopped, and, though they did not look directly at one another, they seemed to be holding a silent conference. Another of the trio, in whose veins ran God alone knows what Semitic, Babylonish and Latin strains, gave a warning signal.
Oh, nothing so crass as a wink or a nod. I almost doubted that I had intercepted it, and yet I knew he had communicated a warning to his fellows. More a shade of expression that had crossed his eyes, or a glint in them of sudden light--or whatever it was, it carried the message.
"Murphy," the other answered the mate.
"Sir!" Mr. Pike snarled at him.
Murphy shrugged his shoulders in token that he did not understand.
It was the poise of the man, of the three of them, the cool poise that impressed me.
"When you address any officer on this ship you'll say 'sir,'" Mr.
Pike explained, his voice as harsh as his face was forbidding. "Did you get THAT?""Yes . . sir,'' Murphy drawled with deliberate slowness. "Igotcha."
"Sir!" Mr. Pike roared.
"Sir," Murphy answered, so softly and carelessly that it irritated the mate to further bullyragging.
"Well, Murphy's too long," he announced. "Nosey'll do you aboard this craft. Got THAT?""I gotcha . . . sir," came the reply, insolent in its very softness and unconcern. "Nosey Murphy goes . . . sir."And then he laughed--the three of them laughed, if laughter it might be called that was laughter without sound or facial movement. The eyes alone laughed, mirthlessly and cold-bloodedly.
Certainly Mr. Pike was not enjoying himself with these baffling personalities. He turned upon the leader, the one who had given the warning and who looked the admixture of all that was Mediterranean and Semitic.
"What's YOUR name?"
"Bert Rhine . . . sir," was the reply, in tones as soft and careless and silkily irritating as the other's.
"And YOU?"--this to the remaining one, the youngest of the trio, a dark-eyed, olive-skinned fellow with a face most striking in its cameo-like beauty. American-born, I placed him, of immigrants from Southern Italy--from Naples, or even Sicily.
"Twist . . . sir," he answered, precisely in the same manner as the others.
"Too long," the mate sneered. "The Kid'll do you. Got THAT?""I gotcha . . . sir. Kid Twist'll do me . . . sir.""Kid'll do!"
"Kid . . . sir."
And the three laughed their silent, mirthless laugh. By this time Mr. Pike was beside himself with a rage that could find no excuse for action.
