It was all the affair of a minute.  It does not do to let these little impromptu scrimmages simmer over long.  In fact, the whole affair was decided in the first rush.  The quartette of English went in, despising the “Dagos,” and quite intending to clear them off the ship.  The invaders were driven overboard by sheer weight of blows and prestige, and the victors leaned on the bulwark puffing and gasping, and watched them swim away to their boat through the clear water below.

“Ruddy Dagos,” said the roughs.

“Set of blooming pirates,” said Kettle.

But Dayton-Philipps seemed to view the situation from a different point.  “I’m rather thinking we are the pirates.  How about those three we’ve got on board?  This sort of press-gang work isn’t quite approved of nowadays, is it, Skipper?”

“They no speakee English,” said Kettle drily.  “You might have heard me ask that, sir, before I started to talk to that skipper to make him begin the show.  And he did begin it, and that’s the great point.  If ever you’ve been in a police court, you’ll always find the magistrate ask, ‘Who began this trouble?’ And when he finds out, that’s the man he logs.  No, those fishermen won’t kick up a bobbery when they get back to happy Portugal again; and as for our own crowd here on board, they ain’t likely to talk when they get ashore, and have money due to them.”

“Well, I suppose there’s reason in that, though I should have my doubts about the stonemason.  He comes from Sierra Leone, remember, and they’re great on the rights of man there.”

“Quite so,” said Kettle.  “I’ll see the stonemason gets packed off to sea again in a stokehold before he has a chance of stirring up the mud ashore.  When the black man gets too pampered, he has to be brought low again with a rush, just to make him understand his place.”

“I see,” said Dayton-Phillips, and then he laughed.

“There’s something that tickles you, sir?”

“I was thinking, Skipper, that for a man who believes he’s being put in the way of a soft thing by direct guidance from on high, you’re using up a tremendous lot of energy to make sure the Almighty’s wishes don’t miscarry.  But still I don’t understand much about these matters myself.  And at present it occurs to me that I ought to be doing a spell at those infernal pumps, instead of chattering here.”

The three captive Portuguese were brought up on deck and were quickly induced by the ordinary persuasive methods of the merchant service officer to forego their sulkiness and turn-to diligently at what work was required of them.  But even with this help the heavy ship was still considerably undermanned, and the incessant labor at the pumps fell wearily on all hands.  The Bay, true to its fickle nature, changed on them again.  The sunshine was swamped by a driving gray mist of rain; the glass started on a steady fall; and before dark, Kettle snugged her down to single topsails, himself laying out on the foot-ropes with the Portuguese, as no others of his crew could manage to scramble aloft with so heavy a sea running.