Kieran, on a camp-stool, waited for the laughter to simmer down.  He fixed a mocking eye on the bosun.  “And so you’re a whale, eh?  And you’ll learn me what a whale can do to little fishes?  Well, let me tell you something about a whale, son.  A whale is a sure enough big creature, but I never heard he was a fighting fish before.  Now, if you knew more about some things, you’d never called yourself a whale, but a thrasher.  There’s the best fighting fish of them all—­the thrasher.  The thrasher’s the boy with the wallop.  He’s the boy that chases the whale, and leaps high out of the water, and snaps his long, limber tail, and bam! down he comes on that big slob of a whale and breaks his back.  All the wise old whales, they take to deep water when they see a thrasher hunting trouble.  It’s the foolish young whales that don’t know enough to let the thrasher alone.”

Noyes noted that the crew laughed more loudly at the bosun’s rough jeers than at the more sharply pointed comment of the pump-man.  But looking them over, he began to understand; these men were nearer to the bosun’s type than the pump-man’s.  And also, no crew could long remain ignorant of which it was the captain favored.  If the pump-man won, they would benefit by it, whether they were with him or no—­some selfish instinct in them taught them that; while if the bosun were to win (and who could doubt that, looking at the two men?), why, ’twould be just as well to fly their colors early.

Yet there were those who favored the game-looking pump-man.  Two or three had the courage to say so.  It was these who cried out to give him fair play when some ten or a dozen were for rushing him off the hatch before the fight had begun at all.

Kieran thanked these with a grateful look.  “That’s all I want—­fair play.  Keep off the hatch and give us room to move around in.”

And yet it did seem for a moment as if the pump-man was to get no fair play, as if the bosun’s adherents would overwhelm him as he stood there on the hatch.  And Noyes experienced an unpleasant chill and began to appreciate the nerve of this man who defied a crowd of alien spirits aboard a strange ship.  It was more than physical courage, and when they were making ugly demonstrations toward the pump-man it was in pure admiration of his nerve that Noyes called out:  “Hold up—­fair play!  Fair play, I say—­he’s only one.”

Coming from the passenger, it was the psychological act at the psychological moment.  They drew back, and Kieran, looking up, put his thanks in his look.

The two men faced each other.  Kieran eyed the other critically.  Up and down, from toe to crown, he estimated his bulk; and then, taking a step to one side, he eyed him once more, as if to get the exact depth of him.

“Well,” said the bosun, and harking to his rising voice, his growling adherents simmered to silence, “now yer’ve seen me, what d’yer think?”

“I’ve seen ’em just as big, hulks of full your length and beam and draught, and in a breeze I’ve seen vessels of less tonnage make ’em shorten sail.”