During the morning, Mister Fitzgibbon and his bullies came swaggering forward and into the port foc’sle.  Now that was a moment that very nearly saw the calm broken; for an instant I was sure there would be a grand blow-up.  For the mate was after Nils’ belongings, his sea-chest.  Even though it was the custom to take a dead man’s gear aft, the squareheads resented the removal of Nils’ effects.  Especially did they resent Fitzgibbon’s part in the removal.  The lads in my watch crowded the door connecting the rooms, and the port watch men collected on deck and glowered in at the proceedings.

The muttered curses grew in volume.  Oh, it looked like trouble, right enough—–­for just a moment.  Now that I was enlightened as to the skipper’s game, I could see what the mate was up to.  He, who was largely responsible for Nils’ death, had come forward upon this errand because he knew—­or Swope knew—­his presence would enrage Nils’ mates.  The Chinese steward, or the tradesmen alone, could have taken Nils’ gear without raising a murmur from the squareheads, but quite naturally they would resent Fitzgibbon’s pawing over the poor lad’s treasures.

But Newman took the sting out of the mate’s visit, Newman and Holy Joe, working separately, but with a common end in view.  Oh, it was rich—­but you must know the foc’sle mind to understand how rich we thought it was.  It was nothing subtle, nothing above our heads.  Newman made us laugh, at the mate’s expense, and—­presto!—­impending tragedy was turned into farce.

Fitzgibbon, himself, was overhauling Nils’ gear.  The tradesmen stood idle and watchful, one near either door of the foc’sle.  Out on deck, Holy Joe was busy; we could hear him urging his crowd to be quiet and peaceful.  Newman pushed through our crowd until he was fairly into the port foc’sle, and there he stood, filling the doorway, and effectually blocking any attempt on the part of those behind him to rush the room.

Well, Newman looked down at the mate, and he commenced to chuckle very softly to himself.  After a moment we began to chuckle too, every man-jack of us.  We didn’t laugh out loud—­not one of us, except Newman, who had the nerve to laugh out loud at Blackjack Fitzgibbon—­but, hidden behind the big fellow’s back, we chuckled and snickered readily enough.  And the butt of the joke was the mate, himself.

It was the mate’s behavior.  Anybody could see with half an eye that the fellow was looking for trouble.  He expected trouble, and it made him nervous.  He was determined he would be ready for it.  So he kept one hand in his coat pocket, where he carried his gun, and tried with the other hand to cast adrift the lashings that held the chest to the bunk posts.  It was a two-hand job, and he made slow work of it.  But he wouldn’t call one of his tradesmen to help him—­that would have left a door unguarded, you see.  Nor could he fix his attention upon the job; he kept twisting his ugly face this way and that way until his head looked as if it were on a pivot.