Captain Kettle dressed himself with care, and put on a white-covered uniform cap; and then, happening to see a pair of scissors, he took them up and trimmed his beard before the glass.  Sheriff looked on at these preparations with fidgeting impatience, and from without there was a clamor of negro voices taking counsel.  But the little sailor was not to be hurried.  He went through his toilet with solemn deliberation, and then he opened the chart-house door and went out beneath the baking sunshine of the bridge-deck beyond.

A cluster of Krooboys stood at the further end of it, cackling with talk, and at sight of him they called their friends on the main deck below, who began to come up as fast as they could get foot on the ladders.  They showed inclinations for a rush, but Kettle held up his left hand for them to keep back, and they obeyed the order.  They saw that vicious revolver gripped in his right fingers, and they respected its powers.

He addressed them with a fine fluency of language.  He had a good command of sailor’s English, and also of Coast English, both of which are specially designed for forcible comment; and he knew, moreover, scraps from a score of native dialects, which, having Arabic for a groundwork, are especially rich in those parts of speech-which have the highest vituperative value.  The black man is proverbially tough, and a whip, moral or physical, which will cut the most hardened of whites to ribbons, will leave him unmoved.  An artist in words may rail at him for an hour without making him flicker an eyelash, or a Yankee mate might hammer him with a packing-case lid (always supposing there was no nail in it) for a like period without jolting from him so much as a cry or a groan.  And so I think it speaks highly for Captain Kettle’s powers when, at the end of three minutes’ talk, he caused many of those Krooboys to visibly wince.

You cannot touch a Krooboy’s feelings by referring insultingly to his mother, because he has probably very dim recollections of the lady; you can not rile him by gibing comments on his personal appearance; but still there are ways of getting home to him, and Kettle knew the secret.  “You make fight-palaver,” he said, “you steal, you take ship, you drink cargo gin, and you think your ju-ju fine ju-ju. But my ju-ju too-plenty-much better, and I fit for show it you again if dis steal-palaver no stop one-time.”

They began to move threateningly toward him.  “Very well,” he said, “then I tell you straight; you no fit to be called black boys.  You bushmen.  Bah! you be bushmen.”

The maddened Krooboys ran in, and the wicked revolver spoke out, and then Kettle nipped into the deck-house and slammed the door to on his heels.  The black ape-like faces jabbered and mowed at the window ports, and brawny arms were thrust in, grappling viciously, but the Mate drew out camp-stools from a locker, and with these the three white men stabbed and hit at every face or arm which showed itself.  There was no more shooting, and there was no need for it.  By sheer weight of blows the whites kept the enemy from climbing through the windows, and so long as the windows were not stormed, the iron house was safe to them.  And presently one of the head-men blew his boatswain’s whistle, and the attack drew off.