They had good reason to curse.  My disclosure gave them a fresh fear.  Consternation was in their faces and voices, especially in the faces and voices of the stiffs.  I knew very well what frightened them.  Cockney had been most violent and outspoken among those advocating mutiny, far more outspoken than the cautious Blackie or Boston, and the disaffected had naturally confided in him.  I knew that every man in the crew who had expressed a willingness to revolt was known by name to Cockney (and without doubt to Yankee Swope) and these men now could not escape the feeling that they were marked men.  If anything had been needed to settle the conviction of the foc’sle that mutiny was necessary, this unmasking of Cockney supplied the need.

I felt this, rather than thought it out.  It was in the air, so to speak.  At the moment, I was too much concerned for the little parson to reason coolly.  Oh, I reasoned about it a little while later, not coolly perhaps, but certainly quickly, and leaped helter-skelter to a momentous decision.  But just then I thought about Holy Joe.

I wanted to get his arm set, and his body examined.  I, myself, was not competent to do either.  The squarehead had spoken truth—­it would be madness to carry the man aft for treatment; and I judged Cockney had spoken truly, too, when he said the lady was locked up.  That agreed with what I, myself, had heard, I appealed to the crowd.

“We’ve got to get Holy Joe fixed up.  Any of you know anything about bone setting?  Who’ll lend a hand?”

To my surprise, Boston volunteered.  “I worked in a hospital once,” he said.

He set to work immediately in an efficient, businesslike manner.  I was astonished.  His fingers were as deft—­though not as gentle—­as Newman’s.  I thought, as I tore a blanket into strips, under his direction, how characteristic it was of the fellow to let a hurt shipmate lie unattended when he possessed the skill to help him.  Aye, that was the sort of scut Boston was!

“A clean break; no trick to set it,” he announced, after examining the arm.  Nor was it.  We cut up a bunkboard for splints, used the blanket for bandages, and triced the injured member in short order.  Boston was deft, but he didn’t try to spare his patient any pain; when he snapped the ends of the bone together, Holy Joe came out of his swoon with a cry of agony.

He half raised himself, and looked at us.  “Let there be no trouble, boys—­for God’s sake, no fighting!” he said.  Then he fainted away again.

We undressed him, and Boston pronounced his ribs sound.  Then we carried him into the starboard foc’sle, and placed him in my bunk, which had a comfortable mattress.

“Now you see what he got?” said Boston, wiping his hands on his greasy pants.  “And you see what you got.  And you know what happened to Big ’Un.  Well, how about it, Shreve?  Do you stand with us?”

“With the crowd, sink or swim—­that’s what we want to know?” added Blackie.