“Kicked you when you was down, didn’t he?” he demanded abruptly.

“Yes,” blubbered Conroy, shivering and dabbing at his face.  “With his sea-boots, too, the—­the——­”

Slade shook him.  “Don’t make that noise or he might kick you spine more,” he advised grimly.  “You better go now an’ swab that blood off your face.”

“Yes,” agreed Conroy tremulously, and Slade let him go.

The elder man watched him move forward on shambling and uncertain feet, with one hand pressed to his flank, where the mate’s kick was still an agony.  Slade was frowning heavily, with a tincture of thought in his manner, as though he halted on the brink of some purpose.

“Conroy,” he breathed, and started after the other.

The younger man turned.  Slade again put his hand on Conroy’s arm.

“Say,” he said, breathing short, “is that a knife in your belt?”

Conroy felt behind him, uncomprehending, for the sheath-knife, which he wore, sailor fashion, in the middle of his back.

“What d’you mean?” he asked vacantly.  “Here’s my knife.”

He drew it and showed it to Slade, the flat blade displayed in his palm.

The white-haired seaman thrust his keen old face toward Conroy’s, so that the other could see the flash of the white of his eyes.

“And he kicked you, didn’t he?” said Slade tensely.  “You fool!”

He struck the knife to the deck, where it rattled and slid toward the scupper.

“Eh?” Conroy gaped, not understanding.  “I don’t see what——­”

“Pick it up!” said Slade, with a gesture toward the knife.  He spoke, as though he strangled an impulse to brandish his fists and scream, in a nasal whisper.  “It’s safe to kick you,” he said.  “A woman could do it.”

“But——­” Conroy flustered vaguely.

Slade drove him off with a wave of his arm and turned away with the abruptness of a man disgusted beyond bearing.

Conroy stared after him and saw him pick up his broom where he had dropped it and join the others.  His intelligence limped; his thrashing had stunned him, and he could not think—­he could only feel, like fire in his mind, the passion of the feeble soul resenting injustice and pain which it cannot resist or avenge.  He stooped to pick up his knife and went forward to the tub under the head-pump, to wash his cuts in cold sea-water, the cheap balm for so many wrongs of cheap humanity.

It was an accident such as might serve to dedicate the day to the service of the owners of the Villingen.  It was early and sudden; but, save in these respects, it had no character of the unusual.  The men who plied the brooms and carried the buckets were not shocked or startled by it so much as stimulated; it thrust under their noses the always imminent danger of failing to satisfy the mate’s ideal of seaman-like efficiency.  They woke to a fresher energy, a more desperate haste, under its suggestion.