"Me like ’em," the native said. "Me no vote. He good man—sometimes."
Marr caught the note in the simple tones and frowned. He felt himself slipping. There were two more Kanakas in the cabin who would follow the big harpooner; the three together might prove troublesome.
"You’re out!" Marr snapped. "Now the next. How do you vote, Slim?"
Slim was the leader of the stokehold and engine-room crew, which was entirely under the influence of the two engineers. Marr smiled as six cinder rats and oilers stood up from the seats they had taken about the table and voted for Stirling’s death. Each man had reached for a drink of gin as his name was called.
"That almost settles it," whispered Whitehouse, drunkenly. "Old horse, you’re gone. Hit’s a ’ard, ’ard thing to do but we——"
"But you’re not going to do it!" broke in Stirling, backing toward the door and crouching with his hand toward his right shoe. "You’re only drunk and full of false courage!"
The blaze that sprang from Stirling’s eyes simmered and darted across the smoke-filled room. Each man felt the sudden power that flashed at him; each leaned away for a second.
Stirling crouched lower and shelved forward his massive shoulders. The bulk of him seemed to fill the room. He was more than a fighting match for the entire crew. They knew it with dawning intuition.
Marr slyly placed a cool hand within the inner pocket of his pea-jacket, and was drawing a gun when Stirling leaped the distance, hooked his right elbow, and uppercut with vicious force. The blow would have lifted the cabin deck. It hurled Marr over the table, and laid him across the planks where he dropped unconscious.
"Now the next!" shouted Stirling, backing away and lowering his fists to his knees. "The next! Come on!"
Baldwin, the engineer, watched the Ice Pilot’s eyes, and in them he saw the dying fire of rage turn to cool calculation. It was like gazing at horizon-down ice, as the steely glint changed to cold gray. But the glance was over the heads of the seamen who leaned upon the table. It was toward on open porthole.
Some intuition, stronger than the desire to murder, swept the crew. They turned as one man and followed Stirling’s steady gaze. They dropped their chins and stared out through the porthole.