The thing had to be fought out, as it were, man to man within four walls, and God help the weaker! "How many ships in the fleet are sworn to this agitation ?" Dyck asked presently.
"Every one.

It's been like a spread of infection; it's entered at every door, looked out of every window.

All the ships are in it, from the twenty-six-hundred-tonners to the little five-hundred-and-fifty-tonners.
Besides, there are the Delegates." He lowered his voice as he used these last words.

"Yes, I know," Dyck answered, though he did not really know.

"But who is at the head ?" "Why, as bold a man as can be--Richard Parker, an Irishman.