About a quarter of an hour elapsed, when the lovely fraulein, finding her father asleep, proceeded to mount up into the loft, where, with the ready help of Jerry, who had been there all the time, she raised the board which usually covered the shoot, and having untied a sack of flour, she shot the contents down upon the imprisoned captain.
Half-choked, blinded, and mad, he burst the latch and staggered into the store. Up jumped the parent Pferdscreptern, seized a cowhide, and laid it right vigorously across the whitened figure. The flour flew all over the place, and the captain darted about like a man playing blind-man's buff, his assailant holding on to his coat-tails during the last part of the exercise, and occasionally varying the programme with a well-directed kick. At length, becoming somewhat exhausted, he let his victim go, upon which Puffeigh gasped out, "Wa! what the deuce is all this outrage for, sir? Do you know who I am?"
"You—schust—kit—out, and tousent—gifs—no—more—scheek!" panted the irate Teuton. "Let me catch you mit my kind agin and I vill make it much hotter dan it vas not dis time, mine friend. I tousant care ein heller who you ist. Shust you kit out, dat's all; I'm capden of dis schanty."
Puffeigh left the store a wiser and more subdued man. As he passed the cause of his trouble he imagined she was crying, her apron being thrown over her head and her shoulders heaving as if with grief. But Wallburg did not cry. The strong convulsion moving her frame was not that of woe; and when her father came to her and spoke kindly, she threw off the covering, and fairly roared—with laughter.
When the commander reached his quarters he found no one about, so slipped up to his bed-room, where Jerry was sitting on a chair as if fast asleep.
"Lord bless us!" said the valet, "has it been a snowin'?"
Muttering something about "being attacked and nearly killed," Puffeigh directed his man to get a change of clothes. When he was comfortably arranged he turned to his coxswain and asked him "if he could keep a secret?"
"Any amount of 'em, sir," replied the sailor.
"Then forget you have ever seen me in such a pickle, my man. The day you remember it will be a bad one for you. There's a shilling for you."
"You're too generous, sir," said the amused valet.