“Why attempt to deny it? It is plain, it is logical. Who was it who planned to catch that reef point in the reef tackle block?”
“No one, sir. It—”
“Then who was it that countermanded my orders? Who was it who put me to shame before both watches, with all hands on deck? It was a deeplaid plot. It shows every sign of it.”
The captain’s hands were behind his back, and he stood easily balancing on the deck with the wind flapping his coattails and blowing his hair forward over his cheeks, but Bush could see he was shaking with rage again—if it was not fear. Wellard turned the minute glass again and made a fresh mark on the slate.
“So you hide your face because of the guilt that is written on it?” blared the captain suddenly. “You pretend to be busy so as to deceive me. Hypocrisy!”
“I gave Mr. Wellard orders to test the glasses against each other, sir,” said Bush.
He was intervening reluctantly, but to intervene was less painful than to stand by as a witness. The captain looked at him as if this was his first appearance on deck.
“You, Mr. Bush? You’re sadly deceived if you believe there is any good in this young fellow. Unless”—the captain’s expression was one of sudden suspicious fear—“unless you are part and parcel of this infamous affair. But you are not, are you, Mr. Bush? Not you. I have always thought better of you, Mr. Bush.”
The expression of fear changed to one of ingratiating good fellowship.
“Yes, sir,” said Bush.