Frank at once went below to look at his patient, leaving Mr. Gale in charge of the deck. The captain lay with his eyes closed, rolling his head from side to side, and Calamity was fanning him with his hat. The latter started up in alarm as Frank entered.
"It is no one who is going to harm you," said he. "I hope you see now what you have brought upon yourself by your way of doing business. Let it be a lesson to you."
"I shall never dare to go into the forecastle again," whined Calamity.
"You needn't go in there. You will stay here as the captain's nurse."
This order seemed to relieve the frightened man. Through the open skylights he had heard all that passed on deck, and he was afraid that Frank, having the authority to do so, would order him to go forward where he belonged.
Frank slept but little that night. The responsibilities of his new position weighed on his mind, and he came on deck every hour to see that things were going straight. The first real duty he performed as captain was to ascertain whereabouts in the wide world the ship was, and this he did the next day by an observation. She was directly in the track of vessels bound from Australia to the Pacific ports of the United States, and he decided to cruise about for a few days in the hope of meeting some ship that carried a surgeon. Without medical assistance he was afraid that the captain might not live until the ship reached Honolulu, which, according to his calculations, was more than fifteen hundred miles distant.
The observation made, dinner over and the table cleared away, Frank busied himself for an hour or two in drawing up papers for the men to sign; and when that was done, he took a few minutes to think over the various incidents that had operated to place him in his present position. The most exacting old sea-dog could hardly have found fault with the way affairs were going now. The weather-side of the quarter-deck was reserved for the captain, who for an hour paced up and down there with his hands behind his back, and as free from intrusion as a monarch on his throne. The officers were alert and watchful, the crew seemed to have settled down to the new order of things as if they had been accustomed to them all their lives, and never in her best days under her old commander had the Tycoon looked more ship-shape. Frank wished the crew had put Mr. Gale in his place, and left him to act as sailing-master; but since they had seen fit to do differently, he would perform his duty as best he could. He knew every rope and sail in the ship, was possessed of excellent judgment, which was the one great thing needed, and the captain's sextant came as handy to him as a fishing-rod or double-barrel; so he was not so very unfit for the position he held after all. How Archie and the rest of the friends he had left on the Stranger would open their eyes if they could see him in that dress and know that he was the master of that fine ship! For the first time in a long while Frank allowed his thoughts to wander back to them, and the consequence was he became homesick. Yes, homesick; for the cabin of the Stranger had been his home for almost eight months, and had he kept out of the way of the bogus captain, it might have been his home yet. Where was the schooner now, and what were those aboard of her doing? Perhaps she was sailing about over the Pacific in search of the Tycoon! This thought aroused Frank from his reverie, and caused him to straighten up and look about as if he expected to see something. If the Stranger followed the Tycoon to the Sandwich Islands, would not Uncle Dick ascertain when he got there that she had shipped a crew and started for the Japan station? And would he not sail again immediately and try to find her?
"Sail ho!" shouted the man at the mast-head. "Where away?" demanded the captain, greatly excited.