In a few minutes the whale-boat came close aboard the schooner, and dashed by under her bows. Her captain was furious, his face showed that. He ran his eye over the men on the Stranger's deck, and picking out Uncle Dick at once as the commanding officer, said, as he nodded his head to him—
"Fine business you're in, sir! helping men to desert. If there is a law on shore I'll see you again, my good fellow!"
Uncle Dick simply smiled and touched his hat, and the whale-boat passed on. As she was going by, the sailors enacted a little pantomime of their own. They had clambered out on the bowsprit to see the race, and when the captain of the whaler was through threatening Uncle Dick, they glanced toward the quarter-deck, to make sure that none of their officers were observing them, and then leaned over and shook their fists at the angry man. One of them hugged his cap under his arm and beat it furiously with his clenched hand, nodding pleasantly to the captain the while, as if to indicate that it would have afforded him infinite satisfaction if the captain's head had been in the place of the cap. The boys, from their lofty perch in the main rigging, saw all that passed, and smiled at one another, but said nothing; for they knew that if the performance came to the ears of Uncle Dick, who was a very strict disciplinarian, every one of the sailors who took part in it would be sent to the mast.
[The "mast" is to a sailor on board ship, what the "library" is to a refractory boy on shore. It is there that culprits are sent to be reprimanded, if their offence be a slight one, or sentenced if they have done something deserving of punishment.]
Although he might laugh over it afterward in the privacy of his cabin, he was not the one to pass lightly over an insult to a shipmaster when in performance of his duty, no matter how great the provocation.
All this while the cutter's crew had been exceedingly busy, and now loud calls were heard from the boys on the cross-trees for their field-glasses. They did not want to miss a single incident of the race. Frank, who up to this time had remained below with Uncle Dick, went into the cabin after the glasses, and mounting the rigging, joined the group on the cross-trees. "Who's ahead?" he asked.
"O, the cutter," replied George Le Dell. "There is more in that crew than I thought. They'll land their man safe enough."
And George was right. The cutter reached the wharf while the whale-boat was yet twenty yards away, and no sooner did she swing broadside to it than the deserter was lifted in the strong arms of the coxswain and boatswain's mate and fairly thrown ashore. He jumped to his feet and disappeared in less time than it takes to tell it. A few seconds later the whale-boat landed and the captain sprang out and started in pursuit, not, however, without saying a few words to the cutter's crew, which he emphasized by shaking his fist at them. If any of the men replied, our young friends at the cross-trees saw nothing to indicate it.
The sailors pulled back slowly, for their long, hard pull had wearied them, and when they reached the schooner and clambered over the side, the boys saw that their faces were flushed, and that some portions of their clothes looked as though they had been dipped in the bay. The boatswain's mate went aft demurely enough to report the safe return of the boat, but when he made his way forward again, and glanced up at the boys, with whom he was an especial favorite, they saw that his jolly countenance was wreathed with smiles, and that his broad shoulders were shaking with suppressed mirth. He and the cutter's crew were proud of the exploit they had performed. The fun and excitement being all over now, the boys seated themselves in a circle on the cross-trees to discuss the incidents that had just transpired.