The fear of being starved into submission effectually closed the prisoner’s mouth, and without another word he allowed the master-at-arms to lead him below. The boys breathed easier when they saw his head disappear below the combings of the hatchway.
“How did this trouble begin, Mr. Baldwin?” demanded Uncle Dick.
The officer told him in a few words and the captain said, with a smile,
“That is a good deal of work to be done in so short a space of time. I came on deck as soon as I could get up from the table. When we reach Hobart Town I’ll teach this fellow that he can’t strike my men with impunity. You say he called for help from his friends. Did they seem inclined to give it?”
“Yes, sir, one of them did. He picked up a handspike, but lacked the courage to use it. The other two stood still and looked on.”
“Send them to the mast, Mr. Baldwin. They all belong to the same class, and it may be well to have a fair understanding with them.”
Mr. Baldwin passed the order to the old boatswain’s mate, who was going about his work with an eye bunged up, and presently Waters’s three friends came to the mast and respectfully removed their caps. There was no swagger or bluster about them. The defeat of their champion had cowed them completely. Uncle Dick first explained why he had brought them there, and then for five minutes talked to them in a way the boys had never heard him talk before. Even Walter and Eugene were surprised to know that their jolly uncle could be so stern and severe. He used words that the men before him could readily understand. He bluntly told them that they were escaped convicts (the start they gave when they heard this showed that he had hit the nail fairly on the head), and that he was just the man to deal with such characters as they were. He would rid his vessel of their unwelcome presence as soon as he could, and give her a good scrubbing from stem to stern after they went. He did not want them there, but while they stayed they must walk a chalk-mark; and if he heard so much as a mutinous eye-wink from any of them, he would show them that the discipline that was maintained on board the Stranger could be made as severe as that to which they had been subjected by their prison taskmasters. That was all, and they might go forward and bear everything he had said to them constantly in mind.
The suspected men, glad to be let off so easily, returned to their work, and we may anticipate events a little by saying that they took the old sailor at his word, and never made the schooner’s company the least trouble—that is, they made them no trouble before they reached Hobart Town, whither the Stranger went to refit. What they did afterward is another matter; we have not come to that yet. We may also say that the trapper won a high place in the estimation of all the foremast hands by the exploit he performed that morning. He had peace after that. None of the sailors ever told him any more stories about the Flying Dutchman, the squids, and the whale that swallowed Jonah. It was not because they were afraid of him—no one who behaved himself could look into the trapper’s wild gray eye and feel the least fear of him—but because they wanted to reward him for what he had done. When the crew assembled around the mess-chest at meals Dick was always the first one waited upon by the mess-cook, and if any of the blue jackets found a tit-bit in the pan, it was always transferred to Dick’s plate. Old Bob also came in for a large share of their attention, and it was not long before these little acts of kindness so worked upon the feelings of the two trappers, that they declared that if the schooner wouldn’t pitch about so with the waves, and they could have a chance to use their rifles now and then, they would as soon be there among the sailors as in the mountains.
Of course the exciting scene of which they had been the unwilling witnesses produced a commotion among the boys, who for a long time could talk about nothing else. If they ever forgot it, one glance at the battered face which the old boatswain’s mate carried about with him would instantly recall it, and set their tongues in motion again. The ease with which the supple trapper had vanquished his huge antagonist, was the occasion of unbounded astonishment to all of them except Frank and Archie. The latter always wound up the conversation by saying:
“Didn’t I tell you that Waters would run against a stump if he attempted any foolishness? You have heard the expression ’as quick as lightning,’ and now you know what it means. Hold on till we get ashore,” he added, one day, “and I’ll show you some more of it.”