“How did you get the irons on Waters?”
“They were put on while he was asleep.”
“While he was asleep!” exclaimed the officer.
“That’s the gospel truth,” said Waters. “It couldn’t have been done no other way. The Yankees didn’t give us no chance at all.”
“They probably knew you too well. My orders are to leave an officer and crew in charge of the yacht, and to take the prisoners aboard our own vessel,” added the lieutenant, turning to Frank.
“I protest against such a proceeding, sir,” said the young captain, quickly. “Your government has a claim upon these prisoners, but it has no claim whatever upon this yacht. With the crew I have, I am able to take care of her myself.”
The lieutenant drew himself up and looked at Frank without speaking.
CHAPTER XI.
AN OBSTINATE CAPTAIN.
Frank now began to see that he had been mistaken in the mental estimate he had made of one of the two officers who came off in the steamer’s boat. The midshipman, whose name was Kendall, as he afterwards learned, he had put down as a conceited young prig, who would have made a first-rate companion for the consul’s clerk; and his conduct a few minutes later gave Frank no reason to change his opinion. The gray-headed lieutenant he had supposed to be a gentleman, but on that point he now began to have some doubts. The officer seemed to be greatly astonished at the audacity Frank exhibited in presuming to object to anything he might see fit to do. He drew himself up, and stared at the young captain in a way that was perfectly insulting, and made the latter all the more determined to stick to the course he had marked out for himself.
“I am sailing-master of this craft,” said Frank, “and in the absence of my superior have a right to command her.”