"What was it, I ask you!" said the officer, kicking Caleb with his foot. "Do you hear?"
"It is nothing but yeast," said Caleb. "I hope it will raise you up so that it will put a little sense into your head."
It was evident that the rough treatment to which he had been subjected had not taken all the pluck out of Caleb Young. The officer was astonished and gave him three or four kicks in the ribs to show that he did not admire such talk; but the position in which he lay, together with the narrow limits of the boat, rendered the kicks comparatively harmless.
"Shove off," commanded the officer. "Give-away strong and let us get rid of this rebel as soon as we can."
In a few minutes the boat was alongside the schooner, where they found Captain Moore and the other officers waiting for them. A lantern held over the side showed them that the officer had not come back empty-handed.
"You got him, did you?" said the captain, and his voice sounded very unlike the polite tones in which he was accustomed to greet the villagers who came there to see him. He did not live in Machias, but he had been there so often that he was pretty well known to all the towns-people.
"Yes, sir, I have got him," said the officer, touching his hat. "And the rebel threw a bucket of yeast on me when I took him."
"Well, you will pay him for that when we get him to New York," said the captain. "Hoist him up here."
This was the worst part of the treatment to which Caleb had thus far been subjected since his capture. Two of the boat's crew seized him, one at the head and the other at the feet, trying to take him by the clothes but not being particular if they caught up flesh with them, and raised him over their heads, from which position he was received by two more aboard the schooner, who hauled him over the rail and deposited him on the deck as if he had been a log of wood.
"You have got his hands tied, have you not?" said the captain. "Well, release them, and bo'son bring up a set of bracelets and put them on him."