“But can nothing be done to make this fellow mend his behaviour?” inquired Bob of the skipper as they separated from the rest of the working party and walked toward the cottage on landing from the boats that night.
“I fear not,” was the reply. “While the schooner and the battery were still to be built we had the man to some extent in our power; but now that the battery is so near completion, and the hull of the schooner fully modelled, he is independent of us, and he has sense enough to know it. His own people are quite capable of finishing off the schooner now that her framework is complete, so that threats on our part would be useless—nay, worse than useless—since they would only irritate him and lead to increasing severity toward us.”
Bob lay awake a long time that night, quite satisfied that the time had arrived when something ought to be done, but what that something should be he puzzled his brain in vain to discover.
About a fortnight after this a serious accident occurred at the shipyard, or rather at the battery. This structure was now so far advanced that it was ready to receive the guns which were intended to be mounted in it. The armament was to consist of six 24-pounder iron muzzle-loaders of the ordinary old-fashioned type, to which Johnson had helped himself in some raid on the Spanish-American coast; and on the morning in question a gang of men was told off to hoist these guns up the cliff into the battery.
Lance had, as a matter of course, undertaken the supervision of this operation; but the work had hardly commenced when Ralli made his appearance on the scene, announcing his intention to himself direct operations at the battery, and roughly ordering Lance to return at once to his work on the schooner, “and to be quick about it too, or he (Ralli) would freshen his way.”
Evelin of course returned at once to the shipyard without condescending to bandy words with the Greek, and the work went forward as usual.
Ralli soon had a pair of sheers rigged, and in due time one of the guns was slung ready for hoisting.
Lance had been watching Ralli’s operations, first with curiosity and afterwards with anxiety, for he soon saw that the man knew nothing whatever about handling heavy guns. He now saw that the gun which was about to be hoisted was wrongly slung, and that an accident was likely enough to result. So, forgetting his former rebuff, he threw down his tools and hurried to the place where the men were working about the gun and told them to cast off the slings.
“You have slung it wrong, lads,” said he, “and unless you are very careful some of you will be hurt. Cast off the slings, and I will show you the proper way to do it.”
The men, accustomed to working under his directions, were about to do as he bade them, when Ralli looked over the parapet and angrily ordered them to leave the lashings as they were and to sway away the gun.