“Aha! mister soldier,” he said—using the mode of address which, for some reason known only to himself, he deemed most offensive to Lance—his lips curling into a sneering smile as he spoke, “what are you doing away from your work? Go back to it at once, unless you wish me to start you with a rope’s-end as I would an unruly boy.”
“I have no work to go back to,” said Lance; “I am simply wasting my time at present, and I wanted to learn your wishes as to what is to be done next I presume you will have the craft launched forthwith, as she is now ready to take to the water; and I should be glad to know what timber we are to use for the ways.”
“You presume I will have the craft launched at once,” repeated Ralli, the spirit of opposition rising strong within him, and the sneer upon his lips growing more bitter with every word he uttered. “Why should you presume any such thing, eh, you sare?”
“Because it is the right and proper thing to do,” answered Lance. “Every lubber knows that a ship is launched before she is rigged. Besides, if you were to decide upon having the spars stepped and rigged, the stores stowed, and the guns hoisted in before she leaves the stocks, I should have a lot of extra trouble in calculating the proper distribution of the weights so as to ensure her being in proper trim when she takes to the water, and I want to avoid all that if possible.”
The Greek grinned with vindictive delight as he listened to this apparently inadvertent admission on Lance’s part. It revealed to him, as he thought, a new and unexpected method of inflicting annoyance upon this man whom he hated so thoroughly, and his eyes fairly sparkled with malice as he answered—
“What do you suppose I care about your extra trouble, you lazy skulking hound? I tell you this: I will have every spar stepped, rigged, and put in its place; the running rigging all rove; every sail bent; every gun mounted; the magazine stowed; the stores and water all put on board; and everything ready for the schooner to go straight out to sea from the stocks, before she leaves them. Poole! Dickinson!”—to the two chums who were working at no great distance—“come here and listen to what I say. This stupid fellow—this soldier who thinks himself a sailor—says that the schooner ought to be launched at once. I say that she shall be finished ready for sea before she leaves the stocks; and I place you, Dickinson, in charge of the work to see that my orders are obeyed. This fellow will no longer give any orders; he will be only a common workman; he will obey you in future, or you will freshen his way with a rope’s-end. You understand?”
“Ay, ay,” answered Dickinson, “I understands yer, Ralli, and I’ll do it too, never fear,”—with a scowl at Lance for Ralli’s benefit. “Why, the man must be a fool—a perfect fool—not to see as it’d be ever so much easier to get things aboard now than when she’s afloat. Now, you”—turning to Lance—“you just top your boom and git away back to your work at once, and don’t let me see no more skulking or you’d better look out.”
Lance simply shrugged his shoulders, as was his habit whenever he received any insolence from the members of the “Brotherhood,” and, turning on his heel, walked back to his work, secretly exulting in the complete success of his manoeuvre.
Dickinson looked after him contemptuously for a moment or two, and then, his face clouding, he remarked—
“Arter all, I wish I hadn’t spoke quite so rough to him; the chap’s got his head screwed on the right way; he knows a mortal sight of things as I don’t understand, and I’d ha’ been glad to ha’ had his help and adwice like in many a little job, as I’m afeared we’ll make a bit of a bungle of without him.”