“I'll not go until you apologize to these gentlemen, father!”
“You ain't ashore now, miss, to tell me when to wipe my feet and not muss the tidies! You're on the high seas, and I'm cap'n of this vessel. Below, I say!”
“These gentlemen know the Polly, and they will find out the name of the man who commands her, and I don't propose to have it said that the Candages are heathens,” she declared, firmly. “If you do not apologize, father, I shall apologize for you.” She tried to crowd past him to the rail, but he clapped his brown hand over her mouth and pushed her back. His natural impulse as commander of his craft dominated his feelings as a father.
“I'll teach ye shipboard discipline, Polly Candage,” he growled, “even if I have to take ye acrost my knee.”
“Hold on there, if you please, captain,” called the spokesman of the yachtsmen.
Captain Candage was hustling his daughter toward the companionway. But there was authority in the tone, and he paused and jutted a challenging chin over his shoulder.
“What have any of you critters got to say about my private business?”
The formality of the man in the tender was a bit exaggerated in his reply. “Only this, sir. We are going away at once before we bring any more trouble upon this young lady, to whom we tender our most respectful compliments. We do not know any other way of helping her. Our protests, being the protests of gentlemen, might not be able to penetrate; it takes a drill to get through the hide of a rhinoceros!”
The skipper of the Polly did not trouble himself about the finer shadings in that little speech, but of one fact he felt sure: he had been called a rhinoceros. He released his daughter, yanked the marlinespike away from Otie, who had been holding himself in the background as a reserve force, and stamped to the rail. He poised his weapon, fanning it to and fro to take sure aim. But the engineer had thrown in his clutch and the speed boat foamed off before the captain got the range, and he was too thrifty to heave a perfectly good marlinespike after a target he could not hit, angry as he was.
The girl faced her father. There was no doubting her mood. She was a rebel. Indignation set up its flaming standards on her cheeks, and the signal-flames of combat sparkled in her eyes.