"Come aboard, cap'en. What's the use of kickin' agin the law, for you know Uncle Ben has the upper hand?"
"I'll pound you to a jelly when I get aboard, which won't be till after I've squared accounts with this meddlin' old idjut!" Captain Doak cried savagely, and his "crew" replied impatiently:
"If you don't come 'round on another tack mighty soon, I'll go ashore, an' once there you ain't big enough to make me step foot on this deck ag'in!"
"I'll lash you to the foremast for a mutinous hound, that's the way I'll serve you, an' it won't take me long to do it!"
It was as if the captain had suddenly forgotten that he came ashore to settle accounts with Uncle Ben, so great had become his desire to punish his "crew" for thus daring to speak disrespectfully, and without further heed to those on the beach, he leaped into the dory, pulling back to the schooner as rapidly as he had previously rowed toward the island.
"He'll come pretty nigh killin' Rube," Sam cried in alarm. "He's not quite himself, an' when he gets that way he's terrible."
"I'm allowin' that Rube will hold his own," Uncle Ben replied placidly, "an' it'll be strange if Eliakim don't get the worst of the bargain."
"Why don't Sam an' I go aboard the schooner to take a hand in whatever happens?" Tom asked quickly. "That sailor is a decent fellow, an' I'd hate to see him done up by a duffer like Cap'en Doak."
"I've forbid his comin' on the island, an' it wouldn't do for us to lay ourselves open to a charge of trespass by goin' aboard his vessel. You needn't have any fear but that Reuben will come out all right jest now; but what may happen after the 'Sally' gets under way is another matter."
The boys made no reply to this remark, for Uncle Ben had but just ceased speaking when Captain Doak ran the dory alongside the schooner and was clambering over the rail, Rube Rowe standing amidships as if indifferent as to what might be done. The enraged man had hardly more than gained a footing on the deck when the "crew" suddenly aroused himself to activity, and while one might have counted ten, the two struggled together, after which the master of the schooner dropped on the deck as if felled by a blow.