Next morning at sunrise Phil and I were routed out by the cry of "All hands ahoy!" and if we had expected to be received with open arms and by our shipmates' congratulations on a narrow escape from death, we would have been most wofully mistaken.
Many of the crew, including those who had been forced to roam over the mountains in search of us, believed we should be brought up for punishment because of having left the encampment during hostilities without orders or permission; and those who held to it that there was no reason, in the absence of orders to the contrary, why we were not allowed to move around at will, blamed us severely for being such fools as to run blindly into the arms of an enemy.
Thus it was that, in one way or another, we had earned a reproof from all our comrades; and it was administered by their silence or severe looks when we made our appearance believing a warm reception awaited us.
Even Master Hackett glanced at us reproachfully for a time; but he grew more friendly as the forenoon wore on, and then we ventured to ask if he knew what Captain Porter had done in regard to Benson's appeal for aid.
"The two natives stayed aboard all night, an' were set ashore less than half an hour before you turned out. Of course I don't know what orders our captain gave them; but I'll wager a doughnut against a dollar that they'll be here again, bringin' the Britisher with 'em, if it so be he's yet alive, before sunset."
"What will the men say to being thus careful of a man who admits having made a business of trapping Yankee sailors in order that he may sell them like so many slaves?" Phil asked indignantly.
"I ain't overly certain as to what they'll say; but you can set it down as a fact that never a mother's son of 'em will so much as open his mouth where there's a chance his words may be repeated aft. Captain Porter ain't the kind of a seaman that a crew can afford to monkey with. He'll do as he believes right, no matter what them as sail under him may say."
This conversation was interrupted by a command which surprised even the oldest shellbacks among us.