“Yes?”
“So I told Mr. Perrin, pretty quick, I said, I was in command, I said. It wasn’t for him to tell me my duty. I told him to tell his society friends they could do the Barney’s Bull act. They’d get no gig out of me. That’s what I said.”
“Yes?”
“So that Mr. Stukeley, he went ashore in the long-boat, after calling me down some more before the men. He got a shore-boat to go about in. After that he said his boatman should have dinner aboard of us. I stopped that. But Mr. Stukeley was very rude, and then the man got rude. All hands working the hatch there, hearing it all. Mrs. Stukeley beside. So that was two blocks, I thought. I give the boatman a thick ear there and then. I told him if he didn’t sheer off I’d drop a cold shot into him. And I would have. Mr. Stukeley told me to keep my hands off the man. Then the man wanted his money. My hat, we had it all up and down. I thought that Stukeley would hit me, one time. I wish ’e ’ad done. I’d a laid him out.”
“And Mr. Perrin? How did it end?”
“I saw some of the hands knocked off to listen, so I give them a few. And he stood there telling them not to take no blows. Telling ’em to down me. And then the long-boat come alongside with water. Mr. Ramage was in her, of course. He hears the row, and he come over the side just as quick as cut. He just took that Stukeley by the arm, and walked him into the alleyway. ‘Don’t you incite no sailors, sir,’ he says. ‘No more of that, sir. I respects your feelings, sir,’ he says, ‘but for Gord’s and your lady’s sake,’ he says, ‘you quit. You don’t know what you’re doin’.’ That was the end for that time. I suppose we’ll ’ave another dollop of it to-day.”
“Put him in irons at once, publicly, if he gives you any more trouble. And he’s not to talk to any man. That’s another thing. Iron him directly he gives a back answer. Tell Mr. Ramage, too. Now bring those fowls along doctor. I’m off to the man-of-war sloop, about them Indian-snatchers.”
He pulled aboard the man-of-war sloop, with his present of wine and poultry. As he sat in his gig calling to the men to pull the stroke out, he wrote descriptions of the missing seamen.
When he returned to the Broken Heart, the sloop was nearly full of trade. It was just half-past seven. He went to his cabin to wash, walking quickly and quietly, like a forest Indian. There was some slight noise to his left as he entered the alleyway. He turned sharply, to look into the sail-room, to see if it were ready for the samples. The door shut in his face with a bang. He could not swear to it—the door shut in a fraction of a second—yet it seemed to him that he had seen Stukeley with Mrs. Inigo, for one bright flash of time. He would not open to make sure; for it was a woman’s cabin; he might have been mistaken; but he turned in his tracks and blew his whistle. A man ran to him.
“Get some dry stone, and stone this door clean,” he said, showing Mrs. Inigo’s door. “Stone the outside, and keep at it till breakfast.” That would keep Stukeley within (if he were within) until breakfast, at any rate. He flung his clothes from him and swilled himself with water; then dressed rapidly and went to Perrin’s cabin. “Mr. Perrin,” he said, bursting in after knocking once, “how are you, Mr. Perrin? I want you to keep your eye on Mrs. Inigo’s door. See who comes out of it. Is Mrs. Stukeley well?”