"Now, I want to know what it means, Drew. I heard—Ruth told me—of the little run-in you had with Ditty the day you first met my daughter on the Jones Lane pier," pursued Captain Hamilton. "Ruth was carrying a letter to Captain Peters for me. The Normandy is bound for Hong Kong, where I'd just come from, and Peters and I have mutual friends out there. I forgot something I wanted Ruth to tell Captain Peters, and I asked Ditty, who had shore leave, to waylay her and give her my message. She'd never seen Ditty, and he startled her. He isn't a beauty, I admit. But now, what happened after that between you two, Drew?"
"Nothing at all that day," said the young man promptly. "But another day I was over there, at the Normandy, to see—er—Captain Peters, and this fellow showed up half drunk and gave me the dirty side of his tongue. I knocked him down."
"Seems to me you're mighty sudden with your fists," growled Captain Hamilton.
"And Mr. Grimshaw can tell you something about Ditty, too," Drew began; but the master of the schooner stopped him.
"Never mind about that. We're discussing your affair with Ditty. I've got to judge between you two. I'm judge, jury, and hangman in this case—until we make some port where there's a consul, at least. Now, here's the mate. No more fighting, remember or I'll take a hand in it myself."
The battered Ditty stumbled down the cabin steps. He could scarcely see out of his single eye; but that eye glittered malevolently when it fell upon Allen Drew.
"Sit down, Mr. Ditty," said the captain evenly. "We've got to get to the bottom of this business. You've said something, Mr. Ditty, that's got to go down on the log—and it's going to make you a peck of trouble if you don't prove it. You understand that?"
"I know it," snarled Ditty, through his puffed lips. "He done it."
"You lying hound!" muttered Drew.
Captain Hamilton ignored this. He said: