"Who would work her if we did not?"
"Well, I suppose she would not be worked at all," replied Raymond, smiling.
"Then, if all the fellows respectfully refuse to man the capstan, or to unloose a sail, till they have their rights, who will get the ship under way?"
"We are not going to do anything of that sort," answered Raymond, rather indignantly. "It would be mutiny."
"You needn't call it by that name, if you don't wish to. Lowington promised the fellows a trip down the Rhine. Now, because the new captain could not handle the ship, we are to be sent off to sea. If the fellows had any grit at all in their bones, they would show Lowington that they are not slaves to him, or any other man."
"I think we won't talk any more about that," said Raymond, as he moved off, for the bold speech of the mischief-maker alarmed him, and caused him to realize that he was listening to one of the ringleaders of the runaways.
The commodore's barge came up to the gangway. The ladies were assisted up the steps, and the trunks hoisted on board and stowed away in the after cabin. The two state-rooms, which had been built for the use of the commodore and the past officers, were appropriated to their use.
If Raymond, and such as he, were not willing to listen to the mutinous counsels of the runaways, he was not the less dissatisfied and discontented. The arrival of the Arbuckles, with their baggage, indicated that the trip to the Rhine had been abandoned. Perhaps the well-disposed students could have submitted to this disappointment, if it had not been inflicted upon them as a punishment. It seemed to them that they were to suffer for a whim of Shuffles. The runaways had taken pains to disseminate this idea among the crew, as they had also succeeded in involving the whole of them in the mischief which induced the principal to go to sea that night.
All over the deck and throughout the steerage, the boys were grumbling and growling like regular old salts, whose prerogative it is to find fault. When Howe and Spencer returned in the barge, they readily perceived the state of feeling on board. Little told them what he had said and done, and convinced them that the whole crew were ripe for a strike. The entire ship's company were discussing their grievances, and even a large portion of the officers were dissatisfied. Very likely the sudden elevation of Shuffles had created a feeling of jealousy in the minds of a portion of them.
The mischief-makers were prompt in taking advantage of this state of feeling in the crew. They fanned the flame of discontent, and it was not difficult to convince their shipmates that they were very hardly used; that the new captain was imposing a heavy burden upon them. Some of the best disposed of them were in favor of waiting upon the principal, and representing their view of the case to him; but the more impetuous ones laughed at this plan. Shuffles was the principal's pet, and he would support his protégé against everybody else on board. The students talked as boys talk, and acted as boys act. At that moment Shuffles was the most unpopular fellow on board, for it was understood that he had proposed and advocated the obnoxious measure. The ship's company were willing to believe that Mr. Lowington had yielded his assent to please the new captain, rather than because he deemed it necessary to go to sea himself.