"You do, do you?" demanded the major. "The young rascal abused my son. Look at his face," and he pointed at the interesting features of Walk, who sat in the boat listening to what his father said. "When I interfered to save my son from serious injury, he flew at me like a wildcat, and look at my eyes."
"Why didn't you prosecute the boy in the court, and have him properly punished?" suggested the captain, looking rather sarcastically at the magnate.
"I don't do business in that way," returned the major, boiling over with anger. "I shall punish the young rascal myself! I shall do it here at Sandy Point, where the outrage was committed. I have taken steps to have him brought here for that purpose."
"Then you expect Paul to be brought here, do you?" asked Captain Gildrock, astonished at the remarks of the magnate, for he had not a doubt that he had seen what had transpired while the sailboat was alongside the Sylph.
"I do expect him here very soon; and I shall tie him up to a tree and give him such a thrashing that he won't get off his bed for one month after it!" exclaimed Major Billcord, flourishing a rawhide in the air as he spoke.
"This strikes me as rather brutal," added the principal.
"Brutal? Look in Walker's face! Look in my face! Were the blows that made these marks brutal, or were they not? I shall have satisfaction for them!"
Captain Gildrock was trying to explain to himself how it happened that the magnate knew nothing of what had taken place alongside the steam yacht. As he thought the matter over he understood it better. The Sylph had been between the Silver Moon and the Chesterfield barges, so that they could not see what took place on the lee side of her.