"You'll obey orders aboard this vessel," replied the captain, whose passion was somewhat moderated by the delay which kept him from his victim.
"I'm ready to obey orders, and always have been," answered Noddy, who had by this time begun to think of the consequences of his resistance.
"Will you swab up the deck, as I told you?"
"I will, sir; but I won't be whipped by no drunken man.
"Drunken man!" repeated the captain. "You shall be whipped for that, you impudent young villain!"
The captain mounted the heel of the bowsprit, and was making his way up to the point occupied by the refractory cabin-boy, when Mollie reached the forecastle, and grasped her father in her little arms.
"Don't, father, don't!" pleaded she.
"Go away, Mollie," said he, sternly. "He is impudent and mutinous, and shall be brought to his senses."
"Stop, father, do stop!" cried Mollie, piteously.
He might as well stop, for by this time Noddy had mounted the jib-stay, and was halfway up to the mast head.