"What's all this fuss about, skipper?" inquired Villiers genially.
"Tarnation blue snakes take the pizonous reptiles," bellowed the Old Man. "That's the durned skunk I want to get at; that skulking Finn."
He pointed to a gigantic man standing behind, but towering head and shoulders above the cosmopolitan crowd of malcontents.
"We've had just about enuff of your tarnation tricks, Cap'n Abe," shouted one of the mutineers. "Nary a square meal since you hiked our cook over the side."
"Guess I didn't boot the nigger jus' for nuthin'," explained Captain Abe to his rescuers. "The nigger tried to pizen me."
"There ain't as good a cook on board, an' there won't be," vociferated the mutineer. "Pete could cook, and there ain't no sayin' to the contrary, I guess."
So that was the trouble. In putting Pete ashore at Gib. the skipper of the Lucy M. Partington had laid up a rod in pickle for himself. No doubt the Old Man honestly thought that the nigger had deliberately put Epsom-salt into his pudding; but he had made a mistake in not taking the trouble to investigate Pete's story. And since the cook was a cook, the crew soon found out to their cost what it means to have badly-prepared meals.
Matters came quickly to a head. One of the men approached the skipper, holding in his hands a saucepan of watery potatoes in which floated hard balls that were supposed to be dumplings, and asked him whether he considered this sort of food good enough for human beings.
Captain Abe replied by booting the saucepan from the fellow's hands and throwing most of its contents into the grumbler's face. That started what soon developed into a serious affray, and how far matters would have gone remained questionable. The appearance of the Titania, which the mutineers mistook for a Government patrol-boat (of which some were yet employed on mine-sweeping work in the Mediterranean), rather took the wind out of their sails.
Villiers called the Yankee skipper aside.