“Matilda, in the house you may command me as you please—even in my own cuddy here. But as regards my duty, you know well that I permit no interference. And I should have expected you to have more sense. A pretty officer I should be if I were afraid of my own men! When a man is to blame, I tell him so, in good round language, and shall do so now. This man is greatly to blame, and I doubt whether to consider him a fool or a rogue. If it were not that he has seven children, as we have, I would discharge him this very night.”
“Charles, I am very sorry for his seven children, but our place is to think of our own seven first. I beg you, I implore you, to discharge the man; for he has not the courage to harm you, I believe, except with the cowardly advantage he has got. Now promise me either to say nothing to him, or to discharge him, and be done with him.”
“Matilda, of such things you know nothing; and I can not allow you to say any more.”
“Very well, very well. I know my duty. I shall sit up and pray every dark night you are out, and the whole place will go to the dogs, of course. Of the smugglers I am not afraid one bit, nor of any honest fighting, such as you are used to. But oh, my dear Charles, the very bravest man can do nothing against base treachery.”
“To dream of such things shows a bad imagination,” Carroway answered, sternly; but seeing his wife's eyes fill with tears, he took her hand gently, and begged her pardon, and promised to be very careful, “I am the last man to be rash,” he said, “after getting so many more kicks than coppers. I never had a fellow under my command who would lift a finger to harm me. And you must remember, my darling Tilly, that I command Englishmen, not Lascars.”
With this she was forced to be content, to the best of her ability; and Geraldine ran bouncing in from school to fill her father's pipe for him; so that by the time John Cadman came, his commander had almost forgotten the wrath created by the failure of the morning. But unluckily Cadman had not forgotten the words and the look he received before his comrades.
“Here I am, Sir, to give an account of myself,” he said, in an insolent tone, having taken much liquor to brace him for the meeting. “Is it your pleasure to say out what you mean?”
“Yes, but not here. You will follow me to the station.” The lieutenant took his favorite staff, and set forth, while his wife, from the little window, watched him with a very anxious gaze. She saw her husband stride in front with the long rough gait she knew so well, and the swing of his arms which always showed that his temper was not in its best condition; and behind him Cadman slouched along, with his shoulders up and his red hands clinched. And the poor wife sadly went back to work, for her life was a truly anxious one.
The station, as it was rather grandly called, was a hut, about the size of a four-post bed, upon the low cliff, undermined by the sea, and even then threatened to be swept away. Here was a tall flag-staff for signals, and a place for a beacon-light when needed, and a bench with a rest for a spy-glass. In the hut itself were signal flags, and a few spare muskets, and a keg of bullets, with maps and codes hung round the wall, and flint and tinder, and a good many pipes, and odds and ends on ledges. Carroway was very proud of this place, and kept the key strictly in his own pocket, and very seldom allowed a man to pass through the narrow doorway. But he liked to sit inside, and see them looking desirous to come in.
“Stand there, Cadman,” he said, as soon as he had settled himself in the one hard chair; and the man, though thoroughly primed for revolt, obeyed the old habit, and stood outside.