The captain's stern face softened a trifle and there was a kindly gleam in his gray eye as he said:
"I put Mr. Briggs in charge of the boat, not you. That is all now. Hold on a minute. I hope you are going to sail with us next voyage."
The cadet tried to speak but the words would not come, and he hurried on deck. After the first shock he found himself repeating the captain's final words:
"I hope you are going to sail with us next voyage."
Said David to himself a little more cheerfully:
"That means he wants me to stay with him. It is a whole lot for him to say, and more than he ever told the other fellows. Maybe I did wrong, but I'm glad of it."
He would have been in a happier frame of mind could he have overheard Captain Thrasher say to Mr. Briggs after the boy had gone forward:
"I don't want the silly passengers to spoil the boy with a lot of heroics. He has the right stuff in him. He is worth hammering into shape. I guess I knocked some of the hero nonsense out of his noddle, and now I want you to work him hard and watch how he takes his medicine."
As soon as he was again off watch, David was very anxious to go in search of the castaways, but he was forbidden to be on the passenger deck except when sent there. The captain's steward had told him that the captain of the lost bark, the Pilgrim, was able to lie in a steamer chair on deck, but that the little girl could not leave her berth. The bos'n was quick to read the lad's anxiety to know more about these two survivors, and craftily suggested in passing: