"Master! master!" cried Dogvane as he cowered beneath the anger of the old Sea King, and fell down on his knees before him. "Be not hard upon your servant. Have I not served you faithfully these many long years? When I had charge of your till did you not make more money than ever you have since? Did not your pence grow into shillings, and your shillings into pounds? Have not my eyes grown dim, and my hair sparse and grey, in your service? Then bear with me a little while."
The Buccaneer was slightly mollified. "Ah!" he said, "like many another old servant, you trade, Master Dogvane, upon the past, and think that your master will bear any amount of carelessness and bungling now for the sake of what has been done before. If in days gone by you made money for me, you have taken very good care to squander it since. But there must be a limit to the endurance even of the best of masters. Have you not dishonoured me in the eyes of my neighbours? Is your memory so short that you have forgotten their reception of me? Have you forgotten the scorn of some? the indifference of others? Have you forgotten the revilings of the Egyptian gipsy? Have you not estranged my friends from me and made me a must elephant of the herd, to wander out into the wilderness? Through you is not the charge laid against me that I have turned my back upon my enemies, and have you not so lowered me in the estimation of my neighbours, that the smallest dog amongst them barks at me?"
"Master—"
"Stay, fellow! I have not finished with you yet. While you prated about economy and peace you have run me deep into debt; while the wake of the old Ship of State, during the time you have been at the helm, has been constantly smeared with blood."
"Good master, the blood rests not upon my head, but upon that of the other watch. All the trouble that I have got into has been owing to the dreadful inheritance they left me."
"That, Master Dogvane, is too stale a cry to be readily believed. It is an old trick, and not altogether a reputable one, for one servant to try and saddle another with the fruits of his own stupidity, or carelessness. But where is that eleven millions I gave you for a certain purpose?"
"Good master, it is true that I have a little outrun the constable; but I have had to recompense Abdur for the damage done, and I have had to buy his friendship. Then the stupendous preparations I made were costly, and though there may not be very much to show for the money, yet no doubt a bloody war was averted, many lives saved, and in the long run, much money."
"A war averted, Master Dogvane, I have been told, is only a war postponed, and that when once put off it generally comes at a most inconvenient time, and is likely to prove most costly. To strike promptly and hard, experience has proved to be the better plan, and the cheapest both in men and money. Begone from my sight, fellow, for I begin to know thee. I may be slow to anger, but when once roused, those who displease me had better beware of me."
Thus it was that old Dogvane, the captain of the Starboard Watch, fell under his master's displeasure. As is always the case directly fortune begins to frown on a man, his enemies crop up by the scores in every direction, and all add a little to the victim's shortcomings, memories for which are long. It is a noble idea that of not kicking a man when he is down; but it seems to be honoured well in the breach. Once let a man trip and he is spared by few. It seems to be a law of nature to attack the wounded. The birds of the air do it and the beasts of the field, and the savage drives his spear into his wounded enemy. Civilisation uses other weapons than the steel-tipped ones; but they are none the less keen and effectual, for a wounded spirit often gets the sharp shaft of scorn sent clean through it. There is no mark of violence on the body, but there is a wound within that never heals.
Things went from bad to worse with old Dogvane until one day he and his watch were kicked, without ceremony, over the ship's side. What brought the final catastrophe about was that Dogvane very unwisely, or some of his hands, tried to tamper with the old Buccaneer's drink. Touch him on his stomach and you made an enemy of him at once. Chips no longer sang, and Billy Cheeks, the burly butcher, was more gloomy than ever. He was not a man of mirth. Even his jokes were heavy, but perhaps his trade affected his disposition; it often does. The cheery little cook never lost heart, and as they rowed ashore he gave them a tune on his barrel organ, and gave them a song in which he ridiculed the prominent men of the other watch, and, as a matter of course, the members of the Buccaneer's Upper Chamber came in for their fair share of good-natured criticism or abuse. As has been said, no one saw a blemish in a neighbour sooner than the cook, and if that neighbour happened to be one of the lords temporal, Pepper prodded him well with jeer, jest, and sneer.