“Silence!” said Lark, sternly, “you are an ignoramus and don’t know any thing about my laws, which I again tell you are all founded upon the great principle of equal rights. This is my ship—you came aboard of it—you rebel against my authority—and I set you adrift in a stove boat to punish you for the mutiny, which is perfect justice, and would be understood as such by any person who, like me, believes in equal rights.”
“Well, shiver me!” replied the shipkeeper, giving vent to a whistle something like the piping of a boatswain’s mate, “if you don’t pull and twist things about in the most lubberly fashion I ever saw, and all for the purpose of making ’em look ship-shape, which they can’t and never will be for all that, so help me Stump. Why, skin my eyes! you might as well put a greenhorn in a tub on deck and then insist for a sartainty that he could lift himself clear of the bulwarks by pulling upon the sides of the tub. Them that says the days of miracles is past would be mistaken if the doctrine ‘breeched’ by you was a true one, which isn’t the case, by any means.”
“That’s enough,” said Lark, “that’s enough. The more you talk the more you show your ignorance of the entire subject of our argument. I don’t wish to say any more to you for I perceive that you know nothing of equal rights!” And, turning impatiently away, he ordered one of the islanders to go below and bring Alice to the deck.
“Tell her from me,” said Marline, addressing the man as he was about to depart upon his mission, “to wrap herself up as comfortably as she can, as, thanks to this rascal,” he added, directing an angry glance toward Lark, who received it with the most imperturbable coolness, “she is about to undergo many privations and hardships!”
“God bless the little thing!” ejaculated Stump, in a fervent tone. “It’s a raal shame—blow me if it isn’t, to turn that sweet creatur’ out of house and home, who hasn’t never done nothing to desarve such punishment. I’d lay down my life for her any moment—ay, more than that, I’d give her my pigtail if such a present would do her any good. But you’ll be brought to justice, Captain Lark. Them that acts like you, must be brought to justice in the end!”
“Amen!” answered Lark, ironically, and at that instant his attention was drawn to another quarter by the sudden loud flapping of the ship’s canvas against the masts.
“How do you head there?” he thundered to the man at the wheel.
“No’th, half east, sir—the wind has hauled ahead!”
“Ay, ay, so it has!” cried Lark; “keep her off for the present, White Squall!”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the islander, as he put up his wheel.