"He'll be there four hours," said the mate as they walked aft. "By that time he won't have spirit enough to utter a cuss, not if you offered him a dollar for the pleasure of hearin' it. When the skipper does hand out trouble, he does it with both fists."
Mr. Dykes's prognostication was only partly correct, for the ex-bos'n, though a strong man, lost consciousness after the third hour and had to be carried into the foc'sle.
"Repeat the treatment to-morrow and every day until he volunteers to work," said Calamity when this was reported to him.
The "treatment" was not repeated, however, for, on recovering his senses, Mr. Skelt eagerly and anxiously begged to be allowed to share in the work of the crew.
On the following morning they picked up the smoke-trail of the German gunboat and the chase—if chase it could be called—was resumed.
CHAPTER VI
MR. DYKES RECEIVES HIS LESSON
For three days the Hawk continued to follow in the gunboat's trail, and everybody was asking everybody else in hushed whispers what the Captain's plans were. The consensus of opinion now was that he intended the German to play the part of the cat in the fable and pull the chestnuts out of the fire: in other words, to wait till the enemy had got all the plunder he could carry and then swoop down upon him. The question was, when would the swooping start?
During all this time, Calamity had not spoken a single word to Miss Fletcher, or, indeed, betrayed any sign that he was aware of her existence. He had never even mentioned her or asked how she was accommodated, and, for all he knew to the contrary, she might have been sleeping on deck under a steam-winch. Mr. Dykes had not told him that he had given up his own cabin to the girl and was sharing the second-mate's. He feared, not without reason, that, had he done so, Calamity would have ordered him back to his own quarters. As to the ex-bos'n Skelt, he had become a very unobtrusive member of the crew, and nothing further had been heard from him concerning his right to be treated as a passenger. It is true that he once let out a dark hint to the effect that he was "biding his time," but no one paid the slightest attention to him.