"Mr. Lawless, I'm going alongside," shouted the skipper from the wheelhouse. "Serve out cutlasses and revolvers, in case the Dutchmen start to play monkey-tricks."
The Lieutenant served out the weapons, after which he climbed on the fo'c'sle head to help bring the trawler alongside her quarry. It needed no little skill and judgment to accomplish this in such weather and with darkness coming on.
The high bows of the O47, towering above the low decks of the Gelderland as the trawler came racing up, threatened to crash right into the Dutchman and cut her in twain amidships, but the trawler's engines were reversed in the nick of time, and her stern slewed round so that the two vessels lay alongside each other.
Skipper Chard dropped on the Gelderland's deck just as the Captain—a short, stout man—came puffing down from his bridge in a violent temper.
"Vat for you do that?" he demanded, pointing to the smashed funnel.
"Why didn't you stop when I ordered you?"
"Because I saw not any signal. The first thing I know is—plump!—and then vat you call the chiminey is proken."
"You mean to say you didn't know I sent a shot over your bows?" demanded Chard incredulously.
"I see noddings," answered the Captain. "But you haff done big damages, and I will make you pay."
"Oh! will you, my son?" replied the other. "We'll see about that, but in the meantime I must see your papers."