"Oh, you did, did ye! you thundering young blunderbuss?" roared Captain Duff, finding his voice at last. "Then suppose you pay for 'em."
"Very well," replied the lad, quietly, thinking this an official command that must be obeyed.
A minute later peace was restored, Captain Duff was gasping, and his first mate was staring with amazement. The bill had been paid, the wagon driven away, and Alaric was again without a single cent in his pockets.
CHAPTER VIII.
AN UNLUCKY SMASH.
Captain Duff's first order after peace was thus restored and he had recovered the use of his voice, temporarily lost through amazement at the spectacle of a sailor before the mast paying out of his own pocket for a ship's stores, and stores of such an extraordinary character as well, was that the goods thus acquired should be immediately transferred to his own cabin. So Bonny, with Alaric to assist, began to carry the things below.
The cabin was very small, dirty, and stuffy. The air of the place was so pervaded with a combination odor of stale tobacco smoke, mouldy leather, damp clothing, bilge water, kerosene, onions, and other things of an equally obtrusive nature, that poor Alaric gasped for breath on first descending the steep flight of steps leading to it.
On his next trip below the lad drew in a long breath of fresh air just before entering the evil-smelling cabin, and determined not to take another until he should emerge from it. In his haste to execute this plan he dropped his armful of cans, and without waiting to stow them, had gained the steps before realizing that the Captain was ordering him to come back.
Furious at having his command thus disregarded, the man reached out with one of his crutches, caught it around the boy's neck, and gave him a violent jerk backward.
The startled lad, losing his foothold, came to the floor with a crash and a loud escaping "Ah!" of pent-up breath. At the same moment the cabin began to be pervaded with a new and unaccustomed odor so strong that all the others temporarily withdrew in its favor.