“He mesmerised you,” said the skipper, hastily. “Now keep quite calm. You say you’re Benjamin Bradd, master o’ this vessel, don’t you?”
“I do,” said the mate. “Let me hear anybody say as I ain’t.”
“Yesterday,” said the skipper, plucking up courage and speaking very slowly and impressively, “you were George Smith, the mate, but my friend, Captain Zingall, mesmerised you and made you think you were me.”
“I see what it is,” said the mate severely. “You’ve been drinking; you’ve been up to my whisky.”
“Call the crew up and ask ’em then,” said Bradd, desperately.
“Call ’em up yourself, you lunatic,” said the mate, loudly enough for the men to hear. “If anybody dares to play the fool with me I won’t leave a whole bone in his body, that’s all.”
In obedience to the summons of Captain Bradd the crew came up, and being requested by him to tell the mate that he was the mate, and that he was at present labouring under a delusion, stood silently nudging each other and eyeing him uneasily.
“Well,” said the latter at length, “why don’t you speak and tell George he’s gone off his ’ead a bit?”
“It ain’t nothing to do with us, sir,” said Bill, very respectfully.
“But, damn it all, man,” said the mate, taking a mighty grip of his collar, “you know I’m the cap’n, don’t you?”