“Run away,” said the skipper with dignity. “Run away.”
“I shall ask you three times,” said Miss Evans sternly. “One—are you going back? Two—are you going back? Three———”
In the midst of a breathless silence she drew within striking distance, while her allies, taking up a position on either flank of the enemy, listened attentively to the instructions of their leader.
“Be careful he doesn’t catch hold of the mops,” said Miss Evans; “but if he does, the others are to hit him over the head with the handles. Never mind about hurting him.”
“Take this wheel a minnit, Jack,” said the skipper, pale but determined.
The mate came forward and took it unwillingly, and the skipper, trying hard to conceal his trepidation, walked towards Miss Evans and tried to quell her with his eye. The power of the human eye is notorious, and Miss Evans showed her sense of the danger she ran by making an energetic attempt to close the skipper’s with her mop, causing him to duck with amazing nimbleness. At the same moment another mop loaded with white paint was pushed into the back of his neck. He turned with a cry of rage, and then realising the odds against him flung his dignity to the winds and dodged with the agility of a schoolboy. Through the galley and round the masts he went with the avenging mops in mad pursuit, until breathless and exhausted he suddenly sprang on to the side and climbed frantically into the rigging.
“Coward!” said Miss Evans, shaking her weapon at him.
“Come down,” cried Miss Williams. “Come down like a man.”
“It’s no good wasting time over him,” said Miss Evans, after another vain appeal to the skipper’s manhood. “He’s escaped. Get some more stuff on your mops.”
The mate, who had been laughing boisterously, checked himself suddenly, and assumed a gravity of demeanour more in accordance with his position. The mops were dipped in solemn silence, and Miss Evans approaching regarded him significantly.