“Keep off!” said the mate of the Battles. “We ’ll smash it!”
For Mr. Baker had taken the boathook, and had hooked on to their chains. He was drawing the boat up close, when a spade smashed down on the boathook just back of the iron, and cut it off clean.
Perhaps it was too serious a matter for mere cursing. At any rate, Mr. Baker said nothing at all for some seconds, to our great surprise.
“Very well,” he said then, quietly, “if you ’d rather have it that way, so be it. I ’ll report it—fully. Now I make demand upon you for Alonzo Wallet, formerly second mate of the Clearchus, a deserter from his ship.”
The mate of the Battles smiled, and beckoned Mr. Wallet. He came, with his weak smile again upon his face.
“What ’s wanted of me?” he asked.
“Cap’n Nelson wants you,” Mr. Baker replied, “strange as it may seem; for you ’re the most good-for-nothing officer that ever I shipped with.”
With those spades between him and Mr. Baker, Wallet’s courage had revived, but he no longer smiled. He leaned over the rail as far as he could, and shook a feeble finger at Mr. Baker.
“Tell the old man to go to hell,” he said; “and go to hell yourself, will you, Jehoram? You ’re bound there now if you don’t look sharp.”
He pointed to the southwest. The sun had disappeared behind a heavy mass of black cloud, in which there appeared, as we looked at it, the glare of lightning. I had thought that it seemed early for it to be getting dark, but it had not occurred to me to look. The mass of clouds was but just above our horizon. A few men in the two boats had observed it. Mr. Brown and Mr. Baker had seen it for fifteen or twenty minutes past. It may have accounted for Mr. Baker’s readiness to cut short his controversy with the Battles.