"Slap doodle bugs!" retorted our first officer. "I make nothing at all of your story, captain. Thirty years I've sailed this coast and I've yet to see my first mutiny. Haul up this fellow Bothwell and set him swabbing decks. If he shows his teeth, give him a rope's end or a marlinspike. I'll haze him for you a-plenty."
I could have smiled at Mott's utter lack of appreciation of our dilemma if his bull-headed obstinacy had not been likely to cost us so much.
"You don't understand the man with whom we have to deal, Mr. Mott. He sticks at nothing," I explained.
"Beg pardon, Mr. Sedgwick. He'd stick at deck swabbing if I stood over him with a handspike," the burly mate answered grimly. "Truth is, gentlemen, I don't think that of your mutiny." And he snapped his fingers with a complacent laugh. "Mind you, I don't deny the men are a bit unsettled, what with all this talk of treasure that's going around. What they need is roughing and, by the jumping mercury, Johnny Mott is the man to do it!"
There are none so blind as those who will not see. We could not even persuade Mott to accept a revolver. He had made up his mind that the whole thing was nothing more or less than a mare's nest.
"What do you know of the men?" I urged. "Take our engineers. We picked up the Flemings on the wharf because we needed engineers in a hurry. The day before we sailed I saw George Fleming on the wharf talking to this man Bothwell. They are working together against us."
"What of it? Let them work. But don't go to dreaming about mutiny, Mr. Sedgwick. You ask what I know of the crew. By your leave, I know this much. I've bullied American seamen for thirty years come next November, and there's not an ounce of mutiny in a million of them."
And at that we had to let it go for the present. There were more important things on hand than the conversion of a wooden-headed tar.
Leaving Mott at the wheel we adjourned to the deck saloon for a discussion of ways and means. Miss Wallace sauntered in with a magazine in her hand.
The captain's eye questioned mine. I nodded. She would have to learn soon how things stood, and I trusted to her courage to hear the news without any fainting or hysterics. The color washed out of her face, but she showed not the least sign of panic.