“Schultz,” Boatswain’s Mate O’Neil replied. “He’s a ‘sea-lawyer’[12] too, Mr. Perry. Ain’t worth his ration of ‘salt-horse’[13] either.”
“Then why does the captain keep him as his orderly?” Phil asked.
“Search me, sir, except he’s a good parrot for messages,” O’Neil suggested. “An orderly, you know, sir, hasn’t any use for brains. He’s just telegraph wire.”
Phil smiled at O’Neil’s analogy.
“Schultz,” he thought. “I’d feel surer that it wasn’t he if his name had suggested some other nationality. But then there are a lot of such names in our navy.”
Other and more stirring incidents drove Schultz from Phil’s mind.
Phil and the officer of the deck, Lieutenant Morrison, were pacing the quarter-deck scarcely twenty minutes later. The older officer was one to whom the midshipman had immediately taken a great fancy. He was a man of strong character and even temper, and probably ten years the lad’s senior in both age and experience.
“It looks as if the Kapuan volcano were going to erupt again, Mr. Perry,” he said in his quiet, thoughtful way. “There’s been peace among the natives for nearly five years, and they are in prime condition to be stirred into a war. The triple government has succeeded under a strong native king. The dead monarch, Laupepe, was really a highly educated savage. Now there is only one native with sufficient influence to avert a war, and he is too partial to Herzovinia to be acceptable to either our country or England. You know we have our eye on Tua-Tua as a coaling station, and if Kataafa becomes king our opportunity of acquiring that harbor will vanish in smoke.”
“Do you believe there will be a war?” Phil asked eagerly. “Will the sailors be landed to fight against the natives?”
“It’s been done before,” Lieutenant Morrison replied. “It really seems a heartless thing to do, but that is the only means of enforcing your will on a savage. Force is the only argument he understands. Kataafa has established his government at Kulinuu Point, you know, and sent out word to all the islands for his adherents to gather. It’s unlikely that he will give in peaceably if the chief justice’s decision is against him. Of course it is no secret who is supporting him in his attitude. The Kapuan firm under Klinger is his banker.”