Mr Vanslyperken walked up to where the corporal lay as quiet, but not quite so small, as a mouse.  It occurred to Mr Vanslyperken that a little taste of punishment in esse would very much assist the threats of what might be received in posse; so he laid aside his speaking-trumpet, looked round, picked up a handspike, and raising it above his head, down it came, with all the force of the lieutenant’s arm, upon Corporal Van Spitter, whose carcass resounded like a huge kettle-drum.

“Tunder and flame,” roared the corporal under the canvas, thinking that one of the seamen, having discovered him eavesdropping, had thus wreaked his revenge, taking advantage of his being covered up, and pretending not to know him.  “Tunder and flame!” roared the corporal, muffled up in the canvas, and trying to extricate himself; but his voice was not recognised by the lieutenant, and, before he could get clear of his envelope, the handspike had again descended; when up rose the corporal, like a buffalo out of his muddy lair, half-blinded by the last blow, which had fallen on his head, ran full butt at the lieutenant, and precipitated his senior officer and commander headlong down the fore-hatchway.

Vanslyperken fell with great force, was stunned, and lay without motion at the foot of the ladder, while the corporal, whose wrath was always excessive when his blood was up, but whose phlegmatic blood could not be raised without some such decided stimulus as a handspike, now turned round and round the forecastle, like a bull looking for his assailants; but the corporal had the forecastle all to himself, and, as he gradually cooled down, he saw lying close to him the speaking-trumpet of his senior officer.

“Tousand tyfels,” murmured Corporal Van Spitter, “but it must have been the skipper.  Got for damn, dis is hanging matter!” Corporal Van Spitter was as cool as a cucumber as soon as he observed what a mistake he had made; in fact, he quivered and trembled in his fat.  “But then,” thought he, “perhaps he did not know me—­no, he could not, or he never would have handspiked me.”  So Corporal Van Spitter walked down the hatchway, where he ascertained that his commandant lay insensible.  “Dat is good,” thought he, and he went aft, lighted his lanthorn, and, as a ruse, knocked at the cabin-door.  Receiving no answer but the growl of Snarleyyow, he went in, and then ascended to the quarter-deck, looked round him, and inquired of the man at the wheel where Mr Vanslyperken might be.  The man replied that he had gone forward a few minutes before, and thither the corporal proceeded.  Of course, not finding him, he returned, telling the man that the skipper was not in the cabin or the forecastle, and wondering where he could be.  He then descended to the next officer in command, Dick Short, and called him.

“Well,” said Short.

“Can’t find Mr Vanslyperken anywhere,” said the corporal.

“Look,” replied Dick, turning round in his hammock.