“You have had your answer, Sir.”

“Yes, I have, Sir,” said I, “and in language that I never before heard on his Majesty’s quarter-deck.  I joined this ship as an officer and a gentleman, and as such I will be treated.”

“Mutiny, by G——!” roared the captain.  “Cock-a-hoop with your new commission, before the ink is dry!”

“As you please, Sir,” I replied; “but I shall write a letter to the port-admiral, stating the circumstances and requesting leave of absence; and that letter I shall trouble you to forward.”

“I’ll be d——­d if I do!” said he.

“Then, Sir,” said I, “as you have refused to forward it, and in the presence of all the officers and ship’s company, I shall forward it without troubling you.”

This last shot of mine seemed to produce the same effect upon him that the last round does upon a beaten boxer; he did not come to time, but, muttering something, dived down the companion, and went into his cabin.

The first lieutenant now came up, and congratulated me on my victory.  “You have puzzled and muzzled the bear completely,” said he; “I have long wanted a coadjutor like yourself.  Wilson, who is going to leave us, is the best creature that ever lived:  but though brave as a lion before an enemy, he is cowed by this incarnate devil.”

Our conversation was interrupted by a message from the captain, who desired to speak with me in his cabin.  I went down; he received me with the benignant smile of our first acquaintance.

“Mr Mildmay,” said he, “I always assume a little tartness with my officers when they first join” ("and when they quit you too,” thought I), “not only to prove to them that I am, and will be the captain of my own ship, but also as an example to the men, who, when they see what the officers are forced to put up with, feel themselves more contented with their lot, and obey more readily; but, as I told you before, the comfort of my officers is my constant study—­you are welcome to go ashore, and have twenty-four hours’ leave to collect your necessaries.”

To this harangue I made no reply; but, touching my hat, quitted the cabin.  I felt so much contempt for the man that I was afraid to speak, lest I should commit myself.

The captain shortly after quitted the ship, telling the first lieutenant that I had permission to go on shore.  I was now left at liberty to make acquaintance with my companions in misery—­and nothing conduces to intimacy so much as community of suffering.  My resistance to the brutality of our common taskmaster had pleased them; they told me what a tyrant and what a disgrace to the service he was, and how shameful it was that he should be entrusted with the command of so fine a vessel, or of any vessel at all, except it were a convict ship.  The stories they told me of him were almost incredible, and nothing but the too well founded idea, that an officer trying his captain by a court-martial, had a black mark against him for ever after, and was never known to rise, could have saved this man from the punishment he so richly deserved:  no officer, they said, had been more than three weeks in the ship, and they were all making interest to leave her.