“That’s right, sar,” said George, rubbing the sleep out of his eyes.  Presently, he came to me in his big hulking way, and said: 

“There ain’t no gasolene, sir—­”

“No gasolene?” I exclaimed.

“It’s run out in the night.”

“The tanks were filled when we started, weren’t they?” I asked.

“Yes, sir.”

“We can’t have used them up so soon....”

“No sir,—­but some one has turned the cocks....”

I stood dazed for a moment, wondering how this could have happened,—­then a thought slowly dawned upon me.

“Who has charge of them?” I said.

George looked a little stupid, then defiant.

“I see,” I said; and, suddenly, without remembering Charlie Webster’s advice not to lose your temper with a negro—­I realised that this was no accident, but a deliberate trick, something indeed in the nature of a miniature mutiny.  That fluttering paper I had picked from the halyard lay near my breakfast table.  I had only half read it.  Now its import came to me with full force.  I had no firearms with me.  Having a quick temper, I have made it a habit all my life never to carry a gun—­because they go off so easily.  But one most essential part of a gentleman’s education had been mine, so I applied it instantly on George, with the result that a well-directed blow under the peak of the jaw sent him sprawling, and for awhile speechless, in the cockpit.

“No gasolene?” I said.

And then my passenger—­I must give him credit for the courage—­put up his head for’ard, and called out: 

“I protest against that; it’s a cowardly outrage.  You wouldn’t dare to do it to a white man.”

“O I see,” I rejoined.  “So you are the author of this precious paper here, are you?  Come over here and talk it over, if you’ve the courage.”

“I’ve got the courage,” he answered, in a shaking voice.

“All right,” I said; “you’re safe for the present—­and, George, who is so fond of sleep, will take quite a nap for a while, I think.”

“You English brute!” he said.

“You English brute!” he had said; and the words had impelled me to invite him aft; for I cannot deny a certain admiration for him that had mysteriously grown up in me.  It can only have been the admiration we all have for courage; for, certainly I cannot have suggested that he had any other form of attractiveness.

“Come here!” I said, “for your life is safe for the time being.  I would like to discuss this paper with you.”

He came and we read it together, fluttering as I had seen it flutter in his fingers as he read it for’ard to the engineer and to the deck-hand.  George, meanwhile, was lying oblivious to the rhetoric with which it was plentifully garnished, not to speak of the Latin quotations, taking that cure of bleeding, which was the fashionable cure of a not-unintelligent century.  It began:—­