“No, no, Mr. Redfox,” answered Willy firmly, “you pushed me instead of getting hold of my bolt.  I did not get dizzy.”

“Ridiculous!  Your fear put that notion into your head.  Now if you go to telling that story round here—­even once—­I’ll have the Captain shut you up in the steerage with the Chinamen.  You go to telling the wrongs you suffer from your superior officer and you’ll get yourself into trouble.  No more of this.”

Redfox went to the Captain’s cabin.  Indignantly the helmsman looked after him, and then he again asked the boy if he was very sure that Redfox had pushed him.

“Quite sure,” he replied, “and he looked at me more wickedly than I thought any man could look.  What has he against me?  I have never done him any harm.  And my uncle, too, acts so strangely, he has never once given me a pleasant word or look.”

“I understand well enough,” answered the helmsman.  “Be on your guard with Redbeard and your uncle; I don’t dare to tell you any more.  I’d like to open your eyes, but I can’t.  Trust in God and your holy guardian angel who saved you almost miraculously today.  In the first port that we put into Redbeard will answer for what he did today—­and for a few other things, too.”

To the Captain Redfox reported, “I did not think it possible for that boy to come down from the rigging alive, and now he is telling that I tried to push him off the yard, and, of course, that numbskull of a Green is only to ready to believe him.  That fellow has got wind of some things, too.  We must see to it that he gets no chance to tell what he knows or thinks he knows.”

“You are my bad angel, Redfox, and want to drag me deeper and deeper into crime,” said the Captain.  “Haven’t I told you again and again that I will not have that boy put out of the way?”

“Oh, you are always for half-way measures.  I take no account of them in my reckonings.  It would have been very fine for you, if—­accidentally—­he had fallen from the rigging,” growled Redfox.

“No, no, I won’t have any bloodshed,” said the Captain most earnestly.  “There are enough things now for which I have to answer,—­and there will be more when we wreck the ‘St. George’ on one of the many reefs off the east coast of Australia, as we have planned to do.  Now, if against my will, you do anything to that boy, I’ll have you turned over to the authorities, even if I run the danger of being arrested as your accomplice.  You may know what to expect.”

With these words the Captain left Redfox standing at the door of the cabin.  He muttered to himself, “Well, do you know, I really believe his conscience is troubling him—­the mushhead!  I must deal with him more firmly.—­No, no, Captain, after what happened this morning the only thing to do is to get him out of the way,—­and the helmsman along with him.  I’ll tend to that.  Ha, ha!  Mr. Captain, you’ll get up in the morning early to turn Redfox over to the authorities!”