“The light-house boat!” Spike then slowly repeated.  “Why, fellow, you told me the light-house boat went adrift from your own hands!”

“So it did,” answered Jack, coolly, “since I cast off the painter—­and what is more, went in it.”

“You!  This is impossible.  You are telling me a fabricated lie.  If you had gone away in that boat, how could you now be here?  No, no—­it is a miserable lie, and Rose is below!”

“Go and look into her state-room, and satisfy yourself with your own eyes.”

Spike did as was suggested.  He went below, took a lamp that was always suspended, lighted in the main cabin, and, without ceremony, proceeded to Rose’s state-room, where he soon found that the bird had really flown.  A direful execration followed this discovery, one so loud as to awaken Mrs. Budd and Biddy.  Determined not to do things by halves, he broke open the door of the widow’s state-room, and ascertained that the person he sought was not there.  A fierce explosion of oaths and denunciations followed, which produced an answer in the customary screams.  In the midst of this violent scene, however, questions were put, and answers obtained, that not only served to let the captain know that Jack had told him nothing but truth, but to put an end to everything like amicable relations between himself and the relict of his old commander.  Until this explosion, appearances had been observed between them; but, from that moment, there must necessarily be an end of all professions of even civility.  Spike was never particularly refined in his intercourse with females, but he now threw aside even its pretension.  His rage was so great that he totally forgot his manhood, and lavished on both Mrs. Budd and Biddy epithets that were altogether inexcusable, and many of which it will not do to repeat.  Weak and silly as was the widow, she was not without spirit; and on this occasion she was indisposed to submit to all this unmerited abuse in silence.  Biddy, as usual, took her cue from her mistress, and between the two, their part of the wordy conflict was kept up with a very respectable degree of animation.

“I know you—­I know you, now!” screamed the widow, at the tope of her voice; “and you can no longer deceive me, unworthy son of Neptune as you are!  You are unfit to be a lubber, and would be log-booked for an or’nary by every gentleman on board ship.  You, a full-jiggered sea-man!  No, you are not even half-jiggered, sir; and I tell you so to your face.”

“Yes, and it is n’t half that might be tould the likes of yees!” put in Biddy, as her mistress stopped to breathe.  “And it’s Miss Rose you’d have for a wife, when Biddy Noon would be too good for ye!  We knows ye, and all about ye, and can give yer history as complate from the day ye was born down to the prisent moment; and not find a good word to say in yer favour in all that time—­and a precious time it is, too, for a gentleman that would marry pretthy, young Miss Rose!  Och!  I scorn to look at ye, yer so ugly!”