dark and Mr. Barker was badly scared; but, just the same, a light whack will always answer. Never strike a man near the temple, especially with an iron belaying-pin or a handspike; and when you have him down, kick him on the legs or above the short ribs. It's altogether unnecessary to disable a man, and unwise with a short crew. Be more careful, Mr. Pratt."
"Yes, sir," said the pupil humbly; "but they had their knives out, and I had no time to pick spots; I just let go."
They left the half-deck, and the steward, busy with the cabin breakfast, was ordered to desist and attend to the wants of the prisoner, which repugnant duty he performed perfunctorily, yet with the result of bringing him to consciousness and inducing him to eat. This, his first meal since he had come aboard, was followed by a refreshing sleep, with his bandaged head pillowed on a coil of new rope; and when he wakened in the afternoon he was able, with his shackles removed to his ankles, to minister to his own hurts.
His condition improved steadily; but a week passed before his nerves and faculties were sufficiently under control to warrant him in, as he expressed it, "taking another fall out o' them." He sent a request for an interview to the captain, who granted it.
"Well, what d'ye want?" he roared, before he was half way down the ladder.
"Want to talk to you," answered the unconquered wreck, in nearly as loud a tone.
"Y' do, hey? Well, talk civil, and be quick about it."
"Exactly. I am anxious to impress upon your mind, as quickly as your mind will receive the impression, the fact that you have made a serious mistake—that you have maltreated and confined in irons, on board one of his own ships, John L. Greenheart, your employer. You have not met him before, because you have only dealt with James L. Greenheart, his uncle and manager."
"Oh, you've struck a new lay, have you—invented a nephew to carry out your bluff? Well, it don't go." But there was a look of intelligent earnestness in the weary eyes of the claimant that induced Captain Millen to continue in defense of his denial—a needless waste of words, had he stopped to think.
"I've sailed in this employ twenty-five years," he stormed; "and I know, if I know anything, that there are no vagabonds in the Greenheart family. Why, you infernal jail-bird, your dirty hide is as tanned as a shell-back's from tramping the highways."
"Just back from a yachting cruise in southern waters, Captain—I haven't yet learned your name."
"Rats! And when did you shave last? What kind of clothes do ship-owners wear?"
"I was slumming disguised as a tramp, when I was drugged and kidnapped. As for being unshaved, I was in the middle of a champagne spree—or I shouldn't have gone slumming at all—and scissored off my beard to heighten the disguise."
Captain Millen did not know what "slumming" meant, and did not care to ask, so he listened no further. The interview ended with a hearty round of profane abuse from him, and the aphorism, "Every dog has his day," from the other.
A few days later he sent a second request to the quarter-deck for a talk with the captain, but the favor was not granted. Fred, the messenger, who now brought his meals from the forecastle, repeated the errand on the following day, was kicked off the quarter-deck, and refused to go again; so it was another week before he was able to communicate. Then Mr. Barker, rummaging the half-deck in the line of duty, listened to a proposition that he be allowed to work with the crew on terms of abdication and submission. This brought the captain.
"My health is suffering from this confinement," he said. "I cannot eat the swill you feed to me without the appetite coming from exercise in the open air. I am willing to work as a common sailor; and, as you will not recognize the name I give you, I will answer to any."
"Will you shut up about that owner racket?"
"I will."
"And do as you're told, and try to learn your work, so that you can be worth your grub?"
"Yes."
"'Yes?' Say 'Yes, sir,' when you speak to me or the officers. Learn that first."
"Yes, sir."
"All right; and mind you, any monkey work'll get you into more trouble. You're on the articles as Hans Johanne Von Dagerman, Dutchman, able seaman, fourteen dollars a month, and a month's advance—remember that when you're paid off. And you're down in my official log
