astle, "I've bin flogged twice for merely growlin',
which is an Englishman's birthright, an' I won't stand it no longer. A
pretty pass things has come to when a man mayn't growl without tastin'
the cat; but if Captain Bligh won't let me growl, I'll treat him to a
roar that'll make him cock his ears an' wink six times without
speakin'."

The sailor who said this, Matthew Quintal by name, was a short,
thick-set young man of twenty-one or thereabouts, with a forbidding
aspect and a savage expression of face, which was intensified at the
moment by thoughts of recent wrongs. Bill McCoy, to whom he said it,
was much the same in size and appearance, but a few years older, and
with a cynical expression of countenance.

"Whether you growl or roar, Matt," said McCoy, with a low-toned laugh,
"I'd advise you to do it in the minor key, else the Captain will give
you another taste of the cat. He's awful savage just now. You should
have heard him abusin' the officers this afternoon about his
cocoa-nuts."

"So I should," returned Quintal. "As ill luck would have it, I was
below at the time. They say he was pretty hard on Mr Christian."

"Hard on him! I should think he was," rejoined McCoy. "Why, if Mr
Christian had been one of the worst men in the ship instead of the best
officer, the Cap'n could not have abused him worse. I heard and saw 'im
with my own ears and eyes. The cocoa-nuts was lyin', as it might be
here, between the guns, and the Cap'n he came on deck an' said he missed
some of his nuts. He went into a towerin' rage right off--in the old
style--and sent for all the officers. When they came aft he says to
them, says he, `Who stole my cocoa-nuts?' Of course they all said they
didn't know, and hadn't seen any of the people take 'em. `Then,' says
the Cap'n, fiercer than ever, `you must have stole 'em yourselves, for
they couldn't have been taken away without your knowledge.' So he
questioned each officer separately. Mr Christian, when he came to him,
answered, `I don't know, sir, who took the nuts, but I hope you do not
think me so mean as to be guilty of stealing yours.' Whereupon the
Cap'n he flared up like gunpowder. `Yes, you hungry hound, I do,' says
he; `you must have stolen them from me, or you would have been able to
give a better account of them.'"

"That was pitchin' into 'im pretty stiff," said Quintal, with a grim
smile. "What said Mr Christian?"

"He said nothin', but he looked thunder. I