Waters, ruefully. "He'll be
down upon me for losing on him--just as if I took him ashore like a dog
tied to a string. How did you get the cutter off?"

"Easy as a glove," was the reply. "We just took out the little anchor
and dropped it over, and when the tide come up hauled on it a bit, and
she rode out as easy as a duck. But he's been going on savage because
Muster Leigh didn't come back. Has he desarted?"

The gunner turned upon him so fierce a look, and made so menacing a
movement, that the man shrank away, and catching what is called a crab
upset the rower behind him, the crew for the moment being thrown into
confusion, just as the lieutenant had raised his spyglass to his eye and
was watching the coming off of the boat.

"What call had you got to do that, Billy?" cried the man, rubbing his
elbows. "There'll be a row about that. Here, give way, my lads, and
let's get aboard."

The men made the stout ashen blades bend as they forced the boat through
the water, and at the end of a few minutes the oars were turned up, laid
neatly over the thwarts, and the bowman held on with the boathook while
the search party tumbled on board, the sides of the cutter being at no
great height above the water.

The lieutenant was there, with his glass under his arm, his head tied up
so that one eye was covered, and his cocked hat was rightly named in a
double sense, being cocked almost off his head.

"Disgraceful, Mr Leigh!" he exclaimed furiously. "You deserve to be
court-martialled, sir! Never saw a boat worse manned and rowed, sir. I
never saw from the most beggarly crew of a wretched merchantman worse
time kept. Why, the men were catching crabs, sir, from the moment they
left the shore till the moment they came alongside. Bless my
commission, sir! were you all drunk?"

He had one eye shut by the old accident, as we have intimated, and the
injury of the previous night had so affected the other that he saw
anything but clearly, as he kept stamping up and down the deck.

"Do you hear, sir? I say were you all drunk?" roared the lieutenant.

"Please your honour," said the gunner, "we never see a drop of anything
except seawater since we went ashore."

"Silence, sir! How dare you speak?" roared the lieutenant.
"Insubordination and mutiny. Did I speak to you, sir? I say, did I
speak to you?"

"No, your honour, but--"

"If you say another word I'll clap you in irons, you dog!" cried the
lieutenant. "A prett