r old skipper else. She blowed up handsome, and
no mistake! No more danger, gentlemen, and plenty of stuff to pick up
afore next pay-day."

"What shall we do with that insolent hound?" Nettlebones asked poor
Donovan, who was groaning in slow convalescence. "We have caught him in
nothing. We can not commit him; we can not even duck him legally."

"Be jabers, let him drink his health in his own potheen."

"Capital! Bravo for old Ireland, my friend! You shall see it done, and
handsomely. Brown, you recommend these waters, so you shall have a dose
of them."

A piece of old truncate kelp was found, as good a drinking horn as need
be; and with this Captain Brown was forced to swallow half a bucketful
of his own "medical water"; and they left him fast at his moorings, to
reflect upon this form of importation.

CHAPTER XXXIII

BEARDED IN HIS DEN

"What do you think of it by this time, Bowler?" Commander Nettlebones
asked his second, who had been left in command afloat, and to whom they
rowed back in a wrathful mood, with a good deal of impression that the
fault was his, "You have been taking it easily out here. What do you
think of the whole of it?"

"I have simply obeyed your orders, sir; and if I am to be blamed for
that, I had better offer no opinion."

"No, no, I am finding no fault with you. Don't be so tetchy, Bowler. I
seek your opinion, and you are bound to give it."

"Well, then, sir, my opinion is that they have made fools of the lot of
us, excepting, of course, my superior officer."

"You think so, Bowler? Well, and so do I--and myself the biggest fool of
any. They have charged our centre with a dummy cargo, while they run the
real stuff far on either flank. Is that your opinion?"

"To a nicety, that is my opinion, now that you put it so clearly, sir."

"The trick is a clumsy one, and never should succeed. Carroway ought
to catch one lot, if he has a haporth of sense in him. What is the time
now; and how is the wind?"

"I hear a church clock striking twelve; and by the moon it must be that.
The wind is still from the shore, but veering, and I felt a flaw from
the east just now."

"If the wind works round, our turn will come. Is Donovan fit for duty
yet?"

"Ten times fit, sir--to use his own expression. He is burning to have at
somebody. His eyes work about like the binnacle's card."

"Then board him, and order him to make all sail for Burlington, and
see what old Carroway is up to. You be