nal blazing
brilliantly, having evidently been lighted for quite a quarter of an
hour. The full moon was hanging high in a cloudless sky, and the stars
were shining with their usual tropical brilliance, but so bright was the
light of the flames that I could see nothing outside the rail of the
wreck. I therefore descended to the boy's cabin, and, entering without
ceremony, demanded to be informed of his reason for lighting the fire.

"Because I saw a ship," he replied.

"Saw a ship!" I repeated. "Then why did you not at once come down and
call me? You surely cannot have forgotten that I made it clearly
understood I was to be called if a ship should heave in sight, and that
nobody was to light the fire without first consulting me?"

To this there was no reply, the lad merely lying in his bed and scowling
sulkily at me. I repeated the question in a slightly different form.

"Naw," he answered at length, "I didn't forget. But I guess it's about
time that you understood I ain't going to take any orders from you."

"But," I remonstrated, "your mother has given me full power to act as I
think best, under all circumstances. I presume that, young as you are,
you have sense enough to understand that in any community, however
small, there must be a leader whom all the rest must obey. Under no
circumstances is this more imperative than in such a case as ours. You
surely do not consider that you should be our head and leader, do you?"

"You bet I do," was his amazing reply. "Anyhow," he continued, "I'm not
going to obey you, Mister Britisher, so you may clear out and leave me
to have my sleep. And see here, since you don't like the way I keep
watch, I won't do it any more. Now, git!"

I "got" with some precipitation, lest I should lose my grip upon myself
and give the youth the trouncing that he so richly deserved. I desired
above all things to avoid that, for I knew that nothing would distress
his mother so much as that her darling should be chastised, though ever
so lightly.

Returning to the deck, I found the fire still blazing high, for, not
content with merely kindling the flare, Master Julius had taken the
trouble to fling the whole of our reserve stock of fuel upon it. There
was the merest breathing of wind out from the eastward, and this fanned
the smoke right along our deck. It made my eyes smart to such an extent
that I was compelled to get down off the poop and shelter myself under
the break of it,