complain of you, you would be punished. I have
no wish to do that, but I must beg that you will desist."

"Who are you, to speak like this to me?" exclaimed the midshipman,
apparently astonished at Owen's language and manner.

"Were I your inferior in birth and education I should have a perfect
right to expostulate," said Owen.

"In birth--in birth and education! You, a contemptible ship's boy, put
yourself on an equality with a nobleman's son!" exclaimed Ashurst.

"I am not placing myself on an equality, for I am not a nobleman's son,
but I am the son of a gentleman, and have received a gentleman's
education, and have, I hope, the feelings of one," answered Owen, his
temper rising in a way he found it difficult to quell; "all, however, I
insist on is that you should not strike or abuse me, for by so doing, as
you well know, you are acting contrary to the articles of war."

"A young sea lawyer, are you!" cried Ashurst. "Look out for squalls
when we get on board the frigate again."

"Has it occurred to you, Mr Ashurst, that if this gale continues we may
never get there?" asked Owen, feeling suddenly prompted to put the
question. "We have a wild rocky coast under our lee, and should the
anchors fail to hold, we may, before morning, be cast on it with little
hope of any one on board escaping."

"Who told you that?" asked Ashurst, in a changed tone.

"My own sense and observation," answered Owen. "When Mr Leigh sent me
into the cabin this afternoon, I examined the Frenchman's chart, which
lay open on the table, and I saw the sort of coast we are off. I do not
wish to alarm you, nor any one else, but I only tell you what I know to
be the state of the case."

"Does Mr Leigh think the same?" inquired Ashurst, in the same tone he
would have used to an equal.

"I have no doubt he does, but of course he would not tell the crew until
it was absolutely necessary to do so; unless he had foreseen that we
should probably have to anchor he would not have ordered the cables to
be ranged."

"I hope things are not so bad as you think, Hartley," observed Ashurst,
although, at the same time, his voice belied his words. Without
apologising to Owen, he walked away in a very different manner to that
he had just before assumed.

"It is a great shame that that midshipman should treat you as he does,"
said Nat. "Although he is civil enough now, he will be as bad as ever
before long, and I have made up my mind what to do."