"Yes, sir," replied Tom, putting a cheerful face on it, and endeavouring to appear rather pleased than otherwise to see his old officer. "Do you remember I promised you four dozen when you sailed with me in the Porpoise, eh? Well, my fine fellow, mind your p's and q's, or you'll find I shall keep my word. I remember! You're the brute who objected to my kicking a whelp of a boy. All right! I'm glad you have been drafted to my ship, as I can make it a little heaven for you." Clare remembered the circumstance to which Crushe alluded, he having once interfered to save a poor boy from brutal treatment at the hands of that officer, and now he was in his power he knew he was a marked man. The lieutenant called for Mr. Shever, the boatswain, and told him to put the sailor in the starboard-watch, at the same time privately informing that warrant officer of his dislike to the man. "Leave him to me, sir. I knows him. He is a werry good man, but has them high-flown notions," was the reply of the boatswain. Tom was taken forward and put to work; and when the dinner pipe went, proceeded on board the receiving hulk with the rest of the Stinger's, having fully made up his mind to be civil, and do his duty, in spite of the depressing aspect of the future. "Perhaps he'll not try and flake me, arter all," he thought. "If I does my best and don't answer him sassy, he can't be such a cold-blooded monster as to do what he ses. I suppose he only wanted to frighten me." As the sailor pondered over this, his face showed that although he endeavoured to argue himself into the belief that all would come right, still his mind was filled with alarm at the prospect before him. The Stinger was, according to the Navy-List, commanded by Captain Puffeigh, a short, fat, vulgar, fussy little man; but in reality Crushe, who had married the captain's niece, had sole control of the ship, Puffeigh merely coming on board once a week, and staying just long enough to throw the first lieutenant's plans into confusion. The crew knew there was a captain belonging to the ship, but probably not two of their number could tell who he was. Crushe was the officer they looked to, and all of them soon found out that he was a Tartar. His first act of despotism towards Clare was to stop his leave to go on shore; and this he did on the day the man joined the ship. "Please, sir, do let me go ashore to see my wife," pleaded the sailor. "Let your fancy come off with the other girls," was the lieutenant's brutal rejoinder. Tom bit his lips, and turned away disgusted and almost mad, knowing it would not do to show what he felt. He thought, "of course the lieutenant imagines all women who have anything to do with sailors are bad; he don't know how good _she_ is. I wish I could have him face to face on shore, I'd cram them ere words down his lean throat, I would."