"You can't. I shall have to do that. Here, wait a minute. I will go and tell the cook to get your breakfast ready, and then come back and put you all a-taunto." The lad hurried out of the cabin, leaving Fitz wide-awake now in every sense of the word, for that last rest had brought back the power of coherent thought, making him look wonderingly out of the window at the glorious sea, so different from anything he had been accustomed to for months and months, and setting him wondering. "Why, this can't be the Irish Channel," he thought, "and here, when was it I was taken ill? I seem to have been fast asleep, and only just woke up. Where was I? Was that a dream? No, I remember now; the lieutenant and the cutter's crew. That schooner we were sent to board in the darkness, and--" Here his young attendant re-entered the cabin with a tin-bowl in one hand, a bucket of freshly dipped sea-water in the other, and a towel thrown over his shoulder. "Here, hullo, midshipman!" he cried cheerily. "My word, you do look wide-awake! But there's nothing wrong, is there?" "Yes! No! I don't know," cried Fitz excitedly. "What's the name of this schooner?" "Oh, it's all right. It's my father's schooner." "And you sailed from Liverpool?" "I haven't come here to answer your questions," said the lad, almost sulkily. "That proves it, then. I remember it all now. We boarded you in the dark, and--and--" Before the speaker could continue, the cabin-door was thrust open and the bluff-looking skipper entered. "Hullo!" he said sternly, "what's the matter here?" "Your son, sir, won't answer my questions," cried Fitz excitedly. "Quite right, my lad. I told him not to until you get better, so don't ask." "I am better," cried the boy, trying to spring up, but sinking back with a groan. "There, you see," said the skipper, "you are not. You are far too weak. Why not take my word for it, my lad, as a bit of a doctor? Now, look here! You want to know how it is you came on board my craft--wait patiently a little while, and when I think you are well enough to bear it I will tell you all." "But I don't want to be told now," cried the boy passionately--"not that. I boarded with our men, and I can remember I felt a heavy blow. I must have been knocked down and stunned. What has become of our lieutenant, the boat and men?" "Oh, well, my lad, if the murder must out--" "Murder!" cried Fitz. "Murder, no! Nonsense! That's a figure of speech. I mean, if the story must come out, here it is. I was going peacefully down channel when your boat boarded us." "As she had a right to," cried Fitz, "being from one of the Queen's ships on duty."