"What, has she telled you to, sir? I never heared her come aboard." "No trifling, man. For your own sake, obey my orders. Seize this lad, and then make sail for the nearest British port." The boatswain took off his cap and scratched his head, looking at the boys in a puzzled way, while Poole made no further resistance, but resigned himself to being held, as he kept the pistol well behind his back. "Do you hear me, men?" shouted Fitz, his heart sinking with despair the while, as he noted the smiling looks of every face before him, and felt what a miserable fiasco he had made. "Oh yes, I can hear you, sir," said the boatswain. "I'd be precious deaf if I didn't; but you're giving rather a large order, taking a lot on yourself now as the skipper's lying in dock. Any one would think as you had got a gunboat's well-manned cutter lying alongside, and I don't see as it is. What was that there shot I heard?" "I blew the lock off the cabin-door by my father's orders," cried Poole. "We were locked in." "Ho!" said the boatswain. "Then this 'ere's been what they used to call aboard a ship I was in, a hen-coop _de main_. I don't quite exactly know what it means, but it's something about shutting up prisoners in a cage. But don't you think, young gentleman, you have been making a big mistake? But oh, all right--here's the skipper hisself coming on deck." Fitz turned sharply towards the companion-hatch, to see the head and shoulders of the skipper as he stood there holding on by the combings, and swaying to and fro, looking very ill and weak. His voice, too, sounded feeble as he said huskily, addressing the boatswain-- "Is there any boat alongside, Butters?" "I arn't seen one, sir," replied the boatswain. "Any cruiser within sight?" "No, sir." "Where's Mr Burgess?" "Down below, sir. I'm afraid he's got the fever too." "Tut-tut-tut!" ejaculated the skipper. "There, I needn't ask any questions. I have heard and seen enough. Mr Burnett, come here. No? Well, stay where you are. My good lad, have you been too much in the sun, to begin playing such a silly prank as this? There, no more nonsense!" he added sternly, and with his voice gathering in force. "It is evident to me that you don't know what stuff my men are made of. But I'm too weak to stand talking here. Come and lend me a hand, Poole. You, my young filibuster, had better come below with me, where you can talk the matter over like a man. Ha, ha, ha!" he added, with a peculiar laugh. "There, I'm not angry with you, my boy. I must say I admire your pluck; but you must see how absurd all this is!" The midshipman's hands had dropped to his sides, and a strange, hopeless, bitterly despondent look made his face display so many incipient wrinkles, the germs, so to speak, of those which in manhood would some day mark his frank young features. "It's all over," he groaned to himself; "they are all laughing at me. I wish I were overboard! What an idiot I have been!"