Notwithstanding the chief dickey’s hint, the boatswain seemed to entertain no apprehensions about the reception he would meet at the hands of the enraged skipper; for several minutes elapsed before he made himself visible on deck. As soon as the captain saw the boatswain, his anger increased, and he became deadly pale from excess of passion. Waiting until Wilson came within a few feet of him, he addressed him in that low, husky voice, that more than any other proves the depth of a person’s feeling, with, “Why have you so long delayed obeying my summons, Mr. Wilson?” “I was asleep in the forecastle, sir, and came as soon as I heard Mr. Hart call,” replied Wilson. But the tone in which he spoke, the look of his eye, the expression of his countenance, would at once have convinced a less observant person than Captain Andrews, that the excuse offered was one vamped up for the occasion, and not the real cause of the man’s delay. “Asleep, sir! Attend now to the duty I wish you to perform—and be awake, sir, about it! And you may, perhaps, get off easier for your own dereliction afterward—for your conduct shall not remain unpunished,” answered the captain. “Captain Andrews, boy and man, I have been going to sea now these twenty-five years, and no one ever charged Bob Wilson with not knowing or not doing his duty before, sir!” rejoined the boatswain, evidently laboring under as much mental excitement as the captain. “None of your impertinence, sir! Not a word more, or I will learn you a lesson of duty you ought to have been taught when a boy. Where’s your cat,[2] sir?” continued the captain. “In the razor-bag,”[3] replied the boatswain. “Curse you!” ejaculated the captain, almost beside himself at this reply, yet striving to maintain his self-possession; “one more insolent word, and I will have you triced up. Strip that boy and make a spread-eagle of him; then get your cat and give him forty.” During this conversation between the captain and the boatswain, the crew had been quietly gathering on the lee-side of the quarter-deck, until at this juncture every seaman in the ship, except the man at the wheel, was within twenty feet of the excited speakers. Not a word had been spoken amongst them; but it was evident from the determination imprinted upon their countenances, from their attitudes, and from the extraordinary interest they took in the scene then transpiring, that there was something more in the boatswain’s insubordination than appeared on the surface; and whatever it was, the crew were all under the influence of the same motive.