"A nautical maitre d'armes?" he asked. "Oui, monsieur," I returned. "And speaks French in the bargain, by St. George! Well, well! What is the name of that vessel you belonged to?" "The _Young Eagle_." "Privateer, eh? I thought as much." At this he called up the ladder to the spar-deck. "Oh, Mr. Vyse!" he said. "It was a Yankee privateer, and not the _Wasp_ or the _Hornet_, or any of their navy." I was tempted to reply something about _stinging_, nevertheless, but I held my tongue. "What's your Captain's name?" was the next question. I gave it, and the names of the three other officers, but I was interrupted. "Well, you can tell Captain Temple, with Captain Hilton's compliments, that he is the most impudent and most reckless scamp unhanged," said the tall man, quietly. "When shall I see him, sir?" I asked. "Lord knows. Not for some time, I judge," was the answer. Then Captain Hilton turned. "Take him below again," he ordered to my guards. They stepped forward, and each laid a hand on my shoulders. I pushed them off. "One moment, sir," I began. "There is a member of our crew badly wounded below with us. He will surely die unless something is done for him." As I was speaking an officer had descended the ladder from above. I had seen the heels of his boots as he stood on the top step for some time. He was short and thick-set, with a mottled reddish face. "Mr. Vyse, you heard what this lad said. Pray see that this wounded man is attended to in accordance with his hurt, and his place of confinement changed if necessary." "Very good, sir," the short man answered, but he had such a mean look on his face that I took a distrust against him. When I reached the hold again and was thrust in once more among my companions, there was a deal of questioning. "You should have said you were a Lieutenant," said Sutton. "It would have made no difference with a privateer officer," put in another seaman, Edward Brown, a Long-Islander. "They'd hang us all if they dared; and, mark me, they won't pamper us." I did not tell of my military salute, that was so involuntary, having betrayed me, but of course I can see it was the reason of the Captain's quick statement. It was pitch-dark down in our dank, bilge-smelling hole, and long after we stopped talking I could not fall asleep. The ridges of the cable worked into my flesh, and the muttered complaints of the others as they tried to make themselves comfortable and found they could not, mingled with the light-headed ramblings of poor Mackie, and a sound suspiciously like weeping from the corner in which lay one of the young landsmen, all combined to add to the misery. Mr. Vyse had failed to carry out his superior's instructions, and there had been no one to look after the wounded man, nor had we been given so much as a pannikin of water, and we were all suffering from thirst.