"Come away," whispered the mate, gripping Brace's arm with painful force. "Nonsense," said Brace firmly. "That's how your hat came on board." "Ugh!" ejaculated the mate, and he sent the straw hat he held whirring away from him with all his might. He meant to have sent it overboard, but straw hats have boomerang-like ways of behaving peculiar to themselves, as most wearers know to their cost; and the one in question, instead of rising and skimming like a swallow over the bulwark and dropping into the sea, performed a peculiar evolution, turned in the direction of the group under the awning, dived down, rose again, just touching Sir Humphrey's ear, missing the first mate, and striking the captain with its saw-like revolving edge just below the chin. "Here, hullo!" roared the latter gentleman; "what are you about?" "Guess it warn't a bad throw, though, in the dark," said a familiar voice, which made the captain spring to his feet with a cry of astonishment; and the next moment the group from beneath the awning were gathered about the imperturbable smoker seated in the folding-chair. "That you?" shouted the captain, and the personage addressed took his cigar slowly from his lips and emitted a great puff of vapour. "Yes, skipper," he said coolly; "it's me," and he replaced his cigar. "What in the name of all that's wonderful are you doing here?" "Doing, skipper?" said the American quietly. "Smoking. Precious hot, ain't it?" "Hot, sir?" roared the captain; "it's nothing to what it's going to be. How dare you? Why, you're a stowaway!" "Am I, skipper? Well, do you know," said the American, in the most imperturbable way, "I thought I was a lump of human fat melting slowly away and running out on to your deck." "How did you get here?" "How did I get here? Why, two of your men brought me aboard last night in your boat." "Well, of all the impudence!" "Now, now, now, skipper, don't get in a wax. Just act like a man, and order me a drink, half water, half lime-juice, for my throat feels as if it had been sanded with hot sand." "I'll order you over the side, and set you ashore at the nearest point of land." "Not you, skipper. It would be like committing murder, and raise up international difficulties." "I don't care, sir; I'll do it. You've got the wrong man to deal with if you think you're going to play any of your Yankee tricks with David Banes. Here, Dellow, heave-to and man the big boat." "Good ten miles to the shore," said the first mate in a low remonstrant tone of voice. "I don't care if it's twenty. I said I wouldn't take him as a passenger, and I won't." "Ten miles for your chaps to pull in the dark, and ten miles back," said the American coolly: "that's twenty, and say another ten miles as allowance for currents, which run strong, I've heard say. That's thirty miles. Say, skipper, hadn't you better take it coolly and make the best of it?" "No, sir, I had not."