The men stretched themselves and rose up grumbling, whereupon Davis pitched upon Jackson, who had been asleep under the long-boat and was the last to show a leg, not hearing the second mate's call until a messmate awoke him. "Hi, you, Jackson!" he roared out. "I'll give you something to cure your laziness! I'll haze you, I will, you hound! Get a bucket of grease from the cook's caboose and slush the mainmast down." "I'm no hound, sir!" retorted Jackson angrily, drawing himself up to his full height and flaring up angrily at Davis' uncalled-for abuse. "The mast doesn't need slushing; it was only done over the day before yesterday." "What, you dare to answer me, you mutinous dog!" roared out Davis, raised to a pitch of fury by the seaman not recognising, as he thought, his authority as second mate and officer of the watch. "I tell you what, you shall slush that mast down from the main-truck to the bitts; and look sharp about it, too, or I'll make you!" "Make me!" repeated Jackson scornfully. "I'd like to see you lay a finger on me!" Davis fairly foamed at the mouth with passion at this, the more particularly as the other men, grouped below in the waist, were sniggering and passing sly jokes from one to another about the affair. He started to go down the poop-ladder, brandishing the marlinespike savagely, with the evident intention of attacking Jackson and trying to compel him to obey his orders, utterly unnecessary and vindictive as they were; but, what from having been drinking heavily of late and the fresh air and exposure to the sun having increased the intoxicating effect of the rum which he doubtless had just swallowed before coming on deck to take charge of the watch, he reeled off the ladder as soon as he got to the bottom--falling down all of a heap right in front of the cabin door at the very moment that Captain Miles, who had been roused up by the altercation, was coming out to see what all the noise was about. "Mr Davis!" cried the captain sternly. "What is the matter?" The second mate scrambled to his feet, but he could not hold himself steady and he only muttered some utterly incomprehensible words, his power of speech vanishing with his equilibrium. "I dunno, canshay," he murmured helplessly. "Faugh!" exclaimed Captain Miles in accents of the deepest disgust. "The man is dead drunk. Take him away at once to the fo'c's'le some of you. He doesn't come into my cabin again if I know it!" CHAPTER ELEVEN. BAD WEATHER. Later on in the afternoon, some couple of hours or so after he had been carried into the forecastle, Davis, sobered down by his rest, came aft again. He did not, however, enter the cabin or go up on the poop, but remained hanging about the waist, as if uncertain what to do, evidently "smelling a rat," as the saying goes.