Captain Miles was prepared for this, Moggridge, the boatswain, who had made many voyages with him, and in whom he placed implicit trust, having related all that had occurred; so, although he saw Davis approach, he waited a while till the watch was relieved, when, advancing to the break of the poop, he hailed the whilom second mate below. "Davis!" he cried, "I have got something to say to you." The other had lost all his defiant air now and looked very sheepish and crest-fallen--so much so, indeed, that he seemed unable at first to answer the captain. "Yes, sir," said he at last, looking up and then dropping his eyes again in an instant, unable to stand the captain's straightforward glance. "I'm sorry to have to say," continued Captain Miles, speaking slowly and distinctly, so that every word he uttered was heard fore and aft the ship, "that you, a responsible officer of this vessel, came on duty three hours ago in a state of intoxication. The fault would have been bad enough in one of the ordinary hands, but is doubly so in a man having charge of the lives of those on board and the safety of the ship and cargo. Besides, it is not merely on a single occasion that you have so grossly behaved, as I have noticed of late that you have been several times under the influence of liquor." "But, Captain Miles, sir," interrupted Davis at this point. However, the captain soon silenced him. "Hear me out, sir," he cried, his voice getting sterner and more energetic. "Not only have you given way to that cursed habit of drink, but you have also, I have perceived--for I've had my eye upon you when you have little known it--exercised your authority over the crew in a most unmanly and tyrannical fashion. Now, I have always prided myself on the fact of my ship being a comfortable one, and I have never found a hand who has sailed with me once objecting to ship for a second voyage if I wanted him. This I have achieved by treating the men as I would wish to be treated myself, and not by bullying and hazing them unnecessarily as you have done repeatedly, especially this afternoon when you relieved the port watch." The captain paused here a moment, and I declare I felt quite ashamed for Davis being thus spoken to before all the men; but he did not seem to mind it much, for he began to resume his old bumptious manner, shrugging his shoulders in a careless way and glaring round at the listeners as if he would have liked to eat them. "I was drunk then," was all he said, however, in extenuation of the last offence with which the captain had charged him.