"Hi, there, you boys," roared out a voice at this juncture, which we had little difficulty in recognising as belonging to Lieutenant Robinson, who was again officer of the watch this afternoon, his turn of duty having once more come round. "Get off that netting at once and go below, both of you. Master-at-arms, take those boys' names down and put them in the report, and bring them up on the deck after `divisions' to- morrow!" The `Jaunty,' who was standing below the break of the poop, looked up at the scowling lieutenant, saluting him. "Very good, sir," said he, with another touch of his hat, in recognition of the authority of the speaker. "I will see to it, sir." But, a `Deus ex machina,' or `God from the bathing-machine,' as our old captain of the _Saint Vincent_ would have said in his Latin lingo, just then intervened on our behalf. Mick Donovan and I were sneaking down the main hatch, like a pair of whipped dogs with their tails between their legs--though I must say we were more chagrined at losing the best part of the fight going on in the water, which was rapidly approaching a climax, than dismayed at having incurred the displeasure of the lieutenant--when, if you please, we heard somebody shout out something behind us, and the master-at-arms, who had followed in our wake, called out to us to stop. "Belay there, you boys," he shouted down the hatchway. "Ye're to return on deck!" In obedience to this order, we ascended the ladder-way again, retracing our steps at an even slower pace than we had gone down at; for we both expected, the same thought having flashed across our minds when the `Jaunty' hailed us, that Lieutenant Robinson had, on more mature consideration, fancied he had let us off too lightly for the heinous offence we had committed, and had ordered us to be brought back to give us `four dozen' apiece at least, there and then! The result, however, was very different to our sad anticipations; for when we reached the deck the old commodore was standing by the poop rail, close to the ladder on the port side leading down from thence into the waist of the ship. CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. A STUDY IN BLACK AND WHITE. "Lieutenant Robinson," said he to our persecutor, who looked ill at ease as he stood before him, the sextant which he had snatched up in a hurry to calculate the angle of distance of the whale and its antagonists now hanging listlessly in his hand, "be good enough, sir, to tell those boys that they may remain on the upper deck and look over the side, but that they must not stand on the hammock nettings. I like discipline to be preserved on board the ship I may have the honour to command, but I never allow any unnecessary severity being shown to the men or boys of the ship's company!"