Accustomed to have his commands always promptly obeyed, the wrath of Captain Andrews waxed high and furious at the dilatoriness of the boatswain. Without any other exciting cause, this apparent insubordination on the part of one of his officers, was enough to arouse all the evil passions of his heart. Educated under the strict discipline of the United States service, he had been taught that the first and most important duty of a seaman was obedience. “Obey orders, if you break owners,” was the doctrine he inculcated; and to be thus, as it were, bearded on his own quarter-deck, by one of his own men, was something entirely new, and most insulting to his pride. Three times had he called for the boatswain without receiving any reply, or causing that functionary to appear.

When the captain first came out of the cabin, his only thought was to punish the sailor-boy for striking his son; but his anger now took another course, and his desire to visit the boatswain’s contumacy with a heavy penalty was so great, that he forgot entirely the object for which he had first wished him. Relinquishing his hold on Tom’s shoulder, the captain hailed his first officer in a quick, stern voice,

“Mr. Hart, bring aft Mr. Wilson, the boatswain.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” responded the mate, as he started toward the forecastle-scuttle to hunt up the delinquent. “Hillo, below there!” he hailed, when he reached the scuttle, “You’re wanted on deck, Mr. Wilson!”

“Who wants me?” was the reply that resounded, seemingly, from one of the bunks close up the ship’s eyes.

“Captain Andrews is waiting for you on the quarter-deck; and if you are not fond of tornadoes, you had better be in a hurry,” answered the mate.

Notwithstanding the chief dickey’s hint, the boatswain seemed to entertain no apprehensions about the reception he would meet at the hands of the enraged skipper; for several minutes elapsed before he made himself visible on deck.

As soon as the captain saw the boatswain, his anger increased, and he became deadly pale from excess of passion. Waiting until Wilson came within a few feet of him, he addressed him in that low, husky voice, that more than any other proves the depth of a person’s feeling, with,

“Why have you so long delayed obeying my summons, Mr. Wilson?”

“I was asleep in the forecastle, sir, and came as soon as I heard Mr. Hart call,” replied Wilson.

But the tone in which he spoke, the look of his eye, the expression of his countenance, would at once have convinced a less observant person than Captain Andrews, that the excuse offered was one vamped up for the occasion, and not the real cause of the man’s delay.

“Asleep, sir! Attend now to the duty I wish you to perform—and be awake, sir, about it! And you may, perhaps, get off easier for your own dereliction afterward—for your conduct shall not remain unpunished,” answered the captain.

“Captain Andrews, boy and man, I have been going to sea now these twenty-five years, and no one ever charged Bob Wilson with not knowing or not doing his duty before, sir!” rejoined the boatswain, evidently laboring under as much mental excitement as the captain.

“None of your impertinence, sir! Not a word more, or I will learn you a lesson of duty you ought to have been taught when a boy. Where’s your cat,^[2] sir?” continued the captain.

“In the razor-bag,”^[3] replied the boatswain.

“Curse you!” ejaculated the captain, almost beside himself at this reply, yet striving to maintain his self-possession; “one more insolent word, and I will have you triced up. Strip that boy and make a spread-eagle of him; then get your cat and give him forty.”

During this conversation between the captain and the boatswain, the crew had been quietly gathering on the lee-side of the quarter-deck, until at this juncture every seaman in the ship, except the man at the wheel, was within twenty feet of the excited speakers. Not a word had been spoken amongst them; but it was evident from the determination imprinted upon their countenances, from their attitudes, and from the extraordinary interest they took in the scene then transpiring, that there was something more in the boatswain’s insubordination than appeared on the surface; and whatever it was, the crew were all under the influence of the same motive.

Mr. Wilson, the boatswain of the Josephine, was a first-rate and thorough-bred seaman. No part of his duty was unfamiliar to him; and never did he shrink from performing any portion of it on account of danger or fatigue. Like many other simple-minded, honest-hearted sons of Neptune, he troubled himself but little about abstruse questions on morals; but he abhorred a liar, despised a thief, and perfectly detested a tyrant. And though he could bear a goodly quantity of tyrannical treatment himself, without heeding it, it made his blood boil, and his hand clench, to see a helpless object maltreated.

Ever since the Josephine had left port, there had been growing amongst the crew a disposition to prevent their favorite, Tom, the sailor-boy, from being imposed upon and punished, as he had been, for no other reason than the willfulness of the captain’s son, and the caprice of the captain’s wife. Not a man on board liked the spoiled child of the cabin. No fancy, either, had they for his mother; because, right or wrong, she always took her son’s part, and oftentimes brought the sailors into trouble. The last time Tom had been punished a grand consultation had been held in the forecastle, at which the boatswain presided; and he, with the rest of the crew, had solemnly pledged themselves not to let their little messmate be whipped again unless, in their opinion, he deserved it.

This was the reason why the boatswain, one of the best men in the ship, had skulked when he heard the captain’s call: he had seen him come out of the cabin with Tom, and rightly anticipated the duty he was expected to perform. Such great control does the habit of obedience exercise over seamen, that although he was resolved to die before he would suffer Tom to be whipped for nothing, much less inflict the punishment himself, the boatswain felt a great disinclination to have an open rupture with his commanding officer. The peremptory order last issued by the captain, however, brought affairs to a crisis there was no avoiding; he either had to fly in the face of quarter-deck authority, or break his pledge to his messmates and his conscience. This, Wilson could not think of doing; and looking his captain straight in the face, in a quiet tone, and with a civil manner, he thus addressed his superior:

“It does not become me, Captain Andrews, so be as how, for to go, for to teach my betters—and—and—” here the worthy boatswain broke down, in what he designed should be a speech, intended to convince the captain of his error; but feeling unable to continue, he ended abruptly, changing his voice and manner, with “Blast my eyes! if you want the boy whipped, you can do it yourself.”

Hardly had the words escaped the speaker’s lips, before the captain, snatching up an iron belaying-pin, rushed at the boatswain, intending to knock him down; but Wilson nimbly leaped aside, and the captain’s foot catching in a rope, he came down sprawling on the deck. Instantly regaining his feet, he rushed toward the cabin, wild with rage, for the purpose of obtaining his pistols. Several minutes elapsed before he returned on deck; when he did he was much more calm, although in each hand he held a cocked pistol.

The quarter deck he found bare; the crew, with little Tom in their midst, having retired to the forecastle, where they were engaged in earnest conversation. The second mate was at the wheel, the seaman who had been at the helm having joined his comrades, so that the only disposable force at the captain’s command was the chief mate, the steward and himself, the cook being fastened up in his galley by the seamen. On the forecastle were fifteen men. The odds were great; but Captain Andrews did not pause to calculate chances—his only thought was to punish the mutinous conduct of his crew, never thinking of the possibility of failure.

Giving one of his pistols to Mr. Hart, and telling the steward to take a capstan bar, the captain and his two assistants boldly advanced to compel fifteen sailors to return to their duty.

——