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“Excuse me, sir,” said Mr. Knapp, “but I want to say that I had no notion o’ this at all; and I hope you won’t make no trouble for me ashore.”

Breen, one foot on the steps while he waited for the blue-jackets to file over the side, eyed him thoughtfully.

“No,” he said slowly. “I hardly think, Mr. Knapp, that I shall exert myself to make trouble for you personally, or for the other two. There is a measure now before Congress which, if it passes, will legislate brutes like you and your captain off the American quarter-deck by its educational conditions. This, with a consideration for your owners, is what permits you to continue this voyage, instead of going back to the United States in irons. But if I had the power,” he added, looking at the beautiful flag still flying at the gaff, “I would lower that ensign, and forbid you to hoist it. It is the flag of a free country, and should not float over slave-ships.”

He mounted the steps, and, assisted by the young officer and Johnson, descended to the boat; but before Johnson went down, he peered over the rail at the two mates, grinning luridly.

“And I’ll promise you,” he said, “that I’m always willing to make trouble for you, ashore or afloat, and wish I had a little more time for it now. And you can tell your skipper, if you like, in case he don’t know it, that he got smashed with the same club that he used on Mr. Breen, and I’m only d—-d sorry I didn’t bring it down on his head. So long, you bloody-minded hell-drivers. See you again some day.”

He descended, and Mr. Knapp gave the order to brace the yards.

“Give a good deal,” he mused, as the men manned the braces, “to know just how they got news to that cruiser. Homeward bound from Hong-Kong–three months out. Couldn’t ha’ been sent after us.”

But he never learned.