"I
suppose you thought the ship would steer itself, didn't you?"
"Mutineers deserve to be eaten," whimpered Miss Rumbolt piously,
somewhat taken aback by the skipper's demeanour.
Hezekiah looked at her.
"They're not mutineers, Kate," he said quietly. "It was just a piece of
mad folly of mine. They're as honest a set of old sea dogs as ever
breathed, and I only hope they are all safe up aloft. I'm going to lock
you in; but don't be frightened, it shan't hurt you."
He slammed the door on her protests, and locked it, and, slipping the
key of the cage in his pocket, took a firm grip of his knife, and,
running up the steps, gained the deck. Then his breath came more freely,
for the mate, who was standing a little way up the fore rigging, after
tempting the bear with his foot, had succeeded in dropping a noose over
its head. The brute made a furious attempt to extricate itself, but the
men hurried down with other lines, and in a short space of time the bear
presented much the same appearance as the lion in Aesop's Fables, and
was dragged and pushed, a heated and indignant mass of fur, back to its
cage.
Having locked up one prisoner the skipper went below and released the
other, who passed quickly from a somewhat hysterical condition to one of
such haughty disdain that the captain was thoroughly cowed, and stood
humbly aside to let her pass.
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