The commander patted him on the shoulder approvingly.
“Excellent,” said he, nodding his head. “That is just what we will do. The Lascar can be laid by the heels any time we choose to do it; it’s the mysterious fellow in the shadow that is the dangerous one. We will leave the trap open--and we will wait for him to show himself.”
HOW ETHAN CARLYLE FACED THE BULLY OF THE RANGER
The knowledge displayed by Ethan in the working of a ship during the first week out, and his ready courage in the taking of a couple of British prizes, won the regard of the Ranger’s tars, and he was ever a welcome visitor to the forecastle when he chose to go there. Many were the yarns they told him of voyages with Barry, Murray, Whipple and other hearts of oak; and many were those he told in return of strange seas, strange ports and stranger people.
He had finished telling of an adventure in the China Sea in his grandfather’s ship, Warlock; and during the appreciative pause that followed, the silence was rudely broken by a loud, sneering laugh.
“He pulls a long bow for a youngster,” said a voice; “and you seasoned tars sit around and draw it in like sucking pigs their mammy’s milk.”
Ethan flushed scarlet, and a murmur went up from the watch below. But it was the master’s mate that spoke, a huge-chested Canadian named Blake; and no one among the seamen dared to resent his words, for in his week among them he had, by his ruffianism, cowed them all. A few, at the beginning, had dared to defy him; but his brawny fists had soon beaten them into submission. Indeed, by this time, the forecastle had come to be a sort of grill upon which the bully toasted his shipmates one after the other and laughed at their helpless squirming.
Ethan made no reply to the man’s remark. Longsword, who sat with his broad back against the heel of the bowsprit, grew crimson, and two sharp points of light shot into his eyes; but he made no movement; since the death of Ethan’s father he had come to look upon the lad as his superior officer, and so strong was the military idea fixed in his mind that he never took an important step without orders.
The master’s mate took a seat upon an upturned tub and regarded his mates with a sneering smile.