Part 46

“Be careful he doesn’t catch hold of the mops,” said Miss Evans; “but if he does, the others are to hit him over the head with the handles. Never mind about hurting him.”

“Take this wheel a minnit, Jack,” said the skipper, pale but determined.

The mate came forward and took it unwillingly, and the skipper, trying hard to conceal his trepidation, walked towards Miss Evans and tried to quell her with his eye. The power of the human eye is notorious, and Miss Evans showed her sense of the danger she ran by making an energetic attempt to close the skipper’s with her mop, causing him to duck with amazing nimbleness. At the same moment another mop loaded with white paint was pushed into the back of his neck. He turned with a cry of rage, and then realising the odds against him flung his dignity to the winds and dodged with the agility of a schoolboy. Through the galley and round the masts he went with the avenging mops in mad pursuit, until breathless and exhausted he suddenly sprang on to the side and climbed frantically into the rigging.

“Coward!” said Miss Evans, shaking her weapon at him.

“Come down,” cried Miss Williams. “Come down like a man.”

“It’s no good wasting time over him,” said Miss Evans, after another vain appeal to the skipper’s manhood. “He’s escaped. Get some more stuff on your mops.”

The mate, who had been laughing boisterously, checked himself suddenly, and assumed a gravity of demeanour more in accordance with his position. The mops were dipped in solemn silence, and Miss Evans approaching regarded him significantly.

“Now, my dears,” said the mate, waving his hand with a deprecatory gesture, “don’t be silly.”

“Don’t be what?” inquired the sensitive Miss Evans, raising her mop.

“You know what I mean,” said the mate hastily. “I can’t help myself.”

“Well, we’re going to help you,” said Miss Evans. “Turn the ship round.”

“You obey orders, Jack,” cried the skipper from aloft.

“It’s all very well for you sitting up there in peace and comfort,” said the mate indignantly. “I’m not going to be tarred to please you. Come down and take charge of your ship.”

“Do your duty, Jack,” said the skipper, who was polishing his face with a handkerchief. “They won’t touch you. They daren’t. They’re afraid to.”

“You’re egging ’em on,” cried the mate wrathfully. “I won’t steer; come and take it yourself.”

He darted behind the wheel as Miss Evans, who was getting impatient, made a thrust at him, and then, springing out, gained the side and rushed up the rigging after his captain. Biddle, who was standing close by, gazed earnestly at them and took the wheel.

“You won’t hurt old Biddle, I know,” he said, trying to speak confidently.

“Of course not,” said Miss Evans emphatically.

“Tar don’t hurt,” explained Miss Williams.

“It’s good for you,” said the third lady positively. “One—two———”

“It’s no good,” said the mate as Ephraim came suddenly into the rigging; “you’ll have to give in.”

“I’m damned if I will,” said the infuriated skipper. Then an idea occurred to him, and puckering his face shrewdly he began to descend.

“All right,” he said shortly, as Miss Evans advanced to receive him. “I’ll go back.”

He took the wheel; the schooner came round before the wind, and the willing crew, letting the sheets go, hauled them in again on the port side.

“And now, my lads,” said the skipper with a benevolent smile, “just clear that mess up off the decks, and you may as well pitch them mops overboard. They’ll never be any good again.”

He spoke carelessly, albeit his voice trembled a little, but his heart sank within him as Miss Evans, with a horrible contortion of her pretty face, intended for a wink, waved them back.

“You stay where you are,” she said imperiously; “we’ll throw them overboard—when we’ve done with them. What did you say, captain?”

The skipper was about to repeat it with great readiness when Miss Evans raised her trusty mop. The words died away on his lips, and after a hopeless glance from his mate to the crew and from the crew to the rigging, he accepted his defeat, and in grim silence took them home again.