“You entered my service with your own consent,” replied the captain to Jo’s last remark, “and you may leave it, with the same consent, whenever you choose; but you will please to remember that I did not engage you to serve on board the schooner.  Back there you do not go either with or without your consent, my fine fellow, and if you are bent on going to sea on your own account.—­you’ve got a pair of good arms and legs,—­you can swim!  Besides,” continued the captain, dropping the tone of sarcasm in which this was said, and assuming a more careless and good-natured air, “you were singing something not long since, if I mistake not, about ‘farewell to the rolling sea,’ which leads me to think you will not object to a short cruise on shore for a change, especially on such a beautiful island as this is.”

“I’m your man, capting,” cried the impulsive seaman, at the same time giving his oar a pull that well-nigh spun the boat round.  “And, to say wot’s the plain truth, d’ye see, I’m not sorry to ha’ done with your schooner; for, although she is as tight a little craft as any man could wish for to go to sea in, I can’t say much for the crew,—­saving your presence, Dick,” he added, glancing over his shoulder at the surly-looking man who pulled the bow oar.  “Of all the rascally set I ever clapped eyes on, they seems to me the worst.  If I didn’t know you for a sandal-wood trader, I do believe I’d take ye for a pirate.”

“Don’t speak ill of your messmates behind their backs, Jo,” said the captain, with a slight frown.  “No good and true man ever does that.”

“No more I do,” replied John Bumpus, while a deep red color suffused his bronzed countenance.  “No more I do, leastwise if they wos here I’d say it to their faces; for they’re a set of as ill-tongued villains as I ever had the misfortune to—­”

“Silence!” exclaimed the captain, suddenly, in a voice of thunder.

Few men would have ventured to disobey the command given by such a man, but John Bumpus was one of those few.  He did indeed remain silent for two seconds, but it was the silence of astonishment.

“Capting,” said he, seriously, “I don’t mean no offense, but I’d have you to know that I engaged to work for you, not to hold my tongue at your bidding, d’ye see?  There ain’t the man living as’ll make Jo Bumpus shut up w’en he’s got a mind to—­”

The captain put an abrupt end to the remarks of his refractory seaman by starting up suddenly in fierce anger and seizing the tiller, apparently with the intent to fell him.  He checked himself, however, as suddenly, and breaking into a loud laugh, cried:—­

“Come, Jo, you must admit that there is at least one living man who has made you ‘shut up’ before you had finished what you’d got to say.”

John Bumpus, who had thrown up his left arm to ward off the anticipated blow, and dropped his oar in order to clench his right fist, quietly resumed his oar, and shook his head gravely for nearly a minute, after which he made the following observation:—­