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Captain Tredeagle, being a peace-loving man, had no intention of exercising this privilege, his only wish being to dispose of the ventures he carried, and to obtain by honest exertions a full cargo of sperm oil. Walter and Alice waved their hands to the old pilot, as his little vessel, close-hauled, stood away towards the mouth of the river.
Captain Tredeagle hesitated. "I must not place my son out of the way of dangers to which the rest of the crew are exposed. They will look down upon him if I did." "You may return," he answered. "Thank you, father, thank you," said Walter, springing after his sister and Nub. He soon came back. "Alice is now all right," he said.
Captain Tredeagle did not interfere, but allowing the mate to give the necessary orders, waited till the topgallant-sails were furled and two reefs taken in the topsails. He then went across to where Mr Shobbrok was standing. "Walter has told me what the men intend doing," he said in a low voice. "Do you try and find out who are likely to prove stanch to us."
"Give it to them, my lads!" cried Captain Tredeagle; and the whaler's broadside was fired at her opponent with an effect scarcely expected one of the shot going right through the brig's foretopmast, sending it with all its sail and rigging overboard. The English crew cheered lustily.
This Captain Tredeagle was too good a sailor to let her obtain; and seeing that she could not do so, she stood boldly towards her antagonist. Captain Tredeagle told Walter and Nub to carry Alice down below, to remain in the lower hold, the safest part of the ship. She was very unwilling to go, and begged that she might stay on deck to share the danger to which he might be exposed.
"A prosperous voyage, and a quick return, Captain Tredeagle," said the old pilot as he bade farewell to the commander of the Champion, which ship he had piloted down the Mersey on her voyage to the Pacific. "Thank you, pilot. I suppose it will be pretty nearly three years before we are back again, with a full cargo, I hope, and plenty of dollars to keep the pot boiling at home.
A large portion of the crew were rough, ignorant, and disorderly. The war had kept all the best men employed, and even a well-known commander like Captain Tredeagle had a difficulty in getting good men; so that the few only who had constantly sailed with him could be depended on. The rest would remain with him and do their duty only so long as they thought it their interest.
"We shall have the masts whipped out of the ship, if we don't trice up some of these fellows before long," he observed one day to the captain. "Wait a bit, Jacob," answered Captain Tredeagle; "I will try them a little longer; but you can just let them know that if any of them again show a mutinous disposition, they will be flogged as surely as they are living men."
While the pilot vessel was standing away, the head-yards of the Champion were swung round, the sails sheeted home; with a brisk northerly wind, and under all the canvas she could carry, she ran quickly down the Irish Channel. "Here we are away at last," said Captain Tredeagle, as his children stood by his side; "and now, Walter, we must make a sailor of you as fast as possible.
It was the first voyage he had made with Captain Tredeagle, to whom he had been recommended as a steady man. One of his mates, Tom Hulk, well named, for he was a big hulking ruffian, was quite as bad, and with several others supported the boatswain. Alice knew nothing of what was going forward, though Walter suspected that things were not quite right.
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