doing but causing trouble ever since we've got it? Running gear carried
away--man wounded from splinters. Hell to pay everywhere. Gad, sir,
they're afraid to sleep tonight for fear you'll blow 'em out of bed.
What's the use of it all? Damn it, that's what I say, what's the use? And
now here you go, risking getting a piece of lead thrown in you, all
because of a few names scrawled on a piece of paper. Here it's the first
time you've been back. It's a hell of a home-coming--that's what I say. I
told you you hadn't ought to have come. Now there's the fire. Why not
forget it and burn it up, and then it's over just as neat as neat, and
then we're aboard, and after the pearls again. Why, what must the boy be
thinking of all this? He must be thinking he's got a hell-cat for a
father. That's what he must be thinking."

"That will do," said my father coldly, and he rose slowly from his chair,
and stood squarely in front of me.

"Tie that boy up, Brutus," he commanded. "It is a compliment, my son. My
opinion of you is steadily rising. Tie him up, Brutus. You will find a
rope on the chimney piece."

He stood close to me, evidently pleased at the convulsive anger which had
gripped me. Brutus was still fumbling on the mantlepiece. Ned Aiken's
pipe had dropped from his mouth. It was Mademoiselle who was the first to
intervene.

"Are you out of your senses?" she demanded, seizing him by the arm. "It
is too much, captain, I tell you it is too much. Think what you are
doing, and send the black man off."

"I have been thinking the matter over for some time," replied my father