“Mr. Wellard at work?” said the captain.

His voice was thick and a little indistinct, the tone quite different from the anxietysharpened voice with which he had previously spoken. Wellard, his eyes on the sandglasses, paused before replying. Bush could guess that he was wondering what would be the safest, as well as the correct, thing to say.

“Aye aye, sir.”

In the navy no one could go far wrong by saying that to a superior officer.

“Aye aye, sir,” repeated the captain. “Mr. Wellard has learned better now perhaps than to conspire against his captain, against his lawful superior set in authority over him by the Act of His Most Gracious Majesty King George II?”

That was not an easy suggestion to answer. The last grains of sand were running out of the glass and Wellard waited for them; a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ might be equally fatal.

“Mr. Wellard is sulky,” said the captain. “Perhaps Mr. Wellard’s mind is dwelling on what lies behind him. Behind him. ‘By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept.’ But proud Mr. Wellard hardly wept. And he did not sit down at all. No, he would be careful not to sit down. The dishonourable part of him has paid the price of his dishonour. The grown man guilty of an honourable offence is flogged upon his back, but a boy, a nasty dirtyminded boy, is treated differently. Is not that so, Mr. Wellard?”

“Yes, sir,” murmured Wellard. There was nothing else he could say, and an answer was necessary.

“Mr. Booth’s cane was appropriate to the occasion. It did its work well. The malefactor bent over the gun could consider of his misdeeds.”

Wellard inverted the glass again while the captain, apparently satisfied, took a couple of turns up and down the deck, to Bush’s relief. But the captain checked himself in midstride beside Wellard and went on talking; his tone now was highpitched.