gone forward to the galley, and surprised the crew at a conference,
and had been detained prisoner by them), so she crawled up the
companion ladder herself, and lurked in the cuddy, waiting for a chance
to speak with Lynch. The Nigger was at the wheel, she said.
Fitzgibbon walked up to him and struck him--as he had struck him many,
many times before. But this time Nigger did not submit--he whipped out
his knife and stabbed the mate. More than that, he grasped the mate in
his powerful arms, dragged him to the taffrail, and flung him
overboard. It happened so quickly that neither Connolly, the
tradesman, nor Lynch, both of whom were on the poop, could interfere.
But Lynch took a shot at Nigger, and perhaps struck him, for Nigger
went over the rail and into the sea with his victim.

It was Nigger, despised, half-lunatic Nigger, who was not in my
reckoning, nor in Swope's, who put the match to the tinder and upset
such carefully laid plans. As I feared, the revolt of the crew blazed
up immediately. My shipmates were eager, too eager. As it turned out,
their precipitancy was to cost them their chance of victory, for they
began to riot while the three tradesmen were still handy to the
roundhouse door, though, indeed, they had no knowledge, as had I, of
the captain's ambuscade.

I staggered into the saloon, and set Newman down upon the divan which
ran around the half-round, and which was but a step from the hatch. He
got to his feet at once, and, though the lady and I stretched out our
arms to catch him, this time he did not fall. He swayed drunkenly, and
hobbled when he took a step, but such was his vitality and so strong
the urge of his will, that life was already returning to his misused
limbs.

It was just then that pandemonium broke out on deck--a shot, a string
of shots and a bedlam of howls and yells. Overhead was bedlam, too.
The skipper's tune changed instanter. He had been singing out to
Mister Lynch to "topsail haul," and to the tradesmen to man the boat
falls--but now he was screaming to the latter in a voice shaken with
excitement--or panic--to regain their posts, to get into the roundhouse
and "turn loose on 'em--pepper 'em! And, for God's sake, throw out the
flares!"

Oh, the Great Eliminator was shocked most unpleasantly In that moment,
I think--to discover, when his trusty mate was overboard, that his
mutinous crew had firearms!

I looked to Newman for orders, for he was now in command of ou