little gal dere don't want it done. You can talk
an' argufy fo' fourteen years, but it won't do no good. De only way
you can finish up de job am by killin' me fust."

The foregoing is the substance of the protests and replies of the two
parties to the angry discussion. It so happened, as we have shown,
that the African held the balance of power. He was strong and
courageous, and he was armed and ready to fight, and they knew it.
They did not dare to attack him openly, where the result was so likely
to be disastrous to both, and they were compelled to fall in with his
scheme of saving the captain, though it can well be understood that it
was the most distasteful thing to which they could consent.

This discussion lasted but a few minutes; but, as we have said, it was
improved by Captain Bergen, who saw that the wisest course for him to
pursue was to remove the cause as far as practical. He walked backward
a few steps until he was some way off, when he turned about, still
holding the hand of Inez in his, and they continued until a number of
palm-trees intervened, when he sped so rapidly that the child was kept
on a run to maintain her place at his side. She had ceased her crying,
but her face and eyes were red, and she was in an apprehensive,
nervous and almost hysterical condition from the terrible scene she
had witnessed--a scene such as should never be looked upon by one of
her tender years.

A minute later Captain Bergen caught sight of the trimly-built
schooner lying at rest in the lagoon, close to the shore, and his
heart gave a throb of hope, that, if he could once secure position on
her deck, he would be able to hold his own against the mutineers.

During the next few hurried minutes occupied in the passage to the
schooner, the conviction had grown upon him that this mercy which had
spared his life for a brief while would not be continued. Pomp Cooper
would not continue to be his friend after his spasm of affection for
Inez should spend itself, and devoid as the African was of intellect,
he was likely to understand that the true course of the party who had
entered upon the villainy was to make thorough work of it.

The captain saw the three men still talking and gesticulating angrily
when he reached the schooner.

In a twinkling he had lifted Inez upon the deck, and then he sprang
after her. He ran into the cabin, reappearing in an instant with the
three loaded rifles.

"Now," said he, with a sigh of relie