Matthew Quintal, if ever again you do such a dastardly, cowardly, brutal
act, I'll take on myself the office of your executioner, and will beat
out your brains. _You_ know me, Quintal; I never threaten twice."

Christian's tone was calm, though firm, but there was something so
deadly in the glare of his clear blue eyes, that Quintal retreated
another step. In doing so he tripped over a root and fell prone upon
the ground.

"Ha!" exclaimed Adams, with a bitter laugh, "you'd better lie still.
It's your suitable position, you blackguard."

Without another word he and Christian turned on their heels and walked
away.

"This is a bad beginning to my new resolves," said Christian, with a
sigh, as they descended the hill.

"A bad beginning," echoed Adams, "to give a well-deserved blow to as
great a rascal as ever walked?"

"No, not exactly that; but--Well, no matter, we'll dismiss the subject,
and go have a lark with the children."

Christian said this with something like a return to his previous
good-humour. A few minutes later they passed under the banyan-tree at
the side of Adams's house, and entered the square of the village, where
children, kittens, fowls, and pigs were disporting themselves in joyous
revelry.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

TYRANTS AND PLOTTERS.

Leaving Christian and Adams to carry out their philanthropic intentions,
we return to Matthew Quintal, whom we left sprawling on the ground in
his garden.

This garden was situated in one of the little valleys not far from
Bounty Bay. Higher up in the same valley stood the hut of McCoy.
Towards this hut Quintal, after gathering himself up, wended his way in
a state of unenviable sulkiness.

His friend McCoy was engaged at the time in smoking his evening pipe,
but that pipe did not now seem to render him much comfort, for he
growled and puffed in a way that showed he was not soothed by it, the
reason being that there was no tobacco in the pipe. That weed,--which
many people deem so needful and so precious that one sometimes wonders
how the world managed to exist before Sir Walter Raleigh put it to its
unnatural use--had at last been exhausted on Pitcairn Island, and the
mutineers had to learn to do without it. Some of them said they didn't
care, and submitted with a good grace to the inevitable. Others growled
and swore and fretted, saying that they knew they couldn't live without
it. To their astonishment, and no doubt to their disgust, they did