mething practical. Here is young Grenvile, who, being a
navy man, may be supposed to know how to deal with an awkward situation.
Here is a pretty kettle of fish, sir," he continued, turning to me.
"The ship is ashore! The captain has blown his brains out--so they say!
And, last but not least, the crew, headed by the boatswain, has
mutinied against the authority of Mr Carter--whom they have thrust in
here among us--and absolutely refuse to listen to reason in any shape or
form! Now I ask you, as an officer in his Most Gracious Majesty's navy,
what is to be done, sir; what are the proper steps to be taken to
extricate ourselves from this infernal predicament?"

"The first thing, general," said I, "is to let me hear Carter's story,
which will probably give me a fairly accurate idea of the precise
situation of affairs. Where is he?"

"Here I am, Mr Grenvile," replied the man himself, edging his way
toward me through the crowd.

"Now," said I, "please tell us precisely what you know about this very
extraordinary affair."

"Well, sir," was the answer, "I really don't know so very much about it,
when all's told; but I'm not very greatly surprised. The way that
things have been going aboard this ship, ever since poor Cap'n Matthews
died, has been enough to prepare a man for anything, mutiny included. I
had the middle watch last night, and, as you know--or perhaps you don't
know--it was very overcast and dark all through the watch, so it's not
very surprisin' that I saw nothing of the land, even if it was in
sight--which I doubt, seein' that it's low--and Cap'n Williams, who
ought to have known that we was drawin' in close upon the coast, never
gave me any warning of the ship's position, or said anything about
keepin' an extra good look-out, or anything of that sort. Consequently,
when the bo's'un relieved me at four o'clock this mornin', I didn't pass
on any particular caution to him. As a matter of fact I hadn't a notion
that we were anywhere near the land! Consequently, when the commotion
of haulin' down and clewin' up awoke me, and when, upon rushin' out on
deck to see what was the matter, I found that the ship was ashore, I was
regularly flabbergasted! But I hadn't much time for surprise, or
anything else either, for the skipper was on deck and in charge; and I
must confess that the cool way in which he took everything made me think
that he wasn't nearly so surprised at what had happened as by rights he
ought