nd he remained
swaying his body slightly, his arm still above his head. Then, suddenly
it dropped at his side, as though paralysed; and he turned away from
me.

"Get to your kennel," said he; "and don't leave it till I fetch you."

I was glad to escape, if only for a few moments, from the danger of it;
and I went to my cabin in the upper gallery, but not before the angry
shouts of the men convinced me that Black had risked much on my behalf
for the second time. Even when my own door was locked upon me, such
cries as "You're afeared of him!" "Is he going to boss you, skipper!"
and other jeers were audible to me; and the uproar lasted for some
time, accompanied at last by the sound of blows, and cries as of men
whipped. But no one came to me except the negro who brought my meals;
and whatever danger there was of a mutiny was averted, as Dr. Osbart
told me later in the day, by the appearance of a second passenger ship
on the horizon. The report of the single shot, by which we brought her
to, shook me in my berth, where I lay thinking of the horrid scenes of
the morning; and for some time I scarce dared look from my window, lest
they should be repeated. Only after a long silence did I open the port,
and see a majestic vessel, not a hundred yards from us, with our launch
at her side; and I could make out the forms of our men walking amongst
the passengers and robbing them.

The details of this attack Osbart told me with keen relish when he came
in to smoke a cigar with me after my dinner.

"We stripped them without killing a man," said he with hilarious
satisfaction, "and took fifty thousand. Black's pleased; for, to tell
you the truth, there's an ugly spirit aboard amongst the men, and you
upset them altogether this morning. I never saw another who could have
said what you said to the skipper and have lived; but you mustn't show
on deck for a day or two--they'd murder you to pass time; and, as it
is, we've had to post a man at your door, or I doubt if you'd save your
skin in here."

"You seem to be making a paying cruise," I said sarcastically.

"Yes; and it's funny, for the sea is swarming with war vermin. Don't
you feel the pace we're going now? I expect we're showing our heels to
one of them, and shall show them a good many times between this and the
first of next month, though Karl below is grumbling about the oil
again: you want gallons of it with gas-engines. If we don't pick up the
tender to-morrow, it's a bad