another lay in his bunk cut to ribbons.

At this juncture Rogers, Evans, and Lobardi put their heads together and
quietly dumped overboard the liquor supply. Captain Rogers was the
ablest seaman among the officers, and he it was that worked the brig.
But Bully Evans was the real leader of the pirates. He was a big man, of
tremendous vitality and strength, and he ruled like a czar, hazing his
men into submission by sheer brutality.

One specimen of his methods must serve to illustrate a week of battle,
every hour filled with disorder. The brig _Truxillo_, consort of the
_Santa Theresa_, had appeared in the offing one morning and hung on in
chase with all sail set. All day and night the two ships raced, the one
to escape, the other to capture the pirates.

Next morning there came up a heavy fog. Orders were given to about ship.
Nothing could have amazed the crew more, and mutiny was instantly in the
air. The malcontents whispered together and sent forward a committee of
three to voice their refusal to comply with the order.

Before a dozen words had been spoken Evans stepped forward and flung the
spokesman from the quarterdeck. While the other two hesitated he was
upon them, had cracked their heads together, and hammered them down the
steps to the waist.

From his belt he whipped two pistols and leveled them at the grumblers.

"Avast, you lubbers!" he bellowed. "By the powers, I'll learn you to
play horse with Bully Evans! Pipe up your complaint or foot it, you
flabby seacocks what call yourselves gentlemen of fortune! Stow my quid,
but I'll send some of you to feed the fishes if you try to make the
f'c'sle rule the quarterdeck. Come, pipe up!"

They did not say much of what was in their minds, for he took the words
out of their mouths, berating them for meddlesome fools and explaining
how their sole chance of escaping was to slip past the _Truxillo_ in the
fog and shake off the pursuit. All this he roared with the foulest of
accompanying oaths, treating the crew like dogs so effectively that they
turned tail and gave up without a blow.

On the morning of the third day after this the _Santa Theresa_ poked her
nose into San Miguel Gulf on the southern coast of Panama. The captain
took her across the gulf into Darien Harbor, then followed the southern
branch practically to the head of the bay, at which point he anchored.

Tired of being confined aboard the ship, the crew were eager to get
ashore. This suited the p