eighteen hundred tons, was coming more than
usually close about the point to reach her moorings; and I was observing
her with languid inattention, when I observed two men to stride across
the bulwarks, drop into a shore boat, and, violently dispossessing the
boatman of his oars, pull toward the landing where I stood. In a
surprisingly short time they came tearing up the steps, and I could see
that both were too well dressed to be foremast hands--the first even
with research, and both, and especially the first, appeared under the
empire of some strong emotion.

"Nearest police office!" cried the leader.

"This way," said I, immediately falling in with their precipitate pace.
"What's wrong? What ship is that?"

"That's the _Gleaner_," he replied. "I am chief officer, this
gentleman's third, and we've to get in our depositions before the crew.
You see, they might corral us with the captain, and that's no kind of
berth for me. I've sailed with some hard cases in my time, and seen pins
flying like sand on a squally day--but never a match to our old man. It
never let up from the Hook to the Farallones, and the last man was
dropped not sixteen hours ago. Packet rats our men were, and as tough a
crowd as ever sand-bagged a man's head in; but they looked sick enough
when the captain started in with his fancy shooting."

"O, he's done up," observed the other. "He won't go to sea no more."

"You make me tired," retorted his superior. "If he gets ashore in one
piece, and isn't lynched in the next ten minutes, he'll do yet. The
owners have a longer memory than the public, they'll stand by him; they
don't find as smart a captain every day in the year."

"O, he's a son of a gun of a fine captain; there ain't no doubt of
that," concurred the other heartily. "Why, I don't suppose there's been
no wages paid aboard that _Gleaner_ for three trips."

"No wages?" I exclaimed, for I was still a novice in maritime affairs.

"Not to sailor-men before the mast," agreed the mate. "Men cleared out;
wasn't the soft job they maybe took it for. She isn't the first ship
that never paid wages."

I could not but observe that our pace was progressively relaxing; and,
indeed, I have often wondered since whether the hurry of the start were
not intended for the gallery alone. Certain it is, at least, that when
we had reached the police office, and the mates had made their
deposition, and told their horrid tale of five men murdered--some with
sava