port, as I had the right."

Another climbed on board.

"We were not helpless," rejoined Elisha. "We had a good jury-rig under
the bows, and we let it go to assist you. Are you the skipper here?"

"I am."

Martin's big fist smote him heavily in the face, and the blow was
followed by the crash of Elisha's belaying-pin on his head. The captain
fell, and for a while lay quiet. There were four big, strong men over
the rail now, and others coming. Opposing them were a second mate, an
engineer, a fireman, coal-passer, watchman, steward, and cook--easy
victims to these big-limbed fishermen. The rest of the crew were on
duty below decks or at the steering-winch. It was a short, sharp
battle; a few pistols exploded, but no one was hurt, and the firearms
were captured and their owners well hammered with belaying-pins; then,
binding all victims as they overcame them, the whole party raided the
steering-winch and engine-room, and the piracy was complete.

But from their standpoint it was not piracy--it was resistance to
piracy; and when Amos, the ex-engineer, had stopped the engines and
banked the fires, they announced to the captives bound to the rail
that, with all due respect for the law, national and international,
they would take that distressed steamboat into New York and deliver her
to the authorities, with a claim for salvage. The bargain had been made
on the American coast, and their log-book not only attested this, but
the well-doing of their part of the contract.

When the infuriated English captain, now recovered, had exhausted his
stock of adjectives and epithets, he informed them (and he was backed
by his steward and engineer) that there was neither food nor coal for
the run to New York; to which Elisha replied that, if so, the foolish
and destructive waste would be properly entered in the log-book, and
might form the basis of a charge of barratry by the underwriters, if it
turned out that any underwriters had taken a risk on a craft with such
an "all-fired lunatic" for a skipper as this. But they would go back;
they might be forced to burn some of the woodwork fittings (her decks
were of iron) for fuel, and as for food, though their own supply of
groceries was about exhausted, there were several cubic yards of salt
codfish in the schooner's hold, and this they would eat: they were used
to it themselves, and science had declared that it was good
brain-food--good for feeble-minded Englishmen who couldn't splice w