t there was
another dash made for me again out of the darkness, and I ran on.

"Look out there, you, sir," cried a voice from behind me; "here comes
one."

This told me that there were enemies in front, and I was ready to dart
anywhere to avoid whoever tried to stop me.

That there was danger I soon found, for struggling, and oaths, and
curses saluted my ears again as I reached the ladder and ran up on to
the poop-deck, just as a shout from near the wheel drove me back.

"Got him?" shouted some one.

"No; where is he?"

I was crouching now under the starboard bulwark, and feeling certain
that in another minute I should be found, I passed my hand upward,
searched about, and found that which I sought, the mizzen-shrouds. The
next minute I had caught well hold with both hands, swung up my feet,
and went on inboard hand over hand till I was twenty feet above the
deck, clinging there in the darkness, and listening to the efforts
made--evidently by three or four men--beneath to find out where I could
be gone.

CHAPTER TEN.

As I clung there in the mizzen-shroud, afraid to stir, hardly daring to
breathe lest I should be heard, and puzzled beyond measure as to what it
could all mean, but feeling all the same certain that something terrible
had happened, and that it was no shipwreck, there was a tremendous
kicking and banging at one of the cabin-doors, and up through the
sky-light came in smothered tones--

"Here, open this, or I'll kick it off the hinges."

"Lie down!" yelled a sharp angry voice from somewhere beneath me, and
there was a flash of a pistol, the loud report, and a few moments after
the smell of the powder rose to my nostrils.

"Jarette," I said to myself, as I recognised the half-French sailor's
voice, and then I felt sure that it was Mr Frewen who had shouted from
one of the cabins where he must be locked in.

"Then it must be a mutiny," I thought, and such a cold paralysing chill
ran through me that I felt as if I should drop down on deck. For the
recollection of all I had read of such affairs taking place in bygone
times flashed through my brain--of officers murdered in cold blood,
ships carried off by the crew to unknown islands, and--yes--I was an
officer, young as I might be, and if the mutineers caught me they would
murder me, as perhaps they had already murdered Captain Berriman and Mr
Brymer.

I felt giddy then, and the wonder has always been to me that I did not
let go and fall.