ke the rest of us? I remembered now
that on several occasions I had seen him fraternising with the men
for'ard during the dog-watches; but I had thought nothing of it at the
time beyond reflecting that to me it seemed to be rather bad form on his
part, and not by any means conducive to good discipline.

As I recalled these occasions to mind, while I lay there in that close,
evil-smelling bunk, I idly wondered whether he had used them for the
purpose of seducing the men from their duty and allegiance and
persuading them to join him in this outrageous act of unprovoked mutiny.
For unprovoked it most assuredly was: the owners were most liberal
providers, the food was the best obtainable, and the allowance of it far
exceeded the Board of Trade scale; the men had grog as well as lime
juice served out to them regularly every day; the skipper was easy-going
with them to a degree; and neither of the mates could, by the wildest
stretch of imagination, be termed a slave-driver, although of course
both exacted a certain amount of daily work; and, finally, the afternoon
watch below was never called upon except when necessity demanded it; in
short, the _Zenobia_ was as comfortable a ship as any sailor need wish
to go to sea in. No; I was certain that this atrocious seizure of the
ship had not originated in discontent on the part of the men, who were
neither better nor worse than the average British seaman. They had been
played upon by skilful hands; their baser passions had been so strongly
appealed to that their better judgment had been blinded; and I felt
morally convinced that there was not a man among the legitimate
occupants of the forecastle who possessed the ability to do this thing.

Then, I asked myself, who was the master spirit who had contrived so
effectually to blind and mislead those simple-minded men, and so
powerfully to influence them that they had eventually permitted
themselves to be betrayed into an act that converted them into outlaws,
with every man's hand against them? And why had they done it? They had
no grievance, real or imaginary, against any of their officers: that
fact was patent from the manner in which the seizure of the ship had
been effected; there had been none of the brutal violence, the
bloodshed, which usually accompanies a mutiny upon the high seas. Then
why, I mentally repeated, had the men mutinied at all?

And the answer that came to my mind was--Bainbridge! Yes, prejudice and
ill f