Roberts was not to be deterred so easily from seizing the
only opportunity that had thus far presented itself by which he might
make an effort to regain the command of the ship and his ascendancy over
her crew, nor was he at all the sort of man to be frightened from his
duty by the flourishing of a pistol before his eyes. It was his duty to
nullify this mutiny if he could, and therefore he turned to the men
again.

"Lads," he said, "bethink yourselves. What sort of a future is to be
yours if you persist--?"

Crack! Bainbridge's pistol barked out from the poop, and poor Captain
Roberts reeled back, clutching his breast, from which the red blood was
spouting, into the arms of Mr Bligh, who was standing close by him.
And Bainbridge, startled perhaps at what he had done--for the skipper
had always behaved like a father to him--lost the last vestige of his
self-control, and became in a moment the very personification of a
raving, bloodthirsty maniac. Levelling his still smoking revolver at
Bligh, he commanded the latter, with a very tornado of curses, instantly
to place the body of the captain in the longboat and shove off from the
ship's side forthwith, unless he wished to share the skipper's fate.

Still supporting the swooning body of the captain in his arms, Bligh
allowed his gaze to search in turn the face of each of the armed men who
now clustered round him, and seeing nothing to justify the hope that a
further appeal would meet with the least success, replied:

"All right, my lad, I'm going--worse luck for you! Here, one of you,"--
to the crew--"just drop your shooting-iron for a minute, if you're not
afraid of me, and lend me a hand to lower the skipper over the side,
will ye?" Then, as one of the men mechanically obeyed, the mate
murmured in his ear: "I'm sorry for you silly buckos, for this means the
hang-man's noose for all hands of you. But there's time for you yet.
If you repent before we're out of sight, all you have to do is to bear
up in chase of us and run the ensign up to the fore royal-mast-head. I
shall know what that means, and you'll have no reason to regret it. Now
then," aloud, as the two took the skipper's body between them,
"handsomely does it. Below there, boatswain, just ease the captain
down, and lay him in the main sheets where the doctor can get to work
upon him."

Between them they somehow contrived to get the unfortunate skipper's
body down the side and into the sternsheets of