"I descended and mounted to the poop.

"'Ye'll have to take command, sir,' said a big, red-eyed fellow, named
Finnegan. 'Yer the shipped sicond mate, an' it b'langs to ye.'

"'Is the skipper dead?' I asked.

"'Dead, as he ought to be, the murderer! Ye did well, sir!'

"'And Mr. Parker?' I glanced at the quiet, bleeding form at my feet.

"'He's in small pieces, hild togither be his bones.'

"'Not a pleasant prospect for me,' I said; 'but I'm in for it, same as
all of us. We'll have to stand trial; for there's no escape. But
there's a rat down in his hole that we'll have to catch. Look out, or
he'll pot one of you through his window!'

"I spoke at random, yet none too soon. A pistol exploded in the mate's
window, and a man went down, shot through the heart--the last one to
join the rush over to starboard. But the rush continued to the capstan
bar rack amidships, and, armed with these handy clubs, they came back
to batter in the companion. Macklin did not fire again, and I was on
the point of asking him out, to surrender on terms of amnesty and
deposition, when a crashing, grinding jar shook the ship from bow to
stern, and all three topgallant masts went out of her, snapping at the
caps and falling forward. We had struck a rock in midocean.

"There was no more thought of Macklin. As we jumped to the main deck
and ran forward like sheep, the jars and jolts were resumed, working
aft, while the ship reeled far over to leeward. Chips was on deck, and
I got him to sound the well. 'Four feet, and coming in fast!' he
called, and the men rushed for the boats on the forward house, while I
went aft to the wheel. I had never heard of a rock in this part of the
Atlantic, and thought for a moment that we might have hit a submerged
derelict; but soon put that thought away; nothing but solid and jagged
rock could so tear into a ship's bottom.

"'No steerage way, sir,' said the man at the wheel. 'She's fallen off
due south.'

"'Drop your wheel,' I said, 'and lend a hand with the boats.'

"I waited a few moments before following him, looking around at the
prospect. Since I had gone aloft the wind had hauled to the north and
died down to a gentle breeze, which barely ruffled the very slight
ground swell. It was not the pressure of this wind that had driven the
ship over the rock until she hung, pivoted, at a point near the stern;
it was the ship's momentum. The wind, however, had swung her head to
the south, and it was bringing