While the sea was still running high, the only Frenchman who remained on
deck, as he was coming aft, slipped and fell. Two of the blacks only
were near him. They picked him up, while he cried out with pain,
asserting that he had either broken his arm or put it out of joint. He
insisted on being carried to his hammock, and when Mr Randolph offered
to try and doctor him, he shrieked out and declared that he could not
bear the pain of being touched. At last we were obliged to let him
alone, and then we had all our five prisoners laid up and apparently
useless.

It thus became more important than ever to try once more to stop the
leak. Mr Randolph and Andrews accordingly set about it as they had
done the first time, taking with them two hands. This left only two
others, besides me, on deck, and the three blacks. Negroes have, I have
always fancied, very little command over their countenances, and if a
person is accustomed to watch them, he will always be able to discover,
almost as easily as he would among a party of children, whether there is
anything in the wind. Now, as I saw the negroes moving about the decks,
I felt very sure from the roll of their eyes and the way in which every
now and then they exhibited their teeth, that they had a grand secret
among them. I stepped aft, and telling the man at the helm to be on his
guard, I called Sam Jones, the only other man left on deck, and sent him
down into the cabin to collect all the arms he could find, to load the
pistols and muskets, and to place them just inside the companion-hatch,
so that I could get at them in a moment.

"Now," said I to Jones, "just go forward as if you were thinking of
nothing particular, and then slip quietly down below and tell Mr
Randolph that I think there's something wrong, that he had better be on
his guard and return on deck as quickly as possible. Do you jump up
again without a moment's delay. Get a handspike or anything you can lay
hold of, and keep guard over the fore-hatchway, and see that neither the
blacks nor any of the Frenchmen go down there."

"But the Frenchmen, they can't do any harm; they are all sick in bed,"
observed Jones.

"Don't be too certain of their sickness," I observed. "They may be
sick, but it is just possible that they are shamming, and it is well to
be on the safe side."

Without further delay, Jones went forward to do as I directed him. I
meanwhile stood by the companion-hatch, ready to hand a