ur wrestling
with the main hatch. Together we dragged it into position, forcing
relentlessly back as we did so, a dozen struggling figures frantically
endeavoring to reach the deck. Shots were fired, the bullets whistling
through the opening, the flare lighting up the black depths below,
revealing vaguely a mass of frantic men staring up, and cursing us
fiercely in a dozen languages; but, in spite of them, we clamped the
hatch down tight, and locked it securely into place with an iron bar.
Even through this cover the sound of smothered yells reached our ears,
mingled with blows of gun-butts, as the fellows vainly endeavored to
break out from their prison. The negro Sam grinned from ear to ear,
executing a jig, as he flashed his cutlass above his head.

"Stay here, all four of you," I commanded sharply. "This job is well
done. Now let me see about the others."

Watkins needed no help; he had his party rounded up, and in complete
control, the fellows begging for mercy, as they crouched before the
cutlasses of their assailants. To my orders they were driven into the
cook's galley and a guard stationed at the door. Then I turned to the
more serious work confronting me in the forecastle. What lay before me
in facing the members of the starboard watch it was impossible to
conceive, but they had to be sorted out, and it was my task. We must
have men enough to sail the bark, and if I was to command them, I must
first of all prove my courage and enforce authority. The whole success
of our effort depended on this.

"What's going on below?" I asked.

"Cursin' mostly," answered Carter, peering down through a slight
uptilting of the scuttle. "They don't just know what's happening yet,
but the big nigger seems ter be raisin' hell. Carlson is a holdin' him
back with his cutlass."

"Open up and let me down."

I fell, rather than clambered along the rungs of the ladder, coming to
my feet on deck in the midst of a group of angry men, who had Carlson
pinned against the bulkhead. The light was so poor I could scarcely
see their faces; a babel of voices greeted me, and more than one hand
gripped me fiercely as the excited owner yelped a demand to know what
in hell we were up to. I roughly cleared a space, aided by Carlson's
cutlass, and fronted them defiantly. Towering above them all, his
black apelike face, distorted with rage, I distinguished the giant
Cochose, his immense hands grasping a wooden bar ripped from a bunk.
Plainly en