nning to break. "I've got ye at last, ye durned
nigger. Take thet, an' thet!"

Quick as lightning one report followed another, the bullets coming
whistling by the galley where I was standing.

Jan Steenbock, who was on the poop, hearing the crack of a revolver,
called out something; whereupon Captain Snaggs turned round and aimed
his next shot at him, although, fortunately, it missed the second-mate,
on account of Jan dodging behind the companion hatchway just in the nick
of time.

The captain then made a bound at the poop ladder, and rushed up the
steps swearing awfully; and, first firing at the man at the wheel, whose
arm the bullet penetrated, as soon as he gained the poop, he dived down
the companion in pursuit of Jan Steenbock, who had disappeared below the
booby hatch.

For the next five minutes or more, the ship was in a state of the
wildest confusion, the skipper chasing everyone he could see, and all
trying to get out of his way, as he dashed after them in his frenzy,
rushing, in a sort of desperate game of `catch who catch can,' from the
cabin out on to the maindeck, and then up the poop ladder and down the
companion into the cuddy again, the second-mate, the steward, and
first-mate alike being assailed in turn, and each flying for life before
the frantic madman. At last, just as the captain emerged from the cabin
for the third time, in hot haste after the steward, the other two having
succeeded in concealing themselves, Morris Jones stumbled against a coil
of rope by the mainmast bitts, and, his toe at the same time catching in
a ring bolt, he sprawled his length on the deck.

"Good Lord!" cried the unfortunate steward, panting out the words with
his failing breath. "I'm a dead man! I'm a dead man!"

"By thunder, ye air, ye durned black nigger! Ye air, ez sure ez
snakes!" screamed the skipper, in his delirious rage, mistaking the
Welshman, as he had the others as well, for poor Sam, the recollection
of whom seemed strangely to haunt him the moment the rum got possession
of his senses. "I've swan I'd shoot ye; so, hyar goes, me joker; y'r
last hour hez come, ye bet!"

With these words he pointed his revolver down at Morris Jones, as he lay
rolling on the deck at his feet, and fired.

CHAPTER NINE.

WRECKED!

Although they had not been called yet, for it was only `six bells,' the
watch below had been roused out by the commotion and wild cries and
yells that rang about the deck. Every ma