ed, others swore, and
one suggested that Gaff should be thrown overboard.

This latter, who was a big strong man, and a sort of bully among his
mates, shook his fist at Gaff, and said--

"Now, I'll tell ye wot it is, Mister Toogood, if you go for to tell the
cap'n wot we've bin a-talkin' about, I'll knock yer two daylights into
one, so see that ye keep yer tongue in order."

"What's past is past," said Gaff quietly; "but I tell ye plainly, that
if you let _your_ tongues go the same pace again in my hearin', I'll go
aft and report ye. I'll be no spy, but I give ye fair warnin'."

At this the bully lost command of himself. Seizing an iron bar that lay
on a chest close by, he rushed at Gaff with the evident intention of
felling him. But the latter was on his guard. He was active and
powerful too, besides being quite cool. Leaping nimbly aside, he
avoided the bully's onset, and at the same moment laid him flat on the
deck with one blow of his fist.

"Sarves him right!"

"So it does!" exclaimed several of the men, who were not sorry to see
one whom they disliked so roughly handled.

"Well, so it does sarve him right," added one who had been a prominent
speaker in the recent debates; "but hark'ee, friend," he said, turning
to Gaff with a scowl, "you can't knock the whole crew down in that
fashion. I advise ye, for your own sake, to mind what ye're about."

"I means to do so," said Gaff; "I'll stick to my dooty and to the
cap'n."

"Very good," replied the other with a sneer, "then wotiver is the
cap'n's fate you'll have the pleasure of sharin' it with him."

"Tumble up there! tumble up, an' reef tops'ls!" roared the captain down
the hatch at that moment.

The men obeyed, and for the time their mutinous intentions seemed to
have been dismissed. For many weeks after this Gaff heard nothing that
could lead him to suppose that the men still harboured their dark
designs. Yet the state of affairs on board became worse and worse. The
captain cursed and tyrannised more than ever, and the men grew sulkier
and more wretched, but no word of a murderous nature was ever uttered in
the hearing of Gaff or his little son.

As for Billy his small mind had received such a rude shock by the sudden
and terrible change in his circumstances, that he seemed to have lost
all his wonted vivacity as well as his mischief. In fact, both
qualities, or tendencies, had been thoroughly kicked out of him before
he had been a week on b