pectful distance, the stiffs of the watch made a vague blot in the
gloom. As, we came down the poop ladder a voice I recognized as
Boston's called to us from this last group, "He tried to get you, Big
'Un!" So I knew that the lightning flash had revealed to the watch
what it had revealed to us.

"The brace was slipped," said Newman to Lynch.

"I know," replied the second mate, shortly. There was contempt in his
voice, and I knew, when I looked at his grim, disdainful face, that he
had had no hand in the affair. Bucko Lynch might kill a man in what he
considered the line of duty, but snapping men off a yardarm was not his
style. But I also knew that he was an officer of an American ship, and
would consider it his duty to back up his captain no matter what
villainy the latter attempted.

Swope smiled sweetly at us. One might think that a man, even a ship's
autocrat, when detected in an attempt at cold-blooded murder, would
make some specious explanation of his act. Not Swope. No hypocritical
contrition showed in the face the lantern lighted; rather, a cool,
pitiless inhumanity that squeezed my bowels, even while rage surged
within me.

We had understood that Swope was drunk for the past three days, but the
smiling features showed no mark of his dissipation. Neither did he
exhibit any of the fear he had shown at Newman's sudden appearance the
other afternoon. It was plain that Captain Swope had taken heartening
counsel with himself regarding the danger he might incur from Newman's
presence on board. Whatever was the mysterious feud between the two,
Swope had the upper hand. He rested secure in the knowledge of his
power as captain, in his knowledge of Newman's helplessness as a mere
foremast hand.

And so he smiled, and said musingly, and distinctly, to Newman, "A miss
is as good as a mile, eh? But it is a long passage!" The cool
insolence of it! God's truth, it chilled me, this careless confession
of the deed, and threat of what the future held. And then, as though
to remove the last possible doubt in our minds that the slipping of the
brace was an accident, that the whole job of striking sail was but a
pretext to get Newman aloft, Swope turned to the second mate.

"I think she'll stand it, Mister," he said. "You may as well shake out
the t'gan's'l's again!"

CHAPTER XII

I went below after that watch with the thought of mutiny stirring in
the back of my mind. But in the back, not the fro