nd made my answer.

"I'll give you water willingly, men, if you'll show me where it is to
be found," said I; "but we cannot give what we haven't got, and that's
common sense! We're dry here, and if it's bad luck for one it's bad
luck for all. The glass says rain," I went on; "we'll wait for it
together and have done with all this nonsense."

They heard me to the end; but ignorant, perhaps, of my meaning they
continued to whine, "Water, water," and when I must repeat that we
had no water, one of them, leaping up in the boat, fired his rifle
point-blank at Captain Nepeen, who fell without a word stone-dead at
my side.

"Great God!" said I, "they've shot the captain dead."

The suddenness of it was awful; just a gun flashing, a gasping cry, an
honest man leaping up and falling lifeless. And then something that
would never move or speak again. The crews themselves, I do believe,
were as dazed by it as we were. They could have shot us, I witness,
where we stood, every man of us, but, in God's mercy, they never
thought of that; and turning on their own man, they tore the rifle from
his hand and, striking him down with a musket, they sent him headlong
into the sea.

"Witness we've no part in it!" they roared. "Jake Bilbow did it, and he
was always a bad 'un! You won't charge fifty with one man's deed! To
hell with the arms, mate--we've no need of 'em!"

Well, we heard them in amazement. Not a man had moved among us; the
body was untouched at our feet. From the boats themselves ruffians were
casting their rifles pell-mell into the sea. Never at the wildest
hazard would I have named this for the end of it. They cast their
rifles into the sea and rowed unarmed about us. To the end of it, I
think, they feared the gun with a fear that was nameless and lasting,
nor did they know that the turret was empty--how should they?

It was a swift change; to me it seemed as though the day had conjured
up this wonder. None the less, the perplexity of it remained, nor could
I choose a course even under these new circumstances. Of water I had
none to give; our own circumstances, indeed, were little better than
that of these unhappy creatures in the boats about me. The sea flooded
the house below us; the great engine no longer throbbed; our women were
huddled together at the stairs-head, seeking air and light; the fogs
loom heavy on Ken's Island; no ship's sail brought hope to our horizon.
What should I say, then, to the mutineers, how an