recking-gear, and swung it
threateningly. About eight of the men and boys, including young Cormick
Nolan, Nick Leary and Bill Brennen, stood away from the others, out of
line of the skipper's frantic gestures and bruising words. Some of them
were loyal, some simply more afraid of Black Dennis Nolan than of
anything else in the world. But fear, after all, is an important element
in a certain quality of devotion.

The main party were somewhat shaken. A few of them growled back at the
skipper; but not quite loud enough to claim his attention to them in
particular. Some eyed him apprehensively, while others broke open the
ship's and passengers' boxes. They found minted money only in one of the
captain's dispatch-boxes--two small but weighty bags of gold containing
about two hundred sovereigns in all. This was the money which the dead
captain had been armed with by his owners against harbor-dues, etc. The
funds which the passengers must have possessed had doubtless been flung
overboard and under along with the unfortunate beings who had clung to
them. The sullen, greedy fellows began to count and divide the gold.
They were slow, suspicious, grasping. The skipper, having fallen to a
glowing silence at last, watched them for a minute or two with a bitter
sneer on his face. Then he turned and set out briskly for Chance Along.
The loyal and fearful party followed him, most of them with evident
reluctance. A few turned their faces continually to gaze at the
distributing of the gold and gear. The skipper noted this with a
sidelong, covert glance.

"Don't ye be worryin', men. Ye'll have yer fill afore long, so help me
Saint Peter!" he exclaimed. "No man who stands by me, an' knows me for
master, goes empty!"

He did not speak another word on the way or so much as look at his
followers. He strode along swiftly, thinking hard. He could not blink
the fact that the needless deaths of the three men in the cabin of the
_Royal William_ had weakened his position seriously. He could not blink
the ugly fact that the day's activities had bred a mutiny--and that the
mutiny had not yet been faced and broken. It was still breeding. The
poison was still working. In a fit of blind anger and unreasoning
disgust he had fed the spirit of rebellion with gold. He had shattered
with his foot what he had built with his hands. The work of mastery was
all to do over again. He had taught them that his rights were four
shares to one--and now he had given