ast men had preferred entrusting their chances to obeying the
captain, whose effectiveness had been proven, to casting their lots with
their mates. These were busy at the tackle. On the deck level howled and
fought the mutineers. Already corpses were cluttering the space at the
foot of the steep ladder that gave--and denied--access to the bridge.
Probably the revolver shots we had heard as we groped our way from our
cabin had been the chief officer's terse response to the first mad rush
for that stairway. Now as he awaited the lowering away, Coulter stood
above, looking down on the sickening confusion with a grim expression
which was almost amusement. The fighting went on below where the
frantic, terror-stricken fellows swarmed and grappled and swayed and
disabled each other in the effort to gain the ladder. But when someone
rose out of the maelstrom and struggled upward it was only to be knocked
back by the ax, upon which, in the brief intervals between assaults,
Coulter leaned contemplating the battle-royal. The revolver he had put
back in his pocket. It was not needed, and he was conserving its
effectiveness for another moment.

In telling it, the picture seems clear enough, but in the seeing, it was
a thing of horrible and tangled details, enacted as swiftly as a
moving-picture film run too rapidly on its reel.

There were shouts and quick staccato orders piercing the blending of
terrorized voices--an oath snapped out--a shriek--a struggling mass--a
desperate run up the ladder--hands straining aloft to pull down the
climber and clear the way--a swift blow from above, a thud on the deck
below--a sickening vision of slaughter. Over it all pounded the
hammering racket from the disorganized engines. Soon came the stench of
smoke and out of one of the after hatches mounted a thin tongue of
orange flame, snapping and sputtering vengefully for a moment, then
leaping up with a suddenly augmented roar. The twin elements of
destruction, water and fire, were vying in the work of annihilation.

I turned my head for an instant to look back at the new menace, and
clutched Mansfield's arm. Aloof with folded arms against the rail,
making no effort to participate in the riot, stood young Lawrence. The
fast-spreading flames lit up his face. His attitude and expression were
those of quiet disgust. His lips were set in scorn for the superlative
excitement of his fellows. He was the stoic awaiting the end, with a
smile of welcome for