nally laid,
and held fast--as if they had fallen into the jaws of those terrible
_tintoreras_, they so lately looked at keeping company with the ship!

CHAPTER SIXTY.

THE SCUTTLERS.

Harry Blew is in the hold, Bill Davis beside him.

They are standing on the bottom-timbers on a spot they have selected for
their wicked work, and which they have had some difficulty in finding.
They have reached it, by clambering over sandal-wood logs, cases of
Manilla cigars, and piles of tortoise-shell. Clearing some of these
articles out of the way, they get sight of the vessel's ribs, and at a
point they know to be under the water-line. They know also that a hole
bored between their feet, though ever so small, will in due time fill
the barque's hold with water, and send her to the bottom of the sea.

Davis, auger in hand, stands in readiness to bore the hole; waiting for
the first officer to give the word.

But something stays the latter from giving it, as the former from
commencing the work.

It is a thought that seems to occur simultaneously to both, bringing
their eyes up to one another's faces, in a fiance mutually
interrogative. Blew is the first to put it in speech.

"Dang me, if I like to do it!"

"Ye've spoke my mind exact, Mr Blew!" rejoins Davis. "No more do I."

"'Tan't nothing short of murder," pursues the chief mate. "An' that's
just why I an't up to it; the more, as there an't any downright
needcessity. As I sayed to them above, I can see no good reason for
sinking the ship. She'd sail right out, an' we'd never hear word o' her
again. An' if them to be left 'board o' her shud get picked up, what
matters that to us? We'll be out o' the way, long afore they could go
anywhere to gi'e evidence against us. Neer a fear o' their ever findin'
us--neyther you nor me, anyhow. I dare say, Davis, you mean to steer
for some port, where we're not likely to meet any more Spaniards. I do,
when I've stowed my share o' the plunder."

"Yes; I'm for Australia, soon's I can get there. That's the place for
men like me."

"There you'll be safe enough. So I, where I intend goin'. And we'll
both feel better, not havin' a ugly thing to reflect back on. Which we
would, if we send these three poor creeturs to Davy's locker. Now, I
propose to you what you heerd me say to the rest: let's gi'e them a
chance for their lives."

"And not do this?"

As he puts the question, Davis points his auger to the bottom of the