an' shippin' as such. One o' 'em, for want o' a
better, war made second mate--his name bein' entered on the books as
Padilla. He war the last o' the three swung up, an' if ever man
desarved hangin', he did, bein' the cruellest scoundrel o' the lot.

"After we'd waited another day or two, an' no more makin' appearance,
the skipper made up his mind to sail. Then the old gentleman, along wi'
the two saynoreetas, came aboard; when we cleared an' stood out to sea.

"Afore leavin' port, I had a suspishun about the sort o' crew we'd
shipped. But soon's we are fairly afloat, it got to be somethin' worse
than suspishun; I war sartin then we'd an ugly lot to deal with. Still,
I only believed them to be bad men--an', if that war possible, worse
seamen. I expected trouble wi' them in sailin' the vessel; an' a
likelihood o' them bein' disobedient. But on the second night after
leavin' land, I found out somethin' o' a still darker stripe--that they
war neither more nor less than a gang o' piratical conspirators, an' had
a plan already laid out. A lucky chance led to me discoverin' their
infarnal design. The two we've agreed to let go off--Jack Striker an'
Bill Davis--both old birds from the convict gangs o' Australia--war
talkin' it over atween themselves, an' I chanced to overhear them. What
they sayed made everythin' clear--as it did my hair to stand on eend.
Twar a scheme to plunder the ship o' the gold-dust Don Gregorio hed got
in her; an' carry off your young ladies. Same time they war to scuttle
the vessel, an' sink her; first knockin' the old gentleman on the head,
as well as the skipper; whiles your humble sarvint an' the darkey are to
be disposed o' same sweet fashion.

"On listenin' to the dyabolikal plot, I war clear dumfoundered, an' for
a while didn't know what to do. 'Twar a case o' life an' death to some
o' us; an' for the saynoreetas, somethin' worse. At first I thort o'
telling Captain Lantanas, an' also Don Gregorio. But then I seed if I
shud, that 'twould only make death surer to all as were doomed. I
knowed the skipper to be a man o' innocent, unsuspishus nature, an'
mightn't gi'e belief to such 'trocious rascality, as bein' a thing
possible. More like he'd let out right away, an' bring on the bloody
bizness sooner than they intended it. From what Striker and Davis said,
I made out that it war to be kept back, till we should sight land near
Panyma.

"Well; after a big spell o' thinkin', I seed