us latitudes; and I
there and then resolved to do everything that in me lay to facilitate
such a _coup_ on the first suitable occasion.

Meanwhile, it was little short of madness for the men to drink to excess
under the then prevailing conditions of weather and situation; and I
determined to remonstrate with O'Gorman for permitting such perilous
indulgence. So I went aft and took the wheel, directing the man whom I
relieved to ask O'Gorman to come aft, as I wished to speak to him.

The fellow slouched away forward, lurching and slipping along the wet
decks, and disappeared down the fore-scuttle. I deemed it not
improbable that he would avail himself of the opportunity to help
himself to another drink, and that it might possibly be quite five
minutes, or even ten, before he returned aft to resume his duty; but a
full half-hour elapsed, and still the fellow remained invisible. I had
by this time very nearly come to the end of my stock of patience, and
was on the point of yelling to the cook--who kept close as a limpet to
the shelter of his galley, with the weather-door fast shut--to run to
the forecastle and summon someone to relieve me, when I became aware of
a din of excited shouts and yells arising from the fore-scuttle, that
momentarily grew in intensity until the disturbance was violent enough
to suggest that all pandemonium had broken adrift in that small
forecastle. The cook, from his position, in the galley, heard the row
much more distinctly than I did, and, forsaking his pots and pans,
rushed forward, where he stood gaping down through the scuttle in an
attitude expressive of combined interest and consternation. I shouted
to him to let me know what it all meant, but his attention was so
completely absorbed by what was happening below that he had no ears for
me; while, as for me, I had my hands quite full with the brig, and dared
not release my grasp of the wheel for a single instant lest she should
broach-to and get her decks swept, or possibly be dismasted.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A DOUBLE TRAGEDY.

The rumpus continued for nearly ten minutes, and then quite suddenly
ceased; and as it did so the cook flung his legs over the coamings of
the fore-scuttle, and disappeared down the hatchway. Some five minutes
or so later, O'Gorman appeared on deck, ghastly white, and with his
cheek laid open in a gash that extended very nearly from his left ear to
the corresponding corner of his mouth. The blood was tri