was fired, and he did not change a muscle,
and I thought Whiteman had missed him, but, looking down to his breast, I
saw blood reddening his shirt front, and at once his arms dropped limply
at his sides and he fell in a heap at our feet on the deck. When they saw
their champion go down the men raised a wild yell and shouting, "Kill
them; throw them overboard," they seized axes, hand spikes, pieces of
lumber and whatever could be used as weapons which they found around the
deck, and came pouring aft to attack us. Some of the officers of the
regiment were sick, some on detached duty, some were absent on furlough,
and some on shore, so there were just sixteen of us to face the torrent.
Without a word of command, perhaps by that instinct born of years of
military service, we lined up across the quarter deck, each with a
revolver in each hand. It seemed as if we would be swept away in a minute,
but not a shot was fired, and they came pouring aft. Presently I saw one
or two of those in front drop back and let others get ahead, and presently
all stopped and glared at us like wild beasts. Then one threw down his axe
and another his handspike and they all sneaked off toward the bow of the
ship. Then we knew we had conquered. There was a thirty pounder Parrott
gun lashed to the rail on the quarter deck, and, sending for the howitzer
crews, we ordered the gun unlashed and the muzzle swung out so it swept
the deck forward, and made them load it with cannister. Then we sent for
the band and we sat around on the quarter deck with our revolvers in our
hands and made them play for about an hour, but at every pause in the
music we could hear the dying groans of the man shot. The surgeon had laid
him on a blanket on the deck where he fell, and so great was his vitality
that he lived for two days. Before that, while I was still in the
infantry, I was in a fight where the man behind me was killed and the man
first on my left was wounded, and I had a bullet through my coat, which
happily did not touch the hide, all in about five minutes, and I thought
that was pretty strenuous; but I can say it was but a Sunday School picnic
compared to the time when, in the fading light of a summer day, sixteen of
us lined up across the quarter deck of the old steamship Meteor and faced
a howling, rushing mob of 700 half-drunken devils in the absolute
assurance that we had found the place where without poetry or trimmings we
must either conquer or die.

The