oured
the stuff out into tumblers, and were just tossing them off, when in an
instant, without warning, there came the roar of muskets in our ears,
and the saloon was so full of smoke that we could not see across the
table. When it cleared again the place was a shambles. Wilson and eight
others were wriggling on the top of each other on the floor, and the
blood and the brown sherry on that table turn me sick now when I think
of it. We were so cowed by the sight that I think we should have given
the job up if it had not been for Prendergast. He bellowed like a bull,
and rushed for the door with all that were left alive at his heels. Out
we ran, and there on the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his men.
The swing skylights above the saloon table had been a bit open, and they
had fired on us through the slit. We got on them before they could load,
and they stood to it like men, but we had the upper hand of them, and in
five minutes it was all over. My God! was there ever a slaughter-house
like that ship? Prendergast was like a raging devil, and he picked the
soldiers up as if they had been children and threw them overboard, alive
or dead. There was one sergeant that was horribly wounded, and yet kept
on swimming for a surprising time, until someone in mercy blew out his
brains. When the fighting was over there was no one left of our enemies
except just the warders, the mates, and the doctor.

"It was over them that the great quarrel arose. There were many of us
who were glad enough to win back our freedom, and yet who had no wish
to have murder on our souls. It was one thing to knock the soldiers over
with their muskets in their hands, and it was another to stand by while
men were being killed in cold blood. Eight of us, five convicts and
three sailors, said that we would not see it done. But there was no
moving Prendergast and those who were with him. Our only chance of
safety lay in making a clean job of it, said he, and he would not leave
a tongue with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly came to our
sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he said that if we wished
we might take a boat and go. We jumped at the offer, for we were already
sick of these bloodthirsty doings, and we saw that there would be worse
before it was done. We were given a suit of sailors' togs each, a barrel
of water, two casks, one of junk and one of biscuits, and a compass.
Prendergast threw us over a chart, told us that we were shipw