d was coming bravely
toward the captain; but before he could reach him his arms were
pinioned from behind by Mr. Hansen, who had run up the poop steps.

"What is dis, onnyway?" he asked. "Mudiny, I dink?"

"Let go," said the other, furiously. "You shall suffer for this, you
scoundrels. Let go of my arms." He struggled wildly; but Mr. Hansen was
strong.

Mr. Knapp had regained his feet and a few of his faculties. His
conqueror was senseless on the deck, but this other mutineer was still
active in rebellion. So, while the approving captain looked on in
brass-knuckled dignity, he sprang forward and struck, with strength
born of his rage and humiliation, again and again at the man helpless
in the arms of Mr. Hansen, until his battered head sank supinely
backward, and he struggled no more. Then Mr. Hansen dropped him.

"Lay aft, here, a couple o' hands," thundered the captain from the
break of the poop, and two awe-struck men obeyed him. The whole crew
had watched the fracas from forward, and the man at the wheel had
looked unspeakable things; but no hand or voice had been raised in
protest. One at a time they carried the unconscious men to the
forecastle; then the crew mustered aft at another thundering summons,
and listened to a forceful speech by Captain Bacon, delivered in quick,
incisive epigrams, to the effect that if a man aboard his ship--whether
he believed himself shipped or shanghaied, a sailor, a priest, a
policeman, or a dry-nurse--showed the slightest hesitation at obeying
orders, or the slightest resentment at what was said to him, he would
be punished with fists, brass knuckles, belaying-pins, or
handspikes,--the officers were here for that purpose,--and if he
persisted, he would be shot like a mad dog. They could go forward.

They went, and while the watch on deck, under the supervision of the
second mate, finished coiling down the tow-line, the watch below
finished their breakfast, and when the stricken ones had recovered
consciousness, advised them, unsympathetically, to submit and make the
best of it until the ship reached Hong-Kong, where they could all "jump
her" and get better berths.

"For if ye don't," concluded an Irishman, "I take it ye'll die, an'
take sam wan of us wid ye; fur this is an American ship, where the
mates are hired fur the bigness o' their fists an' the hardness o'
their hearts. Look pleasant, now, the pair o' ye; an' wan o' ye take
this hash-kid back to the galley."

The la