s to passing tugs or small
sailing-craft. They, too, might have welcomed the police boat.

But, either because the _Almena_ lay too far over on the Jersey flats
for the flag to be noticed, or because harbor police share the
fallibility of their shore brethren in being elsewhere when wanted, no
shiny black steamer with blue-coated guard appeared to investigate the
trouble, and it was well on toward three o'clock before a tug left the
beaten track to the eastward and steamed over to the ship. The officers
took her lines as she came alongside, and two men climbed the
side-ladder--one, a Sandy Hook pilot, who need not be described; the
other, the captain of the ship.

Captain Benson, in manner and appearance, was as superior to the
smooth-shaven and manly-looking Mr. Jackson as the latter was to the
misformed, hairy, and brutal second mate. With his fashionably cut
clothing, steady blue eye, and refined features, he could have been
taken for an easy-going club-man or educated army officer rather than
the master of a working-craft. Yet there was no lack of seamanly
decision in the leap he made from the rail to the deck, or in the tone
of his voice as he demanded:

"What's the police flag up for, Mr. Jackson?"

"Mutiny, sir. They started in to lick me 'fore turning to, and we've
shot five, but none of them fatally."

"Lower that flag--at once."

Mr. Becker obeyed this order, and as the flag fluttered down the
captain received an account of the crew's misdoing from the mate. He
stepped into his cabin, and returning with a double-barreled shot-gun,
leaned it against the booby-hatch, and said quietly: "Call all hands
aft who can come."

Mr. Jackson delivered the order in a roar, and the eleven men forward,
who had been watching the newcomers from the forecastle-deck, straggled
aft and clustered near the capstan, all of them hatless and coatless,
shivering palpably in the keen December air. With no flinching of their
eyes, they stared at Captain Benson and the pilot.

"Now, men," said the captain, "what's this trouble about? What's the
matter?"

"Are you the captain here?" asked a red-haired, Roman-nosed man, as he
stepped out of the group. "There's matter enough. We ship for a run
down to Rio Janeiro and back in a big schooner; and here we're put
aboard a square-rigged craft, that we don't know anything about, bound
for Callao, and 'fore we're here ten minutes we're howled at and shot.
Bigpig Monahan thinks he's goin