ight
here--I'm a free-born citizen. I know my work, and can do it, without
bein' cursed and abused; and if you or your mates rub my fur the wrong
way I'm goin' to claw back; and if I'm shot, you want to shoot sure;
for if you don't, I'll kill that man, if I have to lash my knife to a
broom-handle, and prod him through his window when he's asleep."

But alas for Sinful Peck! He had barely finished his defiance when he
fell like a log under the impact of the big mate's fist; then, while
the pilot, turning his back on the painful scene, walked aft, nodding
and shaking his head, and the captain's strong language and leveled
shot-gun induced the men to an agitated acquiescence, the two officers
kicked and stamped upon the little man until consciousness left him.
Before he recovered he had been ironed to a stanchion in the
'tween-deck, and entered in the captain's official log for threatening
life. And by this time the dunnage had been searched, a few
sheath-knives tossed overboard, and the remaining ten men were moodily
heaving in the chain.

And so, with a crippled crew of schooner sailors, the square-rigger
_Almena_ was towed to sea, smoldering rebellion in one end of her, the
power of the law in the other--murder in the heart of every man on
board.

PART II

Five months later the _Almena_ lay at an outer mooring-buoy in Callao
Roads, again ready for sea, but waiting. With her at the anchorage
were representatives of most of the maritime nations. English ships
and barks with painted ports and spider-web braces, high-sided,
square-sterned American half-clippers, clumsy, square-bowed "Dutchmen,"
coasting-brigs of any nation, lumber-schooners from "'Frisco,"
hide-carriers from Valparaiso, pearl-boats and fishermen, and even a
couple of homesick Malay proas from the west crowded the roadstead; for
the guano trade was booming, and Callao prosperous. Nearly every type
of craft known to sailors was there; but the postman and the policeman
of the seas--the coastwise mail-steamer and the heavily sparred
man-of-war--were conspicuously absent. The Pacific Mail boat would not
arrive for a week, and the last cruiser had departed two days before.

Beyond the faint land- and sea-breeze, there was no wind nor promise of
it for several days; and Captain Benson, though properly cleared at the
custom-house for New York, was in no hurry, and had taken advantage of
the delay to give a dinner to some captains with whom he had
fra