y by the
impact on their heads of a tarry fist or pistol-butt. At last a portly
captain began vomiting, and this being contagious, the meal ended; for
even the stomachs of the sailors, overcharged as they were with the
rich food and wine of the cabin table, were affected by the spectacle.

There were cool heads in that crowd of mutineers--men who thought of
consequences: Poop-deck Cahill, square-faced and resolute, but
thoughtful of eye and refined of speech; Seldom Helward, who had shot
the captain--a man whose fiery hair, arching eyebrows, Roman nose, and
explosive language indicated the daredevil, but whose intelligent
though humorous eye and corrugated forehead gave certain signs of
repressive study and thought; and Bigpig Monahan, already described.
These three men went into session under the break of the poop, and came
to the conclusion that the consul who had jailed them for nothing would
hang them for this; then, calling the rest to the conference as a
committee of the whole, they outlined and put to vote a proposition to
make sail and go to sea, leaving the fate of their captives for later
consideration--which was adopted unanimously and with much profanity,
the central thought of the latter being an intention to "make 'em
finish the holystonin' for the fun they had laughin' at us." Then
Bigpig Monahan sneaked below and induced the steward to toss through
the store-room dead-light every bottle of wine and liquor which the
ship contained. "For Seldom and Poop-deck," he said to him, "are the
only men in the gang fit to pick up navigation and git this ship into
port again; but if they git their fill of it, it's all day with you,
steward."

Six second mates on six American ships watched curiously, doubtingly,
and at last anxiously, as sails were dropped and yards mastheaded on
board the _Almena_, and as she paid off from the mooring-buoy before
the land-breeze and showed them her stern, sent six dinghies, which
gave up the pursuit in a few minutes and mustered around the buoy,
where a wastefully slipped shot of anchor-chain gave additional
evidence that all was not right. But by the time the matter was
reported to the authorities ashore, the _Almena_, having caught the
newly arrived southerly wind off the Peruvian coast, was hull down on
the western horizon.

* * * * *

Four days later, one of the _Almena's_ boats, containing twelve men
with sore heads, disfigured faces