any rate I merely
retained my position at the break of the poop and looked on. I was the
only person on the poop when the mutineers, led by the second mate and
the gangsters, rushed it. I saw them swarm up the ladder, and it never
entered my head to attempt to oppose them. Which was just as well, for I
would have been killed for my pains, and I could never have stopped them.

I was alone on the poop, and the men were quite perplexed to find no
enemy in sight. As Bert Rhine went past, he half fetched up in his
stride, as if to knife me with the sheath knife, sharp-pointed, which he
carried in his right hand; then, and I know I correctly measured the
drift of his judgment, he unflatteringly dismissed me as unimportant and
ran on.

Right here I was impressed by the lack of clear-thinking on any of their
parts. So spontaneously had the ship's company exploded into mutiny that
it was dazed and confused even while it acted. For instance, in the
months since we left Baltimore there had never been a moment, day or
night, even when preventer tackles were rigged, that a man had not stood
at the wheel. So habituated were they to this, that they were shocked
into consternation at sight of the deserted wheel. They paused for an
instant to stare at it. Then Bert Rhine, with a quick word and gesture,
sent the Italian, Guido Bombini, around the rear of the half-wheelhouse.
The fact that he completed the circuit was proof that nobody was there.

Again, in the swift rush of events, I must confess that I saw but little.
I was aware that more of the men were climbing up the ladder and gaining
the poop, but I had no eyes for them. I was watching that sanguinary
group aft near the wheel and noting the most important thing, namely,
that it was Bert Rhine, the gangster, and not the second mate, who gave
orders and was obeyed.

He motioned to the Jew, Isaac Chantz, who had been wounded earlier in the
voyage by O'Sullivan, and Chantz led the way to the starboard chart-house
door. While this was going on, all in flashing fractions of seconds,
Bert Rhine was cautiously inspecting the lazarette through the open booby-
hatch.

Isaac Chantz jerked open the chart-house door, which swung outward.
Things did happen so swiftly! As he jerked the iron door open a two-foot
hacking butcher knife, at the end of a withered, yellow hand, flashed out
and down on him. It missed head and neck, but caught him on top of the
left shoulder.

All h