."

"Why, what is the matter, Ned? What is all the row about?" asked
Courtenay, with wide-staring, horrified eyes. For, by this time, the
shouting and yelling were tremendous, and accompanied by a loud
thumping, rumbling sound, produced, as we afterwards ascertained, by the
shot which the men were flinging about the decks.

"The matter is just this here, young 'un," replied Ned, entering the
berth and seating himself on a chest, "The hands for'ard has made up
their minds not to have no more such haccidents as them two that
occurred last night; nor they ain't a-goin' to have no more floggin' nor
bully-raggin', so they've just rose up and are takin' possession of the
ship--Aha! I'm terrible afeard that means bloodshed," as a piercing
shriek echoed through the ship. "Now," he continued, seeing that we
evinced a strong disinclination to return to our hammocks, "you just
tumble into them hammicks and lie down, _quick_; you couldn't do a
morsel of good, e'er a one of yer, if you was out there on deck--you'd
only get hurted or, mayhap, killed outright,--and I've been specially
told off to come here and see as neither of yer gets into trouble;
you've both been good kindly lads, you especial, Muster Lascelles--
you've never had your eyes open to notice any little shortcomin's or
skylarkin's on the part of the men, nor your tongues double-hung for to
go and report 'em, so the lads is honestly anxious as you sha'n't come
to no harm in this here rumpus."

"Then the men have actually mutinied," said I--and there I stopped
short, for at that moment came the sound of a rush aft of many feet,
with shouts and curses, mingled with which I heard the loud harsh tones
of Captain Pigot's voice raised in anger. The _melee_, however, if such
there was, quickly swept aft, and there was a lull for perhaps two or
three minutes, followed by the sounds of a brief struggle on the
quarter-deck, a few shrieks and groans, telling all too plainly of the
bloody work going forward, and then silence, broken only now and then by
the sound of Farmer's voice, apparently issuing orders, though what he
was actually saying we could not distinguish.

During all this time Courtenay and I lay huddled up in our hammocks, too
terrified and horror-stricken to say a word. At length, after the lapse
of about an hour of quietness on deck, Sykes--after cautioning us most
earnestly not, on any account, to move from where we were until his
return--set out with the