s in Hobart Town. I am not a cruel
man, sir, but we have got a cargo of wild beasts aboard, and we must be
careful."

"But surely, Mr. Pine, have you considered the probable loss of life?
I--really--some more humane course perhaps? Prevention, you know--"

Pine turned round upon him with that grim practicality which was a part
of his nature. "Have you considered the safety of the ship, Captain
Vickers? You know, or have heard of, the sort of things that take place
in these mutinies. Have you considered what will befall those half-dozen
women in the soldiers' berths? Have you thought of the fate of your own
wife and child?"

Vickers shuddered.

"Have it your way, Mr. Pine; you know best perhaps. But don't risk more
lives than you can help."

"Be easy, sir," says old Pine; "I am acting for the best; upon my soul
I am. You don't know what convicts are, or rather what the law has made
'em--yet--"

"Poor wretches!" says Vickers, who, like many martinets, was in reality
tender-hearted. "Kindness might do much for them. After all, they are
our fellow-creatures."

"Yes," returned the other, "they are. But if you use that argument to
them when they have taken the vessel, it won't avail you much. Let me
manage, sir; and for God's sake, say nothing to anybody. Our lives may
hang upon a word."

Vickers promised, and kept his promise so far as to chat cheerily with
Blunt and Frere at dinner, only writing a brief note to his wife to tell
her that, whatever she heard, she was not to stir from her cabin until
he came to her; he knew that, with all his wife's folly, she would obey
unhesitatingly, when he couched an order in such terms.

According to the usual custom on board convict ships, the guards
relieved each other every two hours, and at six p.m. the poop guard was
removed to the quarter-deck, and the arms which, in the daytime,
were disposed on the top of the arm-chest, were placed in an arm-rack
constructed on the quarter-deck for that purpose. Trusting nothing to
Frere--who, indeed, by Pine's advice, was, as we have seen, kept in
ignorance of the whole matter--Vickers ordered all the men, save those
who had been on guard during the day, to be under arms in the barrack,
forbade communication with the upper deck, and placed as sentry at the
barrack door his own servant, an old soldier, on whose fidelity he could
thoroughly rely. He then doubled the guards, took the keys of the prison
himself from the non-commissioned