o' de
Lor's sake!"

"I'm going to kill ye like a dog!" rejoined the other, taking aim; but
Sam, quick as lightning darted into the weather rigging, making his way
forward along the channels, the captain jumping after him and
repeating,--"It's no use. Ye won't escape me, I tell ye, darkey; ye
won't escape me! I'll kill ye ez dead ez a dog! Like a dog, d'ye
haar?"

As he uttered the last words a second time, as if the repetition of the
phrase pleased his cruel ear, there was another `click,' followed by a
bright flash and a sharp report; and then, uttering a wild, despairing
cry, which was echoed by the men standing around, poor Sam dropped into
the sea alongside, his body splashing up the water right inboard into my
face as it fell!

CHAPTER FOUR.

FRIGHTENED TO DEATH!

"That's murder--murder in cold blood!"

The voice uttering this exclamation, which I at once recognised as that
of Tom Bullover, the carpenter, came from amidst a mass of the men, who,
attracted by the noise of the row, had gathered from forward, and were
clustered together--as I could see sideways from my position there,
spread-eagled in the rigging. They were standing by the long-boat, just
abaft of poor Sam Jedfoot's now tenantless galley, and immediately under
the bellying folds of the mainsail, that rustled and swelled out over
their heads, tugging at the boltropes and rattling the clew-garnet
blocks, as it was jerked by the wind, which ever and anon blew with
eddying gusts as it veered and shifted.

"Who's the mutinous rascal thet spoke then?" cried Captain Snaggs,
wheeling round on the instant, quick as lightning, and cocking his
revolver with another ominous click, as he faced the group, aiming at
the nearest man to him. "Jest ye give me another word of yer jaw, an'
I'll sarve ye the same as I sarved thet durned nigger--I will so, by
thunder!"

A hoarse murmur, partly of rage and partly expressive of fear, arose
from the crew as they shuffled uneasily about the deck, one trying to
get behind another; but neither Tom Bullover nor anyone else stepped out
to answer the captain, who, seeing that he had cowed them, lowered his
awkward looking weapon.

"Ye're a pack of durned skallywags, with nary a one the pluck of a skunk
in the lot!" he exclaimed contemptuously, in his snarling Yankee voice;
but, just then, the head sails flapping, from the helmsman letting the
ship nearly broach to, forgetting to attend to his duties in his
ea