handle in the gusts. Likewise
there was more room for a man to stretch out comfortably.

A source of continual grumbling was the food. The captain, the mate, the
surgeon, and myself, talking it over, resolved not to increase the daily
whack of half a pound of meat. The six sailors, for whom Tobias Snow
made himself spokesman, contended that the death of half of us was
equivalent to a doubling of our provisioning, and that therefore the
ration should be increased to a pound. In reply, we of the afterguard
pointed out that it was our chance for life that was doubled did we but
bear with the half-pound ration.

It is true that eight ounces of salt meat did not go far in enabling us
to live and to resist the severe cold. We were quite weak, and, because
of our weakness, we frosted easily. Noses and cheeks were all black with
frost-bite. It was impossible to be warm, although we now had double the
garments we had started with.

Five weeks after the loss of the _Negociator_ the trouble over the food
came to a head. I was asleep at the time--it was night--when Captain
Nicholl caught Jud Hetchkins stealing from the pork barrel. That he was
abetted by the other five men was proved by their actions. Immediately
Jud Hetchkins was discovered, the whole six threw themselves upon us with
their knives. It was close, sharp work in the dim light of the stars,
and it was a mercy the boat was not overturned. I had reason to be
thankful for my many shirts and coats which served me as an armour. The
knife-thrusts scarcely more than drew blood through the so great
thickness of cloth, although I was scratched to bleeding in a round dozen
of places.

The others were similarly protected, and the fight would have ended in no
more than a mauling all around, had not the mate, Walter Dakon, a very
powerful man, hit upon the idea of ending the matter by tossing the
mutineers overboard. This was joined in by Captain Nicholl, the surgeon,
and myself, and in a trice five of the six were in the water and clinging
to the gunwale. Captain Nicholl and the surgeon were busy amidships with
the sixth, Jeremy Nalor, and were in the act of throwing him overboard,
while the mate was occupied with rapping the fingers along the gunwale
with a boat-stretcher. For the moment I had nothing to do, and so was
able to observe the tragic end of the mate. As he lifted the stretcher
to rap Seth Richards' fingers, the latter, sinking down low in the wate