nd could only have cost them their lives; for they were
surrounded by other ships who had hoisted the flag of insubordination,
and whose guns were trained ready to pour in a destructive fire on the
least sign of an attempt to purchase their anchor. To the main deck
they consequently repaired.

The scene which here presented itself was as striking as it was novel.
The after-part of the main-deck was occupied by the captain and
officers, who had come down with the few marines who still continued
steadfast to their duty, and one sailor only, Adams, who had so nobly
stated his determination on the quarter-deck. The foremost part of the
deck was tenanted by a noisy and tumultuous throng of seamen, whose
heads only appeared above a barricade of hammocks, which they had formed
across the deck, and out of which at two embrasures, admirably
constructed, two long twenty-four pounders, loaded up to the muzzle with
grape and canister shot, were pointed aft in the direction where the
officers and marines were standing--a man at the breech of each gun,
with a match in his hand (which he occasionally blew, that the priming
powder might be more rapidly ignited), stood ready for the signal to
fire.

The captain, aghast at the sight, would have retreated, but the
officers, formed of sterner materials, persuaded him to stay, although
he showed such evident signs of fear and perturbation as seriously to
injure a cause in which resolution and presence of mind alone could
avail. The mutineers, at the suggestion of Peters, had already sent aft
their preliminary proposals, which were, that the officers and marines
should surrender up their arms, and consider themselves under an arrest,
intimating at the same time that the first step in advance made by any
one of their party would be the signal for applying the match to the
touch-holes of the guns.

There was a pause and dead silence, as if it were a calm, although every
passion was roused and on the alert; every bosom heaved tumultuously,
and every pulse was trebled in its action. The same feeling which so
powerfully affects the truant schoolboy--who, aware of his offence, and
dreading the punishment in perspective, can scarce enjoy the rapture of
momentary emancipation--acted upon the mutineers, in an increased ratio,
proportioned to the magnitude of their stake. Some hearts beat with
remembrance of injuries and hopes of vengeance and retaliation; others
with ambition, long dormant, b