o of our tale.

CHAPTER THREE.

Roused discipline alone proclaims their cause,
And injured navies urge their broken laws.
Pursue we in his track the mutineer.
BYRON.

Man, like all other animals of a gregarious nature, is more inclined to
follow than to lead. There are few who are endued with that impetus of
soul which prompts them to stand foremost as leaders in the storming of
the breach, whether it be of a fortress of stone or the more dangerous
one of public opinion, when failure in the one case may precipitate them
on the sword, and in the other consign them to the scaffold.

In this mutiny there were but few of the rare class referred to above:
in the ship whose movements we have been describing not one, perhaps,
except Peters. There were many boisterous, many threatening, but no
one, except him, who was equal to the command, or to whom the command
could have been confided. He was, on board of his own ship, the very
life and soul of the mutiny. At the moment described at the end of the
last chapter, all the better feelings of his still virtuous heart were
in action; and, by a captain possessing resolution and a knowledge of
human nature, the mutiny might have been suppressed; but Captain A---,
who perceived the anxiety of Peters, thought the child a prize of no
small value, and, as Adams brought him aft, snatched the boy from his
arms, and desired two of the party of marines to turn their loaded
muskets at his young heart--thus intimating to the mutineers that he
would shoot the child at the first sign of hostility on their part.

The two marines who had received this order looked at each other in
silence, and did not obey. It was repeated by the captain, who
considered that he had hit upon a masterpiece of diplomacy. The
officers expostulated; the officer commanding the party of marines
turned away in disgust; but in vain: the brutal order was reiterated
with threats. The whole party of marines now murmured, and consulted
together in a low tone.

Willy Peters was the idol and plaything of the whole crew. He had
always been accustomed to remain on board with his father, and there was
not a man in the ship who would not have risked his life to have saved
that of the child. The effect of this impolitic and cruel order was
decisive. The marines, with the sergeant at their head, and little
Willy placed in security in the centre, their bayonets directed on the
defensive, towards the captai