between the hours of four and eight o'clock, on
the morning of the 28th April, when Christian had the watch upon deck;
that Christian, unable longer to bear the abusive and insulting
language, had meditated his own escape from the ship the day before,
choosing to trust himself to fate, rather than submit to the constant
upbraiding to which he had been subject; but the unfortunate business
of the cocoa-nuts drove him to the commission of the rash and felonious
act, which ended, as such criminal acts usually do, in his own
destruction, and that of a great number of others, many of whom were
wholly innocent.

Lieutenant Bligh, like most passionate men, whose unruly tempers get the
better of their reason, having vented his rage about the cocoa-nuts,
became immediately calm, and by inviting Christian to sup with him the
same evening, evidently wished to renew their friendly intercourse; and
happy would it have been for all parties had he accepted the invitation.
On the same night, towards ten o'clock, when the master had the watch,
Bligh came on deck, as was his custom, before retiring to sleep. It was
one of those calm and beautiful nights, so frequent in tropical regions,
whose soothing influence can be appreciated only by those who have felt
it, when, after a scorching day, the air breathes a most refreshing
coolness,--it was an evening of this sort, when Bligh for the last time
came upon deck, in the capacity of commander; a gentle breeze scarcely
rippled the water, and the moon, then in its first quarter, shed its
soft light along the surface of the sea. The short and quiet
conversation that took place between Bligh and the master on this
evening, after the irritation of the morning had subsided, only to burst
forth again in all the horrors of mutiny and piracy, recalls to one's
recollection that beautiful passage of Shakespeare, where, on the
evening of the murder, Duncan, on approaching the castle of Macbeth,
observes to Banquo--

--'The air
Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself
Unto our gentle senses,' etc.--

a passage which Sir Joshua Reynolds considers as a striking instance of
what in painting is termed _repose_. 'The subject,' he says, 'of this
quiet and easy conversation, gives that repose so necessary to the mind,
after the tumultuous bustle of the preceding scenes, and beautifully
contrasts the scene of terror that immediately succeeds.' While, on this
lovely night, Bligh and his master were