“If you value your lives in there,” savagely shouted the Finn down through the skylight, as that too was being fastened securely down, “you’ll keep quiet.”
Hall had both his revolvers out in a trice, and fired; but the skylights were closed, and no harm or good was done.
Next the mutineers threw open the fore-hatch, and at pistol point ordered every man into the half-deck cabin abaft the galley and abaft the sailors’ sleeping bunks.
“I’ll shoot the first man dead,” cried Norman, “who does not look active!”
The communication door was then secured, and all was deemed safe. They would bear north now, and make for the nearest island.
The rum store was near the foot of the stair, or companion, and close to the stewardess’s pantry. The key hung there, so more than a gallon of rum was got up and taken forward.
The engineers were told that if they did not crack on, they would be had on deck and made to walk the plank.
The Finn had not meant that any orgie should take place; but take place it did, and a fearful one too. The man at the wheel kept on for fear of death, and so did the engineers.
By twelve o’clock, or eight bells, in the first watch, the fellows were helplessly drunk and lying about in the galley in all directions.
Little Williams, the cabin-boy, had been overlooked. Wise he was indeed, for now he very quietly hauled on the fore-hatch—ay, and screwed it down. Then he went quickly aft and succeeded in releasing the officers. The men were next set free, and the door between secured aft.