"What are they about to do with the carronade?" asked Morley, as he listened intently.
"Lower it between decks, to fire through the bulkhead," suggested the old man-o'-war's man, Noah.
"But have they any round shot?" asked Morley.
"We have six rounds for each gun round the coaming of the main-hatch," said Captain Phillips, with a very dejected air; "and there are plenty more in the hold. Shot are wanted sometimes in the Indian seas."
"And the powder?"
"Is all kept in a little magazine near the taffrail—the powder required for immediate service, I mean."
"The gun is cast loose," said Bartelot; "if Noah's idea be their game, it is all up with us, as they may bowl us to death without danger of resistance."
"Unless when they are at work in the hold, we make a sally, regain possession of the deck, ship on the main-hatch, and smother the whole brood!" said Phillips, with a more savage emotion than ever before glowed in his kind and jolly breast.
A few minutes of painful suspense served to show that the intentions of the mutineers were quite different.
They were heard to break open the powder magazine, and load the carronade, which, with loud yells, and much vociferation, they urged forward to the rim of the skylight with such force as nearly to break the framework to pieces, and over it, by using capstan-bars as levers, they levelled and depressed the gun, by hoisting up the hind wheels of the carriage, and driving home quoins under the breach, till the muzzle was at the angle of forty-five degrees, and pointed almost towards the bulkhead of the little cabin in which Ethel and Rose were weeping and praying.