"You are," they muttered, surlily enough.
"Louder," says he, "louder. You hain't lost your voices, have you? You can make the devil's own noise when you're singing and bellowing your profane ballads in the fo'castle. Speak up!" with still another oath. "Who's captain of this ship, I say?"
"You are," they answered louder, yet looking black enough.
"Very well," says he. "Now listen to me, you lubbers, and listen well."
CHAPTER VII.
THE ENDING OF IT.
"Now," he went on, "you're talking about mutiny, I hear, and pirating in the Southern Seas. Well, who's going to begin the mutiny, eh? Which of you? Let him come forward so that I can catch holt of him, and string him up to the fore-top-sail yard with my own hand. Come, which of you is it, to commence with?"
And again he glared terrible fierce at them.
Then says one of them--poor fool!--"We shall never find no plate here; what's the good, captain, of our stopping here?"
In a moment that man was upon his back with the blood pouring from his face, the captain having felled him like a butcher fells an ox, and "Fling him overboard to the sharks," says he. "Quick, or some more of you go, too. I'll have no mutineers here and no talk of the Southern Seas. Over with him, I say!"