The young engineer’s head was bleeding from a cut and in his hand he had a big spanner. Pressing upward behind him as he backed out of the fire-room companionway were the Black Squad, wild with panic. In their hands they carried slice-bars, shovels, any weapon that came handy.
“Stand back, I tell you,” commanded Raynor, as Jack approached him.
“Stand back nothing,” bellowed a giant of a stoker. “Think we’re going to the bottom on this rotten hooker? Stand back, yourself. Come on, boys! The boats! We’ll get away while there’s time.”
“You’ll stay plumb where you are or be drilled as full of holes as porous plasters!”
It was little Mr. Brown who spoke. Almost before he knew it, Jack was at the doughty little officer’s side and stood with Raynor and Mr. Brown facing that howling mob from the black regions below.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
QUELLING THE MUTINY.
“So you will have it, eh?”
The leader of the Black Squad, a huge hulk of a fellow, stripped to the waist and smeared hideously with coal-dust, sprang forward. Above his head he brandished a heavy slice-bar.