"You must have been dreaming," I said.
"No, indeed!" said she; "I have not been asleep yet; don't go on deck by the forward companionway; they are waiting there, I am sure, for I heard the creaking of the loose step in the entry."
If my wife has not been dreaming, thought I, there can be no possible doubt of a plot.
Nothing justifies a visit on the poop-deck after working-hours, except a call to relieve sickness, or for some other emergency, and then secrecy or stealth is non-permissible.
It may be here explained to persons not familiar with ships, that the sailors' quarters are in the forward part of the ship where they (the sailors) are supposed to be found after working-hours, in port, coming never abaft the mainmast; hence the term "before the mast."
My first impulse was to step on deck in the usual way, but the earnest entreaties of my wife awoke me to a danger that should be investigated with caution. Arming myself, therefore, with a stout carbine repeater, with eight ball cartridges in the magazine, I stepped on deck abaft instead of forward, where evidently I had been expected. I stood rubbing my eyes for a moment, inuring them to the intense darkness, when a coarse voice roared down the forward companionway to me to come on deck. "Why don't ye come on deck like a man, and order yer men forid?" was the salute that I got, and was the first that I heard with my own ears, and it was enough. To tell the whole story in a word, I knew that I had to face a mutiny.
I could do no less than say: "Go forward there!"
"Yer there, are ye?" said the spokesman, as with an oath, he bounded toward me, cursing as he came.
Again I ordered him forward, saying, "I am armed,—if you come here I will shoot!" But I forbore to do so instantly, thinking to club him to the deck instead, for my carbine was a heavy one. I dealt him a blow as he came near, sufficient I thought, to fell an ox; but it had, apparently, no effect, and instantly he was inside of my guard. Then grasping me by the throat, he tried to force me over the taffrail, and cried, exultingly, as he felt me give way under his brute strength, "Now, you damn fool, shoot!" at the same time drawing his knife to strike.
I could not speak, or even breathe, but my carbine spoke for me, and the ruffian fell with the knife in his hand which had been raised against me! Resolution had proved more than a match for brute force, for I then knew that not only my own life but also the lives of others depended on me at this moment. Nothing daunted, the rest came on, like hungry wolves. Again I cried, "Go forward!" But thinking, maybe, that my rifle was a single shooter, or that I could not load it so quickly, the order was disregarded.