Boston told him we thought early evening a bad time for the adventure. We were going to wait until morning, until the beginning of the "gravvy-eye" watch, just before dawn. That was the hour in which to strike. Men slept soundest just before dawn; those who were awake were less alert. The mutiny was timed for four A. M.
"Hi cawn't 'ardly wyte that long, Hi'm that eager to get my knife 'twixt that myte's bleedin' ribs," said Cockney.
The Nigger had come in during the discussion. He seated himself, and recommenced his favorite task of stropping his knife upon a whetstone. At the Cockney's last words he lifted his head.
"Don' yoh touch de mate," he said to Cockney. "Dat man's mah meat, yes, suh, mah meat!"
Cockney disputed this. He raved, and swore, and even threatened Nigger. Aye, he made a fine bluster. "'E wasn't goin' to give hup 'is chawnce at the bleedin' myte, not 'im! 'E 'ad a score to settle with that blighter, so 'e 'ad. The Nigger could 'arve the bloomin' second myte, that's wot."
Nigger was so incensed he got up and left the foc'sle, leaving the last word to the spy. Nigger had brooded so much over his wrongs he was a bit cracked; he took no part in the councils of the crew, and did not know, I am sure, that Cockney had been unmasked as a traitor. Else he would never have acted as he later did.
It came down night. It was a good night for my purpose, dark and shadowless, with a mere sliver of a new moon in the sky. I had little difficulty in gaining entrance to the cabin.
After the eight o'clock muster, when my watch was sent below, I slipped around the corner of the roundhouse, where the tradesmen lived (it was on the maindeck, between the mainmast and the after-hatch) and crouched there in the darkness while my mates trooped forward. This roundhouse (which was really square, of course, like most roundhouses on board ship) was very plentifully supplied with ports. Designedly so, no doubt, for it was the cabin's outpost. There were two portholes in its forward wall, commanding the foredeck, and three portholes in either of the side walls. The door to the house was in the after wall. It was built like a fortress, and used as one.
As I lay there on the deck, pressed against the forward wall, I saw the muzzles of shotguns sticking out of the portholes above my head. There was no light showing in the roundhouse, but the tradesmen were in there just the same. Aye, and prepared and alert. They were covering the deck with guns; and I knew they would continue to cover the deck throughout that night.
Oh, Swope was canny, as canny as he was cruel. He would provoke mutiny, but he would run no chance of losing his ship or his life. He was prepared. What could a few revolvers do against these entrenched men? My shipmates' revolt could have but one end—mass murder and defeat!