“You must have been dreaming, Gwynne,” answered Stubbs; “there isn’t a man in the ship would dare do such a thing.”
“I am not certain of that,” I observed; “at all events, let us be on the right side. Forewarned, forearmed. We will let the captain know, and I trust that we may thus defeat the plot, whatever it is.”
Chapter Seventeen.
Home again!
I went down into the captain’s cabin, and, awakening him, told him what the surgeon had said.
“Mutiny!” he exclaimed, as he dressed himself with the usual rapidity of a seaman. “We will soon settle that matter.” He stuck his pistols into a belt he put on for the purpose, and took a cutlass in his hand. “Here, Braithwaite, arm yourself,” he said. “Tell the officers to do so likewise. We will soon see which of the two, that sea-lawyer or I, is to command the Barbara.”
Telling Gwynne and Toby to guard the arm-chest, and Randolph to rally round him the most trustworthy men on deck, he desired Stubbs and me to follow him forward. Without a word of warning he suddenly appeared among the men, who were supposed to be in their berths asleep. Going directly up to the berth Badham occupied, he seized hold of him and dragged him on deck, with a pistol pointed at his head, exclaiming at the same time, “Shoot any one who offers to interfere!”
The captain was very confident that he had the ringleader, and that the rest would not move without him. “Now!” he exclaimed, when he had got him on the quarterdeck. “Confess who are your accomplices, and what you intended to do! Remember, no falsehood! I shall cross-question the others. If you are obstinate, overboard you go.”