The effect of these words was marked; and the company clustered around. Williams, in an apologetic tone, said, “Shipmate! keep your temper. I mean’t no insult. We all know that Tom Grant is no coward, and what I said about your being an abolitionist was simply this: you _might_ have put down them black mutineers and murderers, but your conscience held you back.” “In that, too,” said Grant, “you were mistaken. I did all that any man with equal strength and presence of mind could have done. The fact is, Mr. Williams, you underrate the courage as well as the skill of these negroes, and further, you do not seem to have been correctly informed about the case in hand at all.” “All I know about it is,” said Williams, “that on the ninth day after you left Richmond, a dozen or two of the niggers ye had on board, came on deck and took the ship from you;--had her steered into a British port, where, by the by, every woolly head of them went ashore and was free. Now I take this to be a discreditable piece of business, and one demanding explanation.” “There are a great many discreditable things in the world,” said Grant. “For a ship to go down under a calm sky is, upon the first flush of it, disgraceful either to sailors or caulkers. But when we learn, that by some mysterious disturbance in nature, the waters parted beneath, and swallowed the ship up, we lose our indignation and disgust in lamentation of the disaster, and in awe of the Power which controls the elements.” “Very true, very true,” said Williams, “I should be very glad to have an explanation which would relieve the affair of its present discreditable features. I have desired to see you ever since you got home, and to learn from you a full statement of the facts in the case. To me the whole thing seems unaccountable. I cannot see how a dozen or two of ignorant negroes, not one of whom had ever been to sea before, and all of them were closely ironed between decks, should be able to get their fetters off, rush out of the hatchway in open daylight, kill two white men, the one the captain and the other their master, and then carry the ship into a British port, where every ‘_darkey_’ of them was set free. There must have been great carelessness, or cowardice somewhere!” The company which had listened in silence during most of this discussion, now became much excited. One said, I agree with Williams; and several said the thing looks black enough. After the temporary tumultous exclamations had subsided,--