This would have been nothing, as in two or three minutes more the men would have been down, and the cocoa-faced rascals dodged every way from the handspike I got hold of; but I just caught a glimpse on one side of the sly old serang shoving on the fire-scuttle to keep down the watch below; and on the other, of Webb looking round him, evidently to see how matters stood. Two Dutchmen seized the first sailor that came down the rigging, by the legs, and I saw the affair must be finished at once, it had so much the look of a regular plot on Webb's part, if Jones wasn't concerned in it too. I made one spring upon my Cape Town gentleman, and took him by the throat with one hand, while I hit the biggest Dutchman full behind the ear, felling him to the deck; on which the man-o'-war's man grappled his watchmate, and Webb was struggling with me sufficiently to keep both my hands full, when I had a pleasant inkling of a Malay Lascar slipping toward my back with a bare kreese in his fist. I just looked over my shoulder at his black eyes twinkling devilishly before he sprang, when some one came sliding fair down from the fore-top-mast-head by a backstay, and pitched in a twinkling on top of his head--a thing enough to break the neck of a monument. Directly after, I saw Jones himself hitting right and left with his night-glass, from the moonlight to the shadow of the foresail, while Snelling tumbled over a Lascar at every slap, standing up in boxer style. By the time the rest of the men came down all was settled--the Dutchmen sulking against the bulwarks, and Webb gasping after I let him go. "Boatswain," said I to one of the sailors, "clap that man in irons below. Mr Snelling, see the watch called, sir." "I 'ad the law with me," said Webb gloomily. "You plotted it then, Mr Webb?" I said. "Didn't you carry us off illegally?" said he. "I only meant to recover the vessel--upon my honour, nothing more, sir; and if you're 'ard with me, you'll have to answer for it, I assure you!" Here he looked round to Jones in a strange way, as I fancied for a moment; but Jones turned on his heel with a sneer. "Why, Mr Webb," answered I, "you lost that tack by offering yourself in a watch, which makes the thing neither more nor less than mutiny--so take him below, do ye hear, bo'sun!" And down he went.