“I was not surprised at language like this; for I had already discovered that Catherton had been educated above his present condition; it was rather something in his manner that struck me, quiet as it was, as if under an air of confidence—which the chief’s business naturally created between us—he wished to get at something uppermost in his mind, without my suspecting aught. “He said little more worthy of repetition, and after a while, I turned in, leaving him still smoking on the poop. “The next morning he went on shore, as usual, after giving me orders on what he wished to have done in the ship. At daylight we commenced breaking out a portion of the cargo, to get at a leak—the ship having touched on a reef on the late cruise. The carpenter was lucky enough to find this, and after stopping it, the cooper and his mates were driving some of the old casks, when a difficulty occurred between a boat-steerer and some of the people. In putting an end to this, I found the fellows were determined to see the sort of man they had to deal with, some of them using mutinous expressions, and finally making a rush for the poop to rescue a rascally Portuguese, whom the mates had placed in irons. Driven for’ard of the mainmast, three or four of the worst of the scoundrels attempted to turn a gun inboard, when the second mate and I, well seconded by the rest, and the five harpooners, dashed in among them with the capstan bars, and after cracking a few crowns in true merchantman’s style, drove the rest _pell-mell_ down the scuttle. We then secured a few more of the ringleaders, and turned all hands to again, not a man daring to refuse work in a full ship, which, as the second mate remarked, showed that they had some dim glimmering of their own interests, after all. The English frigate went to sea with the first of the land-wind, and we began to weigh as soon as I saw that her anchor was a-peak. According to orders, I warped close to the mouth of the passage, anchoring, with the stream, a little astern of the Englishman’s old berth, and carrying a hawser to the rocks. This brought us ahead of the grab and the Arab corvette, and so near to the entrance as to prevent any craft which might come in from taking a berth so as to crowd us should we wish to tow out suddenly; nevertheless, we were still lying within the shadow of either shore, with an eye to the secret business which the captain had on hand. “After we were all snug, I examined our stock of water, and found enough to last us to the Cape of Good Hope, or to St. Helena, as Catherton had said something of touching there. There was a strong prejudice in the ship against using the water from the wells of Muscat, and, accordingly, the captain had resolved, if the quantity was sufficient to reach a half-way port, to go to sea with the stock on hand.