“‘Well, my lads,’ said I, wonderfully moved, I confess, seeing that I had something to live for yet, although, a moment before, I had thought that my hold on life was slackened for ever, ‘if you will have it so, I’ll do my best. I tell you fairly that the captain confessed to me last night, in this cabin, that he intended to sell ship and cargo, on the passage home, in return for some private wrong which, he said, one of the owners had done him—though,’ said I, solemnly, ‘as surely as God’s eye beheld this accursed deed, yon pale clay was as innocent as the angels of heaven of aught like crime toward him.’ “‘We know it, captain—we knew it all along!’ they answered, even those whom I had considered the most hardened, shedding tears, while curses and vows of vengeance were freely vented around. “‘She was too good for the bloody-minded villain,’ said the carpenter; ‘and, so help me, if there is nobody else—’ “It was time to stop this, as we had quite enough of blood for that night, so I checked old Charley in his oath, and called back the Indian boat-steerer, who, at first, had seemed disposed to side with the captain, but who was now stealing up the companion-way, in an empty-handed, errandless way, though I saw the thing in his eye, and the gleam of a knife in the sleeve of his shirt. “‘My lads,’ said I, ‘we will leave him to the law. He shall not escape, I promise you. Mr. Parker, you will have Captain Catherton put in double-irons, and placed in the steerage for the present.’ “‘Ay, ay, sir,’ he answered, and accordingly the villain was well secured, with one of the trustiest men in the ship standing sentry over him. “After this, the cabin was cleared of all but a strong guard, armed to the teeth, and I went on deck, leaving Zuma, who had recovered from her swoon of terror, kneeling in silence by the body of the chief. I had resolved to save her as soon as I could see any possible way, though I knew that her life and my own, perhaps, depended upon our getting under weigh, as soon as the weather would permit. “The fury of the squall was over. One of the mates told me that it had been raining a perfect deluge a few moments before I came up, and, in fact, though it was slackening off, the decks were all afloat, and I could even see by the great flashes of waste lightning which still illumined the passage, the spherical shape of the rain-drops, as they fell. I mention this, gentlemen, to show how deeply the most trivial incident in that terrible night was impressed upon my mind, never to be forgotten while memory lives with me.