"Hold, I say," cried the man, and this time with a dreadful menacing vehemence. "I am your Captain, and you know me well. Another step, and there's a soul writhing in hell. Back, go, you and your eggers-on! I understand this business, as I understand too who 'twas inflamed you to mutiny." "You took my wife, you scum!" shouted a great fellow clad in a shipman's garb, that held a rust-bitten cutlass in his hand, and struggled forward through the press. "Ay, did I, Jack?" quoth the Captain satirically, "but 'twas to provide you with another bride, a bonny lass that the Churchmen say we shall all embrace by turns. 'Tis that world-old witch I mean, named Death," and at the word, he discharged his piece full in the other's blotched face, and laid him bleeding on the topmost stair. A great hush came over the mutineers when they saw this deed, that moreover so sickened me that I had already raised my sword to stab the murderer in the back and have done with him, when the thieves suddenly broke with a yell of defiance and charged upward in the mass. What I would have done had I had longer to deliberate I know not, but in default of any counsel to direct me, I sprang into action on the side of the very man I had intended to slay, and shoulder to shoulder with him, fought down those ghastly cruel faces and reaching hands. It was soon enough over. They were no match against the arms we used, and the Captain calmly loading and discharging his piece, the while I kept the stairhead clear with my sword, we made them give back foot by foot, until at length each was scrambling to be the hindmost, and even used his knife upon his companion in the urgency of his retreat. All the lanterns were out now, save one that a dead man held in his stark and upraised hand; and by that light the Captain wiped his smoking barrel clean. "It is well concluded," said he, "and I thank you for your help, young sir." I said nothing, so deeply did I loathe him. "We must be gone," he said, "and that quickly. The watch is up, and the whole place will be searched before dawn. They will be caught like rats in a drain," he added softly, drawing in his breath. "Follow me." He led me to the room I had left, and helped me to get through the hole in the masonry, after which he followed me. "This way," said he, and took me through the lane until he came onto Tower Hill, when, skirting the precincts of the Tower, we crept unchallenged through the postern in the wall and turned down a narrow cart-way to the eastward, I beside him, but neither speaking one word, until after an hour or more, with waiting and going forward, we got to Wapping a little ere daybreak, to a desolate mean tavern of shipmen close beside the river, which we entered without question, for none seemed to be stirring; and here, in the filthy guestroom, the Captain flung himself down.