Just below him were the crosstrees, and on to these he fell, and, held there, lay senseless with head and feet dangling. For a moment there was a deadly silence over the ship; then a low, menacing growl of rage rose from the crowd of men on the maindeck. "Silence there, yew mutinous dogs! Silence, or, sure as my name's Bob Riley, I'll pump some lead into yew!" roared the old man, bringing the gun up to his shoulder again. As he spoke the canvas began to shake; the helmsman had let the ship run up into the wind. Little wonder if, in the excitement of the moment, Angelino could find no time for glancing at the compass. In a moment the ship was all aback. "Darn my dogbasted skin!" raged the old man, turning upon the unfortunate Portuguee. "Hard up thet wheel! Quick, yew infernal lunkhead!" Then, rushing to the rail, he roared: "Down from aloft there. On ter the foc's'le head, some er yew. Don' stand gazin' round, yew moon-struck, mongrel crowd o' Bowery slush! Clap on to them weather jib sheets! Let go to loo'ard! Neow, then, round with them fore-yards--round with 'em!" For a few minutes terrific confusion reigned. Excited men ran hither and thither, braces were thrown off the pins, and a medley of cries resounded over the ship, half drowned in the thunderous clatter of the flapping canvas. Jack, Broncho, Sam, and Curly came sliding down backstays, leaving Bedrock Ben still with the dead man in his arms. By this time the old man was half mad with fury, and dancing a regular war-jig aft. Words poured in a torrent from his mouth, cut off, distorted, and half senseless as they burst from his stuttering lips. Certainly the facts of the case were enough to try the temper of any man as full of bile and ginger as a down-east skipper. His ship aback; a crew of lunatics running wildly about the deck, letting go sheets, lifts, spilling-lines, anything in their craziness; two dead men aloft, and with them his only remaining officers; last, but not least, two half-bent fair-weather topsails flogging angrily in the strengthening breeze, with every chance of splitting from top to bottom. "Carpenter!" he yelled. "Carpenter, get them headsheets over! Sakes alive--bust me purple--what er mess! Hyeh, y' ravin' idiots, what y' doin'? Get on ter thet fore-brace. Come down, bosun. Jeerusalem, look at them t'p'sls! Hell an' damnation, who let go that sheet? Carpenter, ye mouldy wood-sawyer, can't yew thump 'em? Beat 'em, kill 'em, jump on 'em, man. Wal, I swow! What the blazin' flames o' hell d'yew think y' doin', yew bean-swillin', lop-eared Dutch swab----" and so he raged on. What with the old man's scathing remarks and his own confused brain, the carpenter got in such a flurry that he hardly knew what he was doing. Slowly things were straightened out, with the headsheets over to windward. On the advent of Jack and his gang from aloft, the foreyard was swung, and gradually the ship began to pay off under the influence of the backed headyards.