The sun, just peering over the horizon, saw an unusual sight across the water. First, a man in the stern of a solitary ship bound like a bale of cloth and propped against the bulwark under the eye of a giant who yawned sleepily, and, stretching a pair of great arms abroad, spoke now and then in monosyllables to a robust seaman on duty at the helm; then, a corpulent soldier, shaking like an earthquake, and sitting on the deck amidships, his short legs wide apart; next, a face of sensitive poetic features not made for humor, but now submitting to it as though under protest, yet very heartily; and, lastly, the tall, stern figure of an evident leader, who stood near the others, but seemingly aloof in thought, being, for some reason, little moved by the gale of mirth. The dawning light of the next day showed a picture widely different in conception. CHAPTER VI “Die life, fly soul, tongue curse thy fill, and die!” —MARLOWE, in _The Jew of Malta_. The trial of the pilot for the instigation of mutiny was conducted in the fly-boat’s main cabin with strict secrecy, in order that faint-hearted ones might be spared the disheartening anxiety which a knowledge of the conspiracy would have brought to them. The ship’s commander, Captain Pomp by name, who had appeared greatly flurried and genuinely amazed on hearing Vytal’s story, presided at the inquiry. Beside him at the long table sat Vytal on the one hand and Ananias Dare, now sober but forlorn, on the other. The pilot, brought in by Hugh Rouse, came stolidly, without a struggle, and during the trial faced his judges with defiance, turning now and then an expectant look on Ananias Dare. For, preceding this investigation, the assistant had gone to the deck at sunrise and held a conversation in whispers with the guilty man, telling Hugh, who would have questioned his authority, that he but sought to elicit further information from the captive. What he had actually said was this: “An you betray me, we’re both lost. Make no accusation at the trial. Even though I testify against you, I will save you in the end.” But the pilot’s eyes gazed at him with little trustfulness. “You swear it?” “I swear it.” “So be it, then. But at the last an you fail me, Master Sot, look to your own salvation.”