ill grace) to be bound, and were so brought back to their vessel, as I have said. The savages having received the presents promised them returned to the island, where they immediately fell a-quarrelling about the apportionment of their wages, and we saw that the strip of coloured cloth was very soon torn into a hundred little pieces. [Sidenote: Mutiny] As for the seamen, they were by the captain's orders immediately put into irons and laid in the hold. Though we had not taken aboard near as much water or provision as we intended, yet the captain would not risk the sending of another crew to the island, albeit he might safely have done so, I think, the men being for the time sufficiently tamed. We had to wait the best part of the day for a breeze; then we weighed anchor and stood away to the north. While the island was still in sight, the wind suddenly shifted its quarter, and blew first a gale and then a hurricane, so that we had to shorten canvas. While this was a-doing the sea was lashed to a fury, prodigious waves sweeping over the deck and buffeting the vessel so heavily that her timbers shook, and we feared the masts would go by the board. With ten men in irons and about as many weakened by the scurvy, the crew were pretty hard pressed, and though they worked with a will, since their very lives depended on it, they railed without measure against the captain and Mr. Lummis, heedless of what punishment might be dealt to them when the storm abated. Presently a cry arose that the vessel had sprung a leak, and since none of those above could be spared to man the pumps, Mr. Lummis ordered the men in irons to be brought up, and made them work at the pumps in turn. The storm rather increased than diminished in fury, and the seamen were seized with a fear that the vessel would founder, and I heard them mingle prayers and curses in a breath, reviling the captain for taking them from the hospitable island, and crying out "Lord, have mercy on us!" again and again. Darkness fell upon us while we were still battling with the storm, which added to our terrors, for the vessel would not obey the helm, and we knew not but we might be cast upon some coral reef, such as abound in those regions, and there be clean broken up. In this extremity of peril I own I was dreadfully afraid, and prayed very fervently that we might be saved, thinking too of my uncle and aunt, and the happiness I had enjoyed with them, casting my mind back over many things in my past life, almost as a drowning man does, at least I have heard so.