Amid an infernal hilarity, the officers’ cabins were now looted. The little chests of personal belongings were smashed in and the contents tumbled out to be grabbed by whoever could get to them first. Watches, cheap trinkets of jewelry, silk handkerchiefs and what little money could be found were divided with shouts of dispute. But two or three boxes containing considerable coins and the property of the shipowners were withdrawn for more decorous and equitable division. Everything in the way of liquor was rushed to the quarter-deck and a night-long orgy ensued. The ship somehow wallowed along while its masters reveled. With a bottle of wine in one hand, the greedily gulped liquid streaming down his bushy beard, and a cutlass in the other, one Williams, a proper rascal, smote his weapon ringingly against a cannon and cried, “Captain Gow, you are welcome--welcome to your command.” In this way, informally but effectively, second mate John Gow accepted his promotion to the office of captain. Captain Gow politely returned the kindness by saying, “Mr. Williams, you shall be our lieutenant.” Thereupon the nominations were closed, as parliamentarians say, and the elections unanimously carried. The night went along in a roaring good humor till the placid eye of morning, slowly opening in the watery east, was shocked to find the decks red with an unholy stain. As a matter of fact, the whole affair had been carried by a group of eight men, six of whom had been summoned from their hammocks by the watchword “Who fires first?”, the remaining two being up on deck. From the circumstance we have just seen, John Gow must have been a party to the criminal enterprise, as he indeed was. Four men were over the side, eight were conspirators; thus there remained twelve men of the crew more or less neutral. These men fled for hiding to the shrouds, into the lazaret, or anywhere that might shield them from the passionate tempest. A very similar circumstance has often engaged the interest of the story-tellers. If this were a fictitious narration of the conventional sort, this thrilling situation would be artfully resolved by the wonderful recovery of the ship and the ultimate defeat of the mutineers by the faithful and ingenious twelve. If it be permissible to point out the deficiency of such enthralling yarns, as related to practical fact, it would lie in the circumstance that by the time the ship had been recaptured there would not be enough men left alive to work it, and, at least according to the canny calculations of Lloyd’s, it would thereby become an impossible risk.