There grew to be a lot of hard feeling on both ships, and the two captains, Gibson and Humphries, were much pestered to their faces and much abused behind their backs. I could not see how they were to blame, but they were the only ones the men could look to for their pay and so they had to bear the siege. January came and went; February came and went, March came and went, and April likewise; and not a smell did we get of coin, either Spanish or English. The sailors at length quit going ashore to be jeered for their poverty and taunted for their misfortune, but moped about the decks and fought with one another, and altogether got to a mischievous turn of mind. Every and Gravet gave plenty of way to each other, while as for my old commander, Captain Gibson, he broke with the worry of it all and took sick to his cabin. Little winds blow ships into strange ports; if the Don had met us with our pay old Bill May’s neck would never have been hauled upon like a mainsail. III If the men had a friend among the officers, it was Mr. Every. I thought to see him turn sour with this slow making of his fortune, but not he; the farther into the doldrums we got, the higher he flew his topsails. He praised and petted the crew, spent some money on them, went ashore with them and even made chief cronies of a dozen or so, of whom I am sorry to say that some of my fellows in this condemned hold were a part. He loitered, too, a good deal over on the _James_, which barnacled a few lengths from us, and made as good friends there as he did on his own ship. When the month of May began, there was always a confabulation going forward, with Mr. Every in the middle of it and certain chosen ones about him. And all the time my old commander lay grievously sick in his bed. How could I have any idea Mr. Every was stewing a mutiny? Yet so he was. On the 30th of May, in the year 1694, I was at evening in my cabin, thinking of home and wishing I had my wages to send to my poor, good wife at Bristol. At between ten and eleven of the night I felt the ship move. “Ho!” thinks I. “What does this mean?” I rushed out in my shirt and stockings to the under deck and from there up the hatchway. The wind hit me full in the face, and I could see the lights of town dropping astern. I stuck my head up over the hatchway; there was Every conning the ship. “Breakers ahead!” thought I. “Yaw away, old Bill May, afore you strike.” Every saw me at that minute. “You, May,” he roared, nasty, “I believe you do not love this way; get down to your cabin.”