"Hold on, as I ordered you, sir; bring up under his lee; and if he don't slacken sail, fire your gun into him, and be d----d! Ah, is it luffing you are, you mutinous lubber? must _I_ overhaul you?" And he laid hold of a handspike, and came up the companion, his eyes glaring, his teeth set, and a torrent of curses hissing through them, hot and horrible. He kicked the mate into the scuppers, and laid hold of the tiller, round which he lashed its lanyard with a second turn, before he had given more than one look at the stranger; and while knotting the lashings, reiterated his orders with double vehemence about the gun. If ever the devil had possession of any man, he was in him then. It all occurred in less time than a minute; but so inexperienced at sea was I, that I apprehended a fight more than anything else; although, as the tiller was lashed, I saw it was next to impossible for the vessels to escape running foul. The seamen were all in consternation, crowding from the bows, and clamouring advice, entreaties, and denunciations, without the slightest effect, on their captain. He held a pistol in his hand, and swore he would shoot the first mutineer who should dare to interfere. But, at the second look he took at the tower of canvass now stooping down upon us, within half a stone's throw, he dropped the tiller, staggered back, and clapt both his hands over his eyes. When he withdrew them to grasp the tafferel, against which he had stumbled, one might have thought that he had been smearing his face with white paint, so deadly pale was he grown all on the sudden; but his eyes were fixed and glazed, his mouth wide open, his lips livid, and shaking like jelly, his hair on end, his limbs in a loose palsy, his knees going against and over one another. It was a moment of dreadful confusion. I was thrown down by the rushing about of the crew; and, as I looked up from among the trampling crowd, through whose feet I rolled like a log, I saw, all at once, between me and the blue sky, over our quarter, the jib-boom of the ship pushed through the serene air with a smooth and equable motion, but swift and irresistible in the whole wing of the wind. It caught us by the lifts of the mainsail, and we were gently pushed over for an almost imperceptible moment; then came a sharp crash, and the main-topmast toppled down, tearing and smashing everything in its descent, and making the started planks fly from stern to stern, as it drove right through the deck into the cabin. At the same moment the ship's jib-boom sprung high into the air, and from among her pile of sails that were now bellying out almost overhead, there leaped down, like an eagle from his cloud, the whole broad-winged fore-top-gallant-mast, royals and all, with a swoop upon our deck. All the men round the tiller were struck down; some with broken limbs, and all dreadfully bruised, but none was killed save their miserable commander; he was killed where he stood still paralysed against the tafferel.