Early one morning the alarm bell rang loud of danger. The officers hurried on deck to find nearly every soldier under arms and calling aloud for vengeance on the oppressors, as they called their superiors. The leader was a huge, bull-necked cutthroat who once had been a bandit in the Pyrenees. "Each mincing ladies' man among you shall walk the plank, before the guns of my brave fellows here, and we'll cheer you pretty, scented gentlemen as you battle in the water with the sharks," shouted the jeering leader. Shouts of applause came from the men, mingled with jibes and curses. Mendoza asked of his captain that he be allowed to speak with the chief mutineer. He stated briefly his purpose. Permission was given, for the situation was desperate. The officers, but a score, faced full five hundred men, all armed. Even the artillery of the regiment, shotted to the mouth, was gaping angrily at them from the ranks of the ruffians across deck. The lieutenant walked to the front bearing his naked rapier in his hand, while the mutinous soldiers, half drunken with liquor looted from the stores of the ship, howled at him. "Mamma's pet comes straight from the bath to drive about as cattle men that are men. Back to your crib, you reptile infant, or I'll grind you under my heel," threatened the leader. In incoherent echo his followers stormed: "Throw him to the sharks, for cubs become wolves--cut him into pieces--cast him into the ovens!" "Attention!" called the young man. Something, perhaps innate animal respect for bravery, called for obedience. Silence and expectancy fell over them. "You pretend to despise all your officers. I am the youngest and least among them, yet I dare the best among you to fight me here, I with this light rapier against your heavy cutlass." The boastful leader pushed forward. Around the villain's head swung his cutlass flaming and glancing in the tropic sun. "Aha! Aha! young sprig!" in half-drunken glee. "Hear the whistling air divide before my cutlass's edge. I'll strip you from your skin, inch by inch, and dry it on your cabin door. Come now, point to point, you young patrician fool!" He struck a cleaving blow at the figure before him. The lieutenant's rapier caught the descending blade, wound itself in serpentine curves around it and drew away. The cutlass hurtled to the floor a half dozen paces distant. Numbness seized the mutineer's arm from wrist to shoulder. He examined the member in search of a wound, but found none. The pack of insubordinates, impelled by their wolf-nature, would follow the leader if he conquered, or rend him if he fell. Murmurs like the first swell of an angry sea rose among the mob, then burst into yells of derision. "A schoolboy makes our mighty leader play the fool!" "Yes, he swings his cutlass as a housewife the broom." "Throw him overboard and elect a man, not some awkward cow!" Young Mendoza stood with rapier poised, aimed at his opponent's heart.