I rushed to the door and opened it, and Will entered. In the time that the door lay open I heard a great shouting and hoarse roaring, distant, as though a fierce struggle were happening on the main-deck, likewise a single musket-shot. This I heard whilst I let Will in. He was deadly white; his eyes were large and strange with a wild stare of horror. For some moments he could utter no words. ‘Are you hurt?’ I exclaimed. ‘No, but I have seen--but I have seen--oh, the bloody villains! One stabbed Chimmo in the throat, and they threw him overboard alive. He levelled his pistol and shot a man. He was mad to do it. He stood no chance. They wrenched the musket out of a sentry’s hand and bayoneted him and tossed him into the sea, alive like the subaltern.’ Horror overcame the poor fellow. The memory of the shocking sights seemed to paralyse him; his jaw moved, but he ceased to speak. I was horror-stricken too, but not as he, for he had beheld what he described. But impatience was rending my heart; I could not give him time. ‘Have you seen Tom?’ He answered with a nod. ‘Is he safe?’ The poor lad dryly swallowed and wiped his blanched lips and said huskily: ‘Yes; he told me to run to this cabin and keep with you. He’ll be here soon. He stays to save Mr. Bates’s life.’ ‘The convicts will not hurt us,’ said I. ‘Tom stipulated for our safety.’ ‘I guessed that,’ he exclaimed. ‘When they rushed upon the poop they struck out and stabbed to right and left of them, but none offered to hurt me. Butler stood on the ladder where the sentry had been bayoneted.’ ‘He didn’t do it?’ I shrieked. ‘No; it was a young convict with a purple face, who kept yelling like a madman. Butler stood on the ladder and shouted to me, and I ran to him. He put his arm round my neck and said: “Will, it’s a bloody business. I could have stopped it by peaching, but they would have killed me; and what was to become of Marian?” A line of convicts was drawn across the quarter-deck, and they saw Butler with his arm round my neck. He told me that he had seen you run into the steerage and that I should find you in your cabin.’ He was now beginning to breathe with more freedom, and something of the dreadful, staring look was passing out of his eyes. He listened and then said: ‘They’ll not hurt us. Butler seems to have authority. Did he plan this frightful business?’ ‘No, but he would not hinder it. Why should he? He’s an innocent man, and must have his liberty. Let those who swore his freedom away, who sentenced him, who have ruined our lives and made him what he is, be responsible for this.’