I supposed no one but myself saw this; many stood about, close, too, and the fellow stole the watch with the most foolish, staring, innocent face you could imagine, looking at the seamen going through the gangway as though he could think of nothing else. But scarcely had he snugged the watch and chain in his side-pocket, when another convict next him whipped it out with incredible skill and swiftness. Indeed, I should not have remarked the motions of the rogue’s hand but for the gleam of the gold. A minute later, the first convict put his hand to his pocket and missed the watch. He turned furiously upon the second convict, shouting: ‘A thief! A thief!’ for all the world as though he had been some respectable man in the streets just robbed. The felon who had the watch roared out: ‘A thief! A thief!’ and fell upon the second convict whose pocket he had picked. A scuffle followed. The second convict, whose guilt appeared to be assumed by all who stood near, as though they knew him as a thief without morals and capable of robbing a brother-thief, was kicked and beaten, and a mob of shouting convicts, with this rascal in the midst of them, surged forward, and I took notice that the rogue who shouted the loudest and kicked the hardest was the fellow who had the watch. This commotion caused no uneasiness amongst the crowd who stood on the side of the deck where the open gangway was. No doubt they understood what had happened, and guessed that enough were concerned in the scuffle to insure justice being done. By this time both quarter-boats were filled with the seamen. I dare say there were eleven or twelve men in each, and more could not have gone without peril, for they were small boats, though they were stout and fairly new. Bates had seen that each craft had its proper equipment of mast, sail, oars, rudder, and the like. One of the ringleaders, a sallow-faced convict with a hare-lip and but two or three fangs in his upper jaw, roared down to the seamen to shove off, and in a few minutes both boats were heading in the direction of the long-boat, which had come to a stand awaiting them. Many convicts sprang upon the bulwarks and howled out insults in the wickedest language of the slums, in the most revolting speech of the great city rookeries and haunts of sin and infamy. The seamen rowed away in silence. Tom came on to the poop and looked at me a little while with a face of grief and horror, as though his very soul shrank up within him, to think that I should be a spectator of such scenes and a hearer of such language. I read his mind; he would not approach me to speak. Barney Abram followed, and with him were the hare-lipped man and some score of convicts, of whom half might have been principals in the seizure of the ship. ‘Let’s get to busidess,’ said Abram. ‘Talk to the people as was arradged, Butler.’