"Louder," says he, "louder. You hain't lost your voices, have you? You can make the devil's own noise when you're singing and bellowing your profane ballads in the fo'castle. Speak up!" with still another oath. "Who's captain of this ship, I say?" "You are," they answered louder, yet looking black enough. "Very well," says he. "Now listen to me, you lubbers, and listen well." CHAPTER VII. THE ENDING OF IT. "Now," he went on, "you're talking about mutiny, I hear, and pirating in the Southern Seas. Well, who's going to begin the mutiny, eh? Which of you? Let him come forward so that I can catch holt of him, and string him up to the fore-top-sail yard with my own hand. Come, which of you is it, to commence with?" And again he glared terrible fierce at them. Then says one of them--poor fool!--"We shall never find no plate here; what's the good, captain, of our stopping here?" In a moment that man was upon his back with the blood pouring from his face, the captain having felled him like a butcher fells an ox, and "Fling him overboard to the sharks," says he. "Quick, or some more of you go, too. I'll have no mutineers here and no talk of the Southern Seas. Over with him, I say!" But not one of them all moved. "What," he roared, "it is a mutiny, then! Therefore, let's see the means to quell it. Crafer, call up all the officers. And now, you hounds, you who don't want to go to the Southern Seas, stand on the larboard side. Jump, skip, damn you! All who are on the starboard side when I have counted ten shall be treated as mutineers. Now." Some did jump and skip in verity, hopping over to the larboard as quick as ever they could; for his wrath was awful to see; while for those who moved slower--though they, too, meant to go--the punishment was terrible. He sprung amongst them like a lion, as I have said; he struck and beat them with his fists, bruising and blackening of their faces; he kicked them like dogs, until every man who had come up to the quarter deck was over on to the larboard side--some of them bellowing with pain, some trying to staunch their bleeding wounds, some leaning over the bow muttering curses in their agony. Meanwhile the officers had all come up. "Over with them to the sharks," he cried. "Over! Over! Send other men forward to help bind them and fling them forth. And this brute first," said he, pointing to the man he had first knocked down. "Mercy! Mercy!" they screamed now, while the other men forward, who were not disaffected, or, at least, had not shown their disaffection, came hurrying aft at the double whistles of the bo'sun and the bo'sun's mate. "Mercy! Mercy! Kill us, but give us not to the sharks. Mercy!"