But now we were to learn over what a masked mine we had been slumbering, and we were to see once more how the hand of Providence was always guarding us, as, I thank God, it has ever done where I have been concerned. There were seven of us in the frigate one most glorious Sunday afternoon--namely, the Captain and myself and five men, when, sitting on the poop under an awning, he and I saw Hanway being supported between two others from the little wood to the plank that reached the shore. The man seemed sick enough by the way he dragged himself along between those two, and we, wondering what ailed him, went up on to the rock and so on to the hither side of the plank, and the Captain hailed to know what was the mischief with him? "Sir," calls back a sailor, one of those leading him, "he is took very ill with a colic and wishes to go aboard to get a dram and rest. Will you permit his coming?" "And welcome," says Phips. "But how will it be for him to pass over the plank?" "We will come fore and aft of him, sir," says the man, "so he shall not fall." Receiving permission to do this, they started to reach the rock; and by the foremost man walking backwards--which a sailor can do as easily as a cat--and the other propping him up behind, they gotten him along the plank. "What ails you, man?" says the Captain kindly to him then, when he was there, but Hanway only groaned and placed his hand on his stomach, so that, sending the sailors back to the isle, we took him between us, and so got him into the captain's saloon. "A dram of brandy," says Phips, "is the thing for you, my man," and with that he makes to call for his servant; when, to our extreme astonishment, Hanway puts up his hand to stop him, and stands up, as straight and well as ever he was. "What foolishness is this?" asks Phips, with his brow all clouded; "what mean you, Hanway, by this conduct?" "Hush," says he, glancing round the cabin. "Hush! It means--there is no one by, I trust!--it means _mutiny_ again, Captain. That's what it means!" "Does it so?" says he, all calm in a moment, though his eye wandered to his sword and pistols hanging over the table--"does it so? And when and how, Hanway?" "To-night," says the carpenter; "and from the isle. I have heard it all, though they know not I have heard one word. See, Captain, it was thus. I was lying in the grass under a bush but an hour ago, when there comes that most dreadful wretch, Brooks, with half a score more, and sits himself down on the other syd, behind a clump of cabbage-palms that grew next the bush. And so I heard all. Says he, 'Now, lads, to-night is our occasion, or never. To-night I must have my account with Phips and Crafer, so that there shall be a new captain and a new commander to the _Algier Rose!_" "And who," asks Phips, "are to succeed us, Hanway?"