"I? Backing and hauling?" Roger spoke as calmly as you please. "I am merely advocating that the men take charge of the ship in the name of the lawful owners and according to their orders." As Captain Falk sprang forward to strike him down, there came a thin, windy cry, "No you don't; no, you don't!" To my amazement I saw that it was old Blodgett. "It don't do to insult the dead," he cried in a voice like the yowl of a tom-cat. "You can kill us all you like. It's captain's rights. But, by the holy, you ain't got no rights whatsoever to refuse a poor sailor a decent burial." With a vile oath, Captain Falk contemplated this new factor in the situation. Suddenly he yelled, "Kipping! It's mutiny! Help!" And with a clutch at his hip he drew his pistol. "'Heave the lead' is it?" Blodgett muttered. "Ay, I'll heave the lead." He whipped up his arm and hurled the missile straight at Captain Falk's head. The captain dodged, but the lead struck his shoulder and felled him. Seeing Kipping coming silently with a pistol in each hand, I ducked and tried to pull Roger over beside Blodgett; but Roger, instantly aware of Kipping's move, spun on his heel as the first bullet flew harmlessly past us, and lithely stepped aside. With a single swing of his right arm he cut Kipping across the face with a rope's end and stopped him dead. As the welt reddened on his face, Kipping staggered, leveled his other pistol point-blank and pulled the trigger. For the moment I could not draw breath, but the pistol missed fire. "Flashed in the pan!" Roger cried, and tugged at his own pistol, which had caught inside his shirt where he had carried it out of sight. "That's not all--that's flashed in the pan!" "Now then, you fools," Kipping shrieked. "Go for 'em! Go for'em! The bell's struck! Now's the time!" So far it all had happened so suddenly and so extraordinarily swiftly, with one event fairly leaping at the heels of another, that the men were completely dazed. Captain Falk sat on the deck with his hand pressed against his injured shoulder and with his pistol lying beside him where he had dropped it when he fell. Kipping, the red bruise showing across his face, confronted us with one pistol smoking, the other raised; Blodgett, having thrown the lead, was drawing his knife from the sheath; Roger was pulling desperately at his own pistol; and for my part I was in a state of such complete confusion that to this day I don't know what I did or said. In the moments that followed we were to learn once and for all the allegiance of every man aboard the Island Princess.