The General, however disgusted he might have been by the previous scene, had too many important interests involved in the interior peace of the vessel not to exert himself at this appeal. He was seconded by all the inferior officers, who well knew that their lives, as well as their comfort, depended on staying the torrent that had so unexpectedly broken loose. But they only proved how hard it is to uphold an authority that is not established on the foundation of legitimate power. Neptune had cast aside his masquerade; and, backed by all his stout forecastle men, was evidently preparing for a conflict that might speedily give him greater pretensions to immortal nature than those he had just rejected. Until now, the officers, partly by threats and partly by remonstrances, had so far controlled the outbreaking, that the time had been passed rather in preparations than in violence. But the marines had seized their arms; while two crowded masses of the mariners were forming on either side of the mainmast, abundantly provided with spikes, and such other weapons as the bars and handspikes of the vessel afforded. One or two of the cooler heads among the latter had even proceeded so far as to clear away a gun, which they were pointing inboard in a direction that might have swept a moiety of the quarter-deck. In short, the broil had just reached that pass when another blow, struck from either side, must have given up the vessel to plunder and massacre. The danger of such a crisis was heightened by the bitter taunts that broke forth from fifty profane lips, which were only opened to lavish the coarsest revilings on the persons and characters of their respective enemies. During the five minutes that might have flown by in such sinister and threatening symptoms of insubordination the individual who was chiefly interested in the maintenance of discipline had manifested the most extraordinary indifference, or rather unconsciousness to all that was passing so near him. With his arms folded on his breast, and his eyes fastened on the placid sea, he stood motionless as the mast near which he had placed his person. Long accustomed to the noise of scenes similar to the one he had himself provoked, he heard, in the confused sounds which rose unheeded on his ear, no more than the commotion which ordinarily attended the license of the hour. His subordinates in command, however, were far more active. Wilder had already beaten back the boldest of the seamen, and a space was cleared between the hostile parties, into which his assistants threw themselves, with the haste of men who knew how much was required at their hands. This momentary success might have been pushed too far; for, believing that the spirit of mutiny was subdued, our adventurer was proceeding to improve his advantage by seizing the most audacious of the offenders when his prisoner was immediately torn from his grasp by twenty of his confederates.