Now, when I look back on that time and remember what I went through, I try to think if it would have been any better for the people who look down on me, or if I would have been a better man had I acted differently. I’m not a man to cry out against the rulings of a fate I’ve fought against with all my power. If I’m looked down upon as an untrustworthy man, I’m willing to take my rating accordingly. I know I’m shunned and called a pirate by some, but I still feel as if I did about what might have been expected from one in my position and condition, and that I was as near right as possible. I know, also, that Brown acted from as good an impulse as I did, although it may not have been the same. Had old Captain Crojack lived he would have made it plainer to landsmen why we stood together in the part we played. But I don’t mean to say that the honest old fellow would have joined us. As it was, before eight bells in the morning Captain Crojack was stark and stiff, lying dead where they had left him on the cabin floor. He had received several wounds after Mrs. Waters was shot, while she was clinging to him. Not a word of complaint about himself had passed his lips. He died the man he had lived, and the deep-water fleet lost one of the best and bravest men that ever trod a quarter-deck. At eight bells this convict, Benson, who now had command of the ship with a hundred and more men for her desperate crew, came into the after cabin. There were only the two men left to watch us in there of this gang, and he glanced quickly at them and then at us. Then he took a key from his pocket, opened the door of the captain’s stateroom, and entered there alone. In a few moments I heard a piteous cry, followed by the noise of a slight scuffle. Then all was quiet. Something seemed to swell within me as if my whole life or spirit was striving to burst forth from my lashed body. I remember that I suddenly found myself with my mouth open, gasping for breath. Then I strained every nerve and sinew to start my lashings. I saw nothing, but felt a strand of rope give slightly. Steadily I kept the strain until it seemed as if I was losing consciousness. Then I felt the rope part across my chest and I forced one arm free. The next instant the two men were upon me. They were powerful men. I struggled and fought fiercely in the vain effort to free myself, but the coils wrapped me closely from my shoulders to my ankles. I bent and doubled and struck out savagely with my free arm. But it was no use. They pinned me down and soon had another turn around my arm and I lay helpless. One of the villains, however, got his hand too near my mouth and I cut the thumb from it with my teeth as clean as if done with a knife. Then something crashed upon my head and a great flame burned before my eyes. The struggle was over.