"Look here," said I. "Just a plain word with you before I am asked any more questions. There's not a man among you who doesn't know that I have been warm on your side ever since I learnt what kind of provisions you were obliged to eat. I have had words with the captain about your stores, and it is as much because of my interference in that matter as because of my determination not to let a woman die upon a miserable wreck, that he clapped me in irons. I don't know what you mean to do with me, but I'll not say I don't care. I do care. I value my life, and in the hope of saving it, I'll tell you this, and it's God's truth--that if you take my life you'll be killing a man who has been your friend at heart, who has sympathized with you in your privations, who has never to his knowledge spoken harshly to you, when he had the power to do so, and who, had he commanded this vessel, would have shifted your provisions long ago." So saying, I folded my arms and gazed fixedly at the carpenter. They listened to me in silence, and when I had done broke into various exclamations. "We know all that." "We don't owe _you_ no grudge." "We don't want your life. Just show us what to do--that's what it is." I appeared to pay no attention to their remarks, but kept my eyes resolutely bent on Stevens, the carpenter, that they might see I accepted him as their mouthpiece, and would deal only with him. "Well," he began, "all what you say is quite correct, and we've no fault to find with you. What I says to you this evenin' through the port-hole I says now--will you navigate this here wessel for us to the part as we've agreed on? and if you'll do that you can choose officers out of us, and we'll do your bidding as though you was lawful skipper, and trust to you. But I say now, and I says it before all hands here, that if you take us where we don't want to go, or put us in the way of any man-o'-war, or try in any manner to bring us to book for this here job, so help me, Mr. Royle, and that's your name, as mine is William Stevens, and I say it before all hands here, we'll sling you overboard as sartin as there's hair growin' on your head--we will; we'll murder you out an' out. All my mates is a followin' of me--so you'll please mind that!" "I hear you," I replied, "and will do your bidding, but on this condition--that having killed the captain, you will swear to me that no more lives shall be sacrificed." "By Gor, no!" shouted the cook. "Don't swear dat! Wait till by-um-by. "Be advised by me!" I cried, seizing the fellow's frightful meaning, and dreading the hideous scene it portended. "We have an old man and a young girl on board. Are they safe?" "Yes," answered several voices; and the cook jabbered, "Yes, yes!" with horrid contortions of the face, under the impression that I had mistaken his interruption. "We have the steward and the chief mate?"