He stood a moment before he made a turn for another quarterdeck excursion and viewed them, and then walked right aft with his back turned to the bows of the ship, and in such an attitude that should the man at the wheel look over his shoulder he would not be able to see what he was doing. What he did was to pull from the pocket of his coat a pistol whose priming he quickly examined; he replaced the weapon, which was of a lighter pattern than the cumbrous engine which in those days men stuffed into their belts, and none by observation of his coat would conceive that he went about armed with a loaded pistol. This done he wheeled round and walked the usual distance forward. As he advanced, one of the sailors came away from a little crowd of men manifestly with the object of addressing him. This man was Pledge's friend "Old Jim." He was about forty-five, with a neck as long as a piece of broken pillar, and lantern jaws deformed by a growth of mustard-coloured hair sprouting in single fibres. He had but three or four teeth in his gums, two of which shot outwards and lifted his upper lip. He was generally reckoned the ugliest man in Old Harbour Town, and esteemed by his brethren of the jacket as one of the best sailors that ever stepped a ship's deck. "May I have a word with you, sir?" he exclaimed in a coarse, hoarse, broken voice. "What do you want?" said Mr Lawrence, halting and viewing the fellow with a frowning face and lips which grew tight-set the instant he closed them. "I beg your pardon, sir----" began the man. "To the point! Out with it and bear a hand!" exclaimed Mr Lawrence with a stern, contemptuous glance at the huddle of faces forward, and then slightly turning his head to see in the tail of his eye what Mr Pledge was doing. "Well, sir, it's like this," said the man, pronouncing his words forcibly in his determination to show a bold front. "Us sailors who agreed to sail this 'ere ship to Kingston in Jamaica have got to hear that we are bound to another port, though where it is ain't know'd." "What's this matter got to do with you?" said Mr Lawrence fiercely. "It's got to do with us all, sir, not alone with me," was the answer. "If it's the owner's wish that this vessel shall be carried to another port, there she shall go; and so you have it. Now, go forward!" said Mr Lawrence, and he moved as though about to turn on his heel. A murmur broke from the men. "We are not willing to carry this ship to any other port than the port we agreed to, sir," said Old Jim, speaking with great firmness, the murmur that had risen behind him having stimulated his fortitude.