“Now, messmates, when I was a youngster, I used to--could read a bit, and I remembers reading some’ut about the _conginuality_ of minds;--that is, suppose setting a case, messmates, just this here. Darby there and I, without speaking to each other, both lifts the quart pots to drink his honour’s health for sarving out the stuff,--[he raised the quart pot, which by the by was empty, and looking into it, conveyed a hint that it required replenishing]--why then, messmates, (he continued) we should both have the same thoughts arising from the same feelings. [Darby’s mug was empty too, so I ordered them to be filled again.] So, d’ye see, messmates, the crews of the boats got busy about their gear and placed the oars and boat-hooks, the rudders and tillers all in their proper places, ready for a moment’s sarvice. The captain twigged ’em at it, but he never said nothing till the next day but one, when he orders the hammocks to be opened to air and spread out over the boats, and he stands off-and-on till about noon, when he makes a long stretch out from the land, and the men thought he was going to give it up. So, d’ye see, they pipes to dinner, and after that they sarves the grog out, of course;--your honour’s health; and, messmates, yours, all of you,--[he took a long draught];--but at two bells, instead of calling the watch, the hands were turned up and all ordered aft on to the quarter-deck, where the captain was standing as upright as a fathom of smoke in a calm, and the master was bent down like a yard of pump-water measured from the spout, and looking over a chart of the harbour, as busy as the devil in a gale of wind. “Well, every soul fore-and-aft mustered in the twinkling of a hand-spike, and they all crowded together as if they’d been stowed with a jack-screw for a long voyage; and then the captain up and tells ’em that he meant to head the boats himself and cut the Harmoine out, if they would do their duty like men and back him. My eyes, if there warn’t a cheer then, there never was one before nor since; and the lads, to seal the bargain, gived one another a grip of the fist that would have squeezed a lemon as dry as a biscuit. “So, you see, the murder was out, and every man betwixt the cabin windows and the figure-head volunteered to the duty; but the captain said he wouldn’t take more than one hundred, including officers and marines; he was sorry to leave any behind, as he believed them to be all brave fellows, but some must stay to work the ship, and, if necessary, bring her into action. “Well, the men were picked out, the muskets, pistols, tommyhawks, and cutlashes got ready, and long hook-ropes coiled away in the starn-sheets of each boat, and clinched to the ring in the bottom; the oars and rullocks were muffled and well greased, so that not a sound might be heard louder than the sigh of a periwinkle.