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CHAPTER XIX.

I TAKE COMMAND.

I was awakened by a sharp, persistent knocking on my cabin-door. "Who is there?" I called out, scarcely yet awake.

"The crew wants a word with ye, sir," exclaimed a deep-throated voice outside.

"Eh, what's that?" I cried, instantly startled into broad wakefulness.

"The crew 'ud be glad to have a talk with ye, sir," repeated the leather-lunged voice, the tones of which, though I might have had some memory of them had I heard them on deck, sounded most harshly unfamiliar, even malevolent, in the privacy and retirement of these after-cabins.

"All right," I exclaimed; "give me a minute or two to dress. Who are you?"

"Terence Mole, sir."

"Ha!" said I, "and where are the others?"

"All of 'em in the cabin, saving the chap at the wheel, and Charles, who's keeping a look-out."

There was broad daylight on the ocean, as a glance through the scuttle assured me; the flash of sunlight came to the glass of the screwed-up port in a fine-weather tremble off the waters, with a mingling of atmospheric blueness that made one know there was plenty of clear sky overhead. No. 355.-vOL. LX.

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was natural that I should wonder with all my might what the crew could want with me as I dressed myself, but not hastily; for let what might have happened, I was resolved to oppose an aspect at least of composure to whatever might befall, and the first condition of dignity was a leisurely observance of the wish of the crew to see me. I looked at my watch, punctually timed by every day's meridian, and found the hour ten minutes to five. I dressed myself fully, lingering to wash my face and hands and brush my hair; trifling things to talk about indeed, but useful to recall as an instance at all events of selfcontrol, which to this day I am proud to remember; for let me tell you, knowing the posture of the men as I did, it was enough to throw a heartier mind than mine off its balance, to be suddenly aroused from a deep sleep by the wooden knuckles of a sailor, and to collect with a half-conscious ear from his harsh, gruff accents that the seamen of the brig wanted a word with me.

I stepped into the little passage with a glance at Miss Grant's door, which was closed, though I had no doubt she was wide awake within and had overheard the sailors' message to There were eight men in the cabin, four of them seated at the table; the tall seaman, Terence Mole, leaned against a stancheon with his arms, naked to the elbows, folded

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upon his breast; the sixth-the cook -squatted at the foot of the companion-steps; two others marched to and fro with their hands buried in their breeches-pockets, but came to a halt when they saw me. The novelty of the sight of these rough fellows seated or lounging about an interior which I, with a sailor's experiences in me, knew that at ordinary times they would think of, in their own sea-parlour, as a sort of holy ground in which no foremast Jack was ever to be heard of, unless he came to catch a pig or to holystone the deck of it, was, I protest, as much a shock in its way as if one of the men had saluted my approach with a levelled pistol. The eastern sunshine

streamed upon the skylight, and the place was full of the brilliance of the morning. I noticed a sort of haggard, worried look in two or three of the hairy, weather-lined faces. Used as I was to their attire of duck-breeches, loose shirts, Scotch and other caps, and half-boots-though some of them were unshod-yet the mere presence of them in the cabin rendered their garb as strange in my sight as if I had never beheld it before; and I seemed to find in the first presentment of them the most genuine imaginable aspect of outlawry, abominably in conformity with every fancy, recollection, or imagination of mutiny that could occur to an observer. The fellows who were seated at the table rose when I entered: Mole quitted his lounging attitude; and the cook, a stout, pale, sandy-haired man, writhed himself on to his feet off the ladder. I came to a stand a foot or two in advance of the doorway which conducted to the after-berths, that Miss Grant might hear what I said, and gather from my language the import of the speech of the others if their syllables should not be always audible to her.

over which his hair lay thick as a mat to his eyebrows.

"We've thought it proper to tell you, sir," he exclaimed, "that the capt'n's a-missing."

"Missing!" I cried; "since when, do you know?"

The cook came forward, and said in a wheezy voice, striking his chest as though he had taken a chill there: "I was on dooty, 'cording to Captain Broadwater's orders, till midnight; then I thumped him up with a handspike, his instructions being I wasn't to leave the deck on any account till he came. Well, he arrived, and I went forrards and tarned in. At four, Mole here came to say that the capt'n must have gone below, as nothen was to be seen of him. I says, 'That's odd, ain't it?' I says, 'an' he so pertikler!' Jim here had had the wheel since four bells, and I ask him if he'd seen aught of the capt'n, and he says that at six bells the skipper looked into the binnacle, and then went forrards again out of sight, for it had been as black all night as if a man had gone dark hisself, and arter that I saw no more of him."

"All that's right enough," said the sailor, to whom the cook referred.

"Have you looked for him?" said I quietly, for a sense of deep insincerity in all this business was creeping into me, spite of the cook talking like an honest man on his oath.

"Everywhere saving them there cabins," answered Mole, pointing with his muscular arm, blue with devices, to the after-berths.

"There are but two cabins vacant," said I; "come with me and look for yourself."

I threw open the door of the berth in which were our private stock of provisions, then the door confronting it, and motioning Mole to precede me, returned to where I had before been standing.

"Of course you have searched his own berth and those near it?" said I. "First and foremost of all, naturally," responded Mole.