“Stay here, all four of you,” I commanded sharply.  “This job is well done.  Now let me see about the others.”

Watkins needed no help; he had his party rounded up, and in complete control, the fellows begging for mercy, as they crouched before the cutlasses of their assailants.  To my orders they were driven into the cook’s galley and a guard stationed at the door.  Then I turned to the more serious work confronting me in the forecastle.  What lay before me in facing the members of the starboard watch it was impossible to conceive, but they had to be sorted out, and it was my task.  We must have men enough to sail the bark, and if I was to command them, I must first of all prove my courage and enforce authority.  The whole success of our effort depended on this.

“What’s going on below?” I asked.

“Cursin’ mostly,” answered Carter, peering down through a slight uptilting of the scuttle.  “They don’t just know what’s happening yet, but the big nigger seems ter be raisin’ hell.  Carlson is a holdin’ him back with his cutlass.”

“Open up and let me down.”

I fell, rather than clambered along the rungs of the ladder, coming to my feet on deck in the midst of a group of angry men, who had Carlson pinned against the bulkhead.  The light was so poor I could scarcely see their faces; a babel of voices greeted me, and more than one hand gripped me fiercely as the excited owner yelped a demand to know what in hell we were up to.  I roughly cleared a space, aided by Carlson’s cutlass, and fronted them defiantly.  Towering above them all, his black apelike face, distorted with rage, I distinguished the giant Cochose, his immense hands grasping a wooden bar ripped from a bunk.  Plainly enough he was the leader, the one man whose ascendency I must crush, and I meant to do it, then and there.  This was no job I could turn over to others; if I was to rule, this black brute must be conquered at the very start, conquered by my own hands, and in the presence of his mates.  Here, in this black forecastle, we must fight it out, breast to breast, as savagely as beasts of the jungle, to the bitter end.  I made the resolve, with teeth clenched, and every muscle throbbing with eagerness.

“Stand back there lads,” I said sternly, my eyes searching their faces, and with pistol poised threateningly.  “Give us room.  I’ll explain all that has happened presently, but first I am going to lick that black brute within an inch of his life.  Step out of there, Cochose.”

He came grinning widely, balancing the heavy club in his hands.

“You mean me, sah?  You all think yer kin lick me?”

“Yes, I think so; I’ll try it anyway.  Here Carlson, take this pistol and sheath knife.  If anyone interferes shoot him.  All I ask is fair play.  Drop that club, Cochose, and throw away your knife.  You and I will fight this out with bare hands.”

His dull brain worked slowly, and he stared at me, his eyes ugly, his grin becoming savage with a display of teeth.  His silence and lack of response, awoke a growl from the impatient circle of men behind.  One fellow kicked the club out of his hand contemptuously, and another plucked the knife from his belt.