“What’s happening?  What yer going to do with us?”

I thought I located the questioner among the jumbled mass below, and with my eyes on him, answered for all his mates.

“We are in control of the ship,” I called back, “and mean to keep it.  The old officers are either dead or prisoners.  What we do with you will depend on your actions, but we’re ready to kill if necessary.  If you keep quiet down there, and obey orders, you’ll be fed, and treated decently enough.  Pass up your arms.”

There was no movement, only a glare of hostile eyes, an indistinguishable growl of voices.

“Kneel down, lads and cover those fellows,” I ordered sternly drawing my own pistol.  “Now you below there, this is my last word.  I’ll count ten, and you’ll either pass up those weapons or we’ll pour our fire into you.  If your miserable lives are worth anything to you, the quicker you move the better.  Take aim, boys.”

There was a moment of deathly silence, except for my counting and the heavy breathing of the trapped prisoners.  One man uttered a curse, and the jam of figures at the foot of the ladder endeavored to work back out of range, yet, before I had spoken the word eight, guns were held aloft, and poked up within reach, and at this sign of surrender even the most desperate lost heart and joined the more cowardly.  It was a strange collection of weapons stacked on the deck—­guns, cutlasses, knives and pistols of every description, relics of many a foray, some apparently very old.  Probably all had not been delivered, yet there was such a pile, I felt no further fear of the few pieces remaining hidden.  It was not my intention that the villains should have the slightest chance to use the weapons, so when the stream finally ceased, I asked no questions, although I gave no orders to the guard to withdraw.  I had the fellows cowed, and meant to keep them so.

“That’s all, is it?  Very well—­now you men at the foot of the ladder take care of this big nigger we’re sending down; no, he is not dead, only stunned.  Let him have a bucket of water, and he’ll be all right.  Now stand aside while a few of your friends join you; they’ll tell you what’s up.  Make room there?”

We passed the forecastle scum down one after the other, and as the last of these merged into the scarcely distinguishable mass below, I gave vent to a sigh of relief, and straightened up, with pistol still grasped in my hand.  They were now bunched together, all of them, and confined where they would prove the least possible danger.  Desperate and reckless as many of them were, we had them now safely in our own hands—­disarmed and imprisoned within narrow limits.  To be sure they might wreck the bark by fire, or otherwise, but that would only peril their own lives, and, no matter how willing some might be to accept this hazard of fortune, there would be more to oppose the proposition—­forcibly, if necessary.  For them to escape the only means