To avert suspicion during these preparations, the carpenter, at the suggestion of Phips, had gone ashore, and announced himself as ready to join the mutineers.  This gave them great satisfaction, and after a short interval to complete their plans they issued in a body from the woods and approached the ship.  As they drew near the tent, however, they looked at one another in surprise and dismay.  The guns were gone!

“We are betrayed!” was the fearful whisper that ran round the circle.

“Stand off, you wretches, at your peril!” cried the captain, in stern accents.

The guns of the ship were trained upon them.  They knew the mettle of Captain Phips.  In a minute more cannon-balls might be ploughing deadly gaps through their midst.  They dared not fly; they dared not fight.  Panic fear took possession of them.  They fell upon their knees in a body, begged the captain not to fire, and vowed that they would rather live and die with him than any man in the world.  All they had found fault with was that he would not turn pirate; otherwise he was the man of their hearts.

The captain was stern; they were humble and beseeching.  In the end he made them deliver up their arms, and then permitted them to come on board, a thoroughly quelled body of mutineers.  But Captain Phips knew better than to trust these men a third time.  The moment the ship was in sailing trim he hoisted anchor and sailed for Jamaica, where he turned the whole crew, except the few faithful ones, adrift, and shipped another crew, smaller, but, as he hoped, more trustworthy.

The treasure-ship still drew him like a magnet.  He had not begun to think of giving up the search.  Discouragement, failure, mutiny, were to him but incidents.  The silver was there, somewhere, and have it he would, if perseverance would avail.  From Jamaica he sailed to Hispaniola.  There his fluent persuasiveness came again into play.  He met a very old man, Spaniard or Portuguese, who was said to know where the ship lay, and “by the policy of his address” wormed from him some further information about the treasure-ship.  The old man told him that it had been wrecked on a reef of shoals a few leagues from Hispaniola, and just north of Port de la Plata, which place got its name from the landing there of a boat-load of sailors with plate saved from the sinking vessel.  Phips proceeded thither and searched narrowly, but without avail.  The sea held its treasures well.  The charmed spot was not to be found.  The new crew, also, seemed growing mutinous.  Phips had had enough of mutiny.  He hoisted sail and made the best of his way back to England.