This last I considered important.  The crowd was eager for vengeance upon Cockney.  He had committed the unpardonable sin, he had betrayed his mates.  Blackie wanted to slit his throat, and drop him over the side; and the men voted an emphatic aye to the suggestion.  Sentence would have been executed as soon as Cockney came forward from the wheel had I not interposed my veto and given my reasons.

It was not solicitude for the spy’s life that influenced me.  I, too, considered he had forfeited his right to life by his act.  But I pointed out that offering immediate violence to Cockney might alarm the afterguard, and change their plan of action; moreover, we might use the spy to carry false tales of our intentions to the enemy.

So when Cockney breezed into the foc’sle, at four bells, his reception in no way aroused his suspicions.  Everything seemed going his way.  He sympathized volubly with me, and would have awakened Holy Joe (who had dropped into a healing sleep, after regaining consciousness) to sympathize with him, had I permitted.  Aye, he was a good dissembler, was Cockney—­but we matched him.  His mouth dripped curses on Swope and his minions, he exhorted us to “’arve guts” and rush the poop at muster time.  He was willing to risk his own skin by leading the rush.  “Wot did we think abaht it?”

Boston told him we thought early evening a bad time for the adventure.  We were going to wait until morning, until the beginning of the “gravvy-eye” watch, just before dawn.  That was the hour in which to strike.  Men slept soundest just before dawn; those who were awake were less alert.  The mutiny was timed for four A. M.

“Hi cawn’t ’ardly wyte that long, Hi’m that eager to get my knife ‘twixt that myte’s bleedin’ ribs,” said Cockney.

The Nigger had come in during the discussion.  He seated himself, and recommenced his favorite task of stropping his knife upon a whetstone.  At the Cockney’s last words he lifted his head.

“Don’ yoh touch de mate,” he said to Cockney.  “Dat man’s mah meat, yes, suh, mah meat!”

Cockney disputed this.  He raved, and swore, and even threatened Nigger.  Aye, he made a fine bluster. “‘E wasn’t goin’ to give hup ’is chawnce at the bleedin’ myte, not ’im!  ’E ’ad a score to settle with that blighter, so ’e ’ad.  The Nigger could ‘arve the bloomin’ second myte, that’s wot.”

Nigger was so incensed he got up and left the foc’sle, leaving the last word to the spy.  Nigger had brooded so much over his wrongs he was a bit cracked; he took no part in the councils of the crew, and did not know, I am sure, that Cockney had been unmasked as a traitor.  Else he would never have acted as he later did.

It came down night.  It was a good night for my purpose, dark and shadowless, with a mere sliver of a new moon in the sky.  I had little difficulty in gaining entrance to the cabin.