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“A fugitive from justice, are you? Well, I’ll see that the Consul at Melbourne gets you. I want no jailbirds in my ship.”

Which gave Rogers occasion to think.

Rogers was relieved at one bell (half-past twelve), and went forward to his dinner. As he descended the poop steps he met the big first mate, coming out of the forward companion picking his teeth.

“So,” he said to Rogers, “you’re a bad man from the West, I hear. Held up a stage and then killed the man you robbed!”

“You’ve got things wrong, Sir,” answered Rogers respectfully.

“None o’ your lip!” thundered the officer. “You may be a bad man from the West; but I’m a bad man from the East, and I’m here to take the badness out o’ bad men!”

Then, before Rogers could dodge, he launched forth his fist and struck him. The blow knocked him off his feet, and he rose with nose bleeding and eyes closing.

“Just to show you,” commented the mate, “that I’m a badder man than you.”

Rogers did not answer; in fact, no answer was necessary or wise. He walked forward, and, partly from his half-blindness, partly from his disorganized state of mind, passed to windward of Snelling, the second mate, who was coming aft to dinner. Snelling said nothing in the way of prelude, but crashed his fist on Rogers’s already mutilated face, and sent him again to the deck. As Rogers struggled to his feet he said:

“You pass to looward o’ me when we meet, or I’ll make you jump overboard!”

And again Rogers saw the wisdom of silence and went on to the forecastle.

The watches had not yet been chosen; but half the crew had eaten, and he joined the other half, finding in his clothes bag a new sheath knife and belt, a tin pan, pannikin, and spoon, which articles are always furnished to a shipped man by the boarding masters, no matter how he has been shipped. To his surprise, as he attacked the dinner, he found Quincy and Benson, each with a similar outfit of tinware, toying with the food, and paying no attention to the polyglot discourse of the other men regarding the ship, the mates, and the food. But they glared menacingly at Rogers as he entered.

“This your work, Rogers?” demanded Quincy. “Were you in cahoots with that saloonkeeper?”

“Shut up!” answered Rogers, stabbing at a piece of salt beef with his knife.

“We won’t shut up!” said Benson, spooning up pea soup with his brand new tin spoon. “This increases your sentence to the extent of a shorter shrift.”

“Go to the devil, the pair of you! I was doped and shanghaied myself, and I’ve run foul o’ the mates, same as you did–and for less reason, too.”

“Well, they’ll sweat for this, and you, too, Rogers!” said Quincy.

“Shut up! You’re up against something now that gunplay doesn’t figure in. You’re aboard a Yankee hell ship, and you’ve got to make the best of it.”

“I wouldn’t if I had my gun,” said Quincy, moodily.

“Yes,” added Benson, “with a gun I could have my own way.”

Rogers straightened back, looked them steadily in their faces, and said, “If you had your guns, what would you do?”

“Make this ship put back and land us,” answered Quincy.

“Benson,” said Rogers, “what would you do with a gun?”

“Shoot ’em full of holes until they turned this boat back.”

“Are you game?” said Rogers. “Understand that you’ll be alone. I wouldn’t help you; for, having been a sailor, I know what mutiny means in the courts. I’d rather go back with either of you to stand trial than to engage in open mutiny.”

“Hang your mutiny!” said Quincy. “We’re not sailors; we never agreed to make this voyage. I’m an officer of the law.”

“Feel the same way, Benson?” asked Rogers.

“The same. Give me a gun, and I’ll make that Captain and his two assistants walk a chalkline.”

The rest of the men, engaged with their dinner, had paid no attention to this discourse, and Rogers rose up, reached into his bag, and produced the note he had found there on wakening. “Listen,” he said: