Here are nine vessels, and no one on board one knows what's going on in the others, but if the captain of any one of them were to hoist a signal that a mutiny had broken out on board, the others would be round her with their portholes opened ready to give her a dose of round shot in no time." "But you don't think that it is really likely that we shall have any trouble, sergeant ?" "There won't be any trouble if, as I am telling you, the weather holds fine and the fleet keeps together; but if there's a gale and the ships get scattered, no one can't say what might come of it." "I can't think how they could be so mad as to get up a mutiny," Jack said; "why, even supposing they did take the ship, what would they do with it ?" "Them's questions as has been asked before, my lad, and there's sense and reason in them, but you knows as well as I that there's many a craft sailing the seas under the black flag.

There isn't a ship as puts to sea but what has half a dozen hands on board who have been in slavers, and who are full of tales of islands where everything grows without the trouble of putting a spade in the ground, where all sorts of strange fruit can be had for the picking, and where the natives are glad enough to be servants or wives, as the case may be, to whites.

It's just such tales as these as leads men away, and I will warrant there's a score at least among the crew of the Caesar who are telling such tales to any who will listen to them.

Well, you see, it's a tempting story enough to one as knows no better.

On the one side there is a hard life, with bad food and the chance of being shot at, and the sartainty of being ordered about and not being able to call your life your own.