The guns were loaded and the whole of the officers divided among them in readiness to run them forward.

Four or five minutes passed, then a shout was heard forward and a low rush of many feet.
In an instant the four guns on the quarterdeck were run across.

While this was being done there was a clashing of swords, shouts, and a noise of conflict heard forward, and at the same time a loud cheer arose, while from the after hatchway a dark body of men rushed up on to the deck and formed across it.

Some midshipmen, who had been told off for the duty, ran up from the officers' cabin with lighted lanterns, which were ranged along at the edge of the quarterdeck.
There was a rush aft of the mutineers, but these recoiled astonished at the sight of the pikes which confronted them, and the line of sailors four deep across the deck, while at the same moment the light of the lanterns showed them the officers on the quarterdeck, and the four guns pointed threateningly toward them.

For a moment a silence of astonishment and dismay succeeded the uproar which had preceded it, then the captain's voice was heard: "Down with your arms, you mutinous dogs, or I will blow you into the air.