The thing can be done if we make up our minds to do it, and I for one have made up my mind to try.

I haven't chalked out a plan yet, but I am convinced that it is to be done." "I am with you, whatever it is," the other said; "and I think there are twenty or thirty we could rely on.

I don't say there are more than that, because there are a lot of white livered cusses among them who would inform against us at once, so as to get their own freedom as a reward for doing so.

Well, we will both think it over, mate, and the sooner the better." The two men who were thus talking together were both by birth above the common herd of convicts, and had gained a considerable ascendency over the others because of their reckless indifference to punishment and their defiance of authority.

Few of the men knew each other's real names; by the officials they were simply known by numbers, while among themselves each had a slang name generally gained on board ship.
Separation there had, of course, been impossible, and when fastened down below each had told his story with such embellishments as he chose to give it, and being but little interfered with by their guards, save to insure the impossibility of a mutiny, there had been fights of a desperate kind.