They had succeeded in surprising Dirk Peters, and they would have killed him, had he not fought hard for life.
In the face of this mutiny, knowing our inferiority of numbers, and not knowing whether he might count on all the old crew, Captain Len Guy re-entered the cavern with West in order to procure arms.

Hearne and his accomplices were armed.
I was about to follow them when the following words arrested my steps.
The half-breed, overpowered by numbers, had been knocked down, and at this moment Martin Holt, in gratitude to the man who saved his life, was rushing to his aid, but Hearne called out to him,-- "Leave the fellow alone, and come with us!" Martin Holt hesitated.
"Yes, leave him alone, I say; leave Dirk Peters, the assassin of your brother, alone." "The assassin of my brolher!" "Your brother, killed on board the _Grampus_--" "Killed! by Dirk Peters ?" "Yes! Killed and eaten--eaten--eaten!" repeated Hearne, who pronounced the hateful worms with a kind of howl.
And then, at a sign from Hearne, two of his comrades seized Martin Holt and dragged him into the boat.

Hearne was instantly followed by all those whom he had induced to join in this criminal deed.
At that moment Dirk Peters rose from the ground, and sprang upon one of the Falklands men as he was in the act of stepping on the platform of the boat, lifted him up bodily, hurled him round his head and dashed his brains out against a rock.
In an instant the half-breed fell, shot in the shoulder by a bullet from Hearne's pistol, and the boat was pushed off.
Then Captain Len Guy and West came out of the cavern--the whole scene had passed in less than a minute--and ran down to the point, which they reached together with the boatswain, Hardy, Francis, and Stern.
The boat, which was drawn by the current, was already some distance off, and the tide was falling rapidly.
West shouldered his gun and fired; a sailor dropped into the bottom of the boat.

A second shot, fired by Captain Len Guy, grazed Hearne's breast, and the ball was lost among the ice-blocks at the moment when the boat disappeared behind the iceberg.
The only thing for us to do was to cross to the other side of the point.

The current would carry the wretches thither, no doubt, before it bore them northsyard.