I was settling myself to sleep, in fact I think I was asleep as far as it would be called so, for I had from habit the custom of sleeping with one eye open, when I saw or _felt_ the flash of a knife over my head.

The entrance to my couch was very limited, so that my would-be murderer had some difficulty in striking the fatal blow.

Instinct at once showed me my danger.
To draw my pistol from under my pillow was the work of a second; to fire it into the body of the man who was trying to stab me, that of another.
A groan and a heavy fall on the deck told me what had happened, and springing out of my sleeping berth I found my ci-devant friend the captain lying on his face, dead as a door nail.

In the meantime I heard a row in the fore-part of the ship.

On going forward I saw one of the prisoners in the act of falling overboard, and another extended full length on the deck, while my stalwart quarter-master was flourishing a handspike with which he had knocked one of his assailants overboard and floored the other.