The sounds that came from the after part of the vessel excited his suspicions, though they did not assure him that the ship's company of the steamer were engaged in anything like a revolt.
"Follow me, Bench and Kingman!" he shouted to the two men that remained on the forecastle.

"Strike two bells, Landers," he added to the wheelman.
Christy had drawn the cutlass he carried in his belt, and was ready, with the assistance of the two men he had called, to put down any insubordination that might have been manifested by the ship's company of the prize.

He would have been willing to admit, if he had given the matter any attention at that moment, that it was the natural right of the captured captain and his men to regain possession of their persons and property by force and violence; but he was determined to make it dangerous for them to do so.
"On the forecastle, sir!" exclaimed Landers, the wheelman.
Christy had put his hand upon the door of the pilot-house to open it as the two men were moving aft; but he looked out the window at the exclamation of the wheelman.

The cotton bales seemed to have become alive all at once, for half a dozen of them rolled over like a spaniel just out of the water, and four men leaped out from under them, or from apertures which had been formed beneath them.
[Illustration: "His assailant put his arms around him and hugged him like a bear." Page 339.] Bench and Kingman seemed to be bewildered, and both of them were thrown down by the movement of the bales.

The four men who had so suddenly appeared sprang upon them, and almost in the twinkling of an eye had tied their hands behind them.