On the forecastle, the French seamen sat and whispered, scowling sometimes our way, and sometimes laughing at the poet who strutted near them, intent on the sunset and big with some notable verses thereupon, which were hatching in his brain.

An English fellow was at the helm, half asleep; while the captain, grumbling at the slackness of the breeze, paced to and fro, with an oath betwixt his lips and an ugly frown on his brow.
Suddenly I seemed to detect among the Frenchmen a stir, as if something had just been said or resolved upon in their whisperings.

The captain at that instant was near them, turning in his walk; when, without warning, two of their number sprang out upon him.

There was a shout, a struggle, the gleam of a knife, and then a dead man lay on the deck.
All was so quick and sudden that the murder was done under my very eyes before I knew what was happening.

Then, in a twinkling, the whole ship became the scene of a deadly fight.