The men would not accept the driving when
the Elsinore won to easier latitudes. Mr. Pike was right. Hell had
not begun to pop. But it has popped now, and men are overboard
without even the kindliness of a sack of coal at their feet. And yet
the men, though ripe for it, did not precipitate the trouble. It was
Mr. Mellaire. Or, rather, it was Ditman Olansen, the crank-eyed
Norwegian. Perhaps it was Possum. At any rate, it was an accident,
in which the several-named, including Possum, played their respective
parts.
To begin at the beginning. Two weeks have elapsed since we crossed
50, and we are now in 37--the same latitude as San Francisco, or, to
be correct, we are as far south of the equator as San Francisco is
north of it. The trouble was precipitated yesterday morning shortly
after nine o'clock, and Possum started the chain of events that
culminated in downright mutiny. It was Mr. Mellaire's watch, and he
was standing on the bridge, directly under the mizzen-top, giving
orders to Sundry Buyers, who, with Arthur Deacon and the Maltese
Cockney, was doing rigging work aloft.
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