The crew were lounging about the deck, forwards,
some preparing their supper, which chiefly
consisted of outlandish Russian salads, made
with the fresh vegetables brought from Trebizond,
some asleep, and others gathered about
the forecastle, where a fiddle was sounding
merrily. The fiddler was Jack Judkins, a little
sun-browned English sailor, the life of the ship
before the mast, as Spiridion was of the
statecabin. He was the only Briton on board,
except a gaunt grave seaman from Aberdeen,
Æneas McDonald by name, and whose austere
demeanour made a fine contrast to the other's
flippancy of bearing and speech. Oddly enough,
the tall Scotchman had an inseparable messmate
still more utterly unlike himself than Judkins, a
brisk negro lad, whose white teeth and rolling
eyeballs were now expressing the utmost approval
of the jig which the amateur fiddler played.
This negro, whose name was Roderick Sprowle,
but who was never known by any other title
than " Rod," or " Black Rod," was, I believe, a
runaway from some Carolina plantation, and had
a curious affection and admiration for McDonald,
whom he had followed from ship to ship, never
caring where he engaged his services, so that he
could be near his white friend. It was curious
to see this ill-assorted Damon and Pythias
together, and Judkins always spoke of them as
Robinson Crusoe and Man Friday.

The rest of the crew were not very interesting
personages. About half of them were dull
bearish mujiks from Malorossia, while the rest
were keen-visaged Hydriote and Mainote Greeks,
tolerable sailors, but somewhat averse to
sustained exertion. It was creditable to Captain
Veltrivitch that with such heterogeneous
materials he had got the ship into so good
a condition as to discipline.

I had always had a taste for the sea, and it had
become a habit with me to go forward and chat
with my fellow-countrymen and their black ally
—  a fortunate habit, as it turned out, since the
men had thus got to know me better and trust me
more, than could otherwise have been the case.

Once or twice, on this particular evening, as
I stood with the other cabin inmates beside the
taffrail, I fancied that Æneas McDonald was
watching my movements, and that he seemed
anxious to attract my attention without provoking
remark from the black-capped Russians or
greaved and kilted Greeks around him. I had
no cause to be mysterious in my proceedings,
but man is an imitative creature, and the
Scotchman's evident caution infected me with some of
his own distrust for the foreign portion of the
crew. I therefore left the group aft with as
careless an air as I could assume, and sauntered
languidly forward to where the gaunt form of
the Scottish mariner, in blue Jersey and Kilmarnock
cap, towered above the bulwarks. McDonald
had passed one arm through the last round of
the Jacob's ladder, and was meditatively chewing
a quid and staring at the water below, when I
came up.

"Good evening, Mac," said I; " a fine night
we shall have, unless there's a shift in the wind."

"'Deed, sir, but ye're richt," answered the
wary Aberdonian, lifting his eyes and taking one
of those sweeping surveys of sky and sea so
customary with an old sailor; then dropping his
voice, he added:

"Mr. Millington, I jalouse there's a squall
brewin' here aboard. I've noted mair whispering
and signals than suld be amaug honest
men."

"The plague you have!" said I. "Do you
mean that you suspect a mutiny?"

"Hoot! whisht! have a care, gudesake!"
interrupted Æneas, hurriedly;  "some o' they
loons understand English. That's just it, sir.
There's some colloguing and plots afoot; and
the puir creature Rod being just a simple black
sumph, and Judkins a feather-brained gowk, I've
naebody to tak' counsel wi' but yoursel, landsman
though you be, at the back o't."

McDonalds conclusion was scarcely
complimentary, but this was no time to indulge any
silly sentiments of wounded self-consequence.
I knew the Scot to be a cool, long-headed fellow,
steel to the backbone in danger, and with the
experience derived from a quarter of a century's
seafaring all over the globe. I had heard, too,
of ugly things being done on board Levantine
vessels, and as I looked around at the muscular
form and brutish features of the Russian
mariners, and at the piratical aspect of the
Greeks, with their gaudy jackets, embossed
greaves, and kilts of dirty white, I could not
deny that we were utterly at their mercy, should
there really be a conspiracy to seize the ship.

After some serious talk, it was agreed that I
should take the earliest opportunity of informing
Captain Veltrivitch, privately, that a
suspicious intelligence existed among several of the
crew, and that the officers and passengers had
better be on their guard. I should have
mentioned that the first mate was a Russian, the
second being a Greek, and that it was McDonald's
opinion that the superior of these, at any rate,
was ignorant of any plot.

I went aft, and to my surprise I found Miss
Brackley alone upon the poop, reading. She
told me that Spiridion had gone away as soon as
I went forward, pleading headache, and announcing
his intention to lie down for a while, but that
the captain had very lately quitted the deck. I
at once descended the companion-ladder,
determined to tap at the door of the skipper's cabin
and tell my tale without delay; but as my foot
was on the last step of the narrow and winding
stair, I heard a word that checked my progress,
hushed my very breathing, and appeared
to curdle the blood in my veins.

The word was "Murder."

"Murder! that I should do it! I a
murderer!" said some one in a thick broken voice,
the voice of Captain Veltrivitch. The answer
to this passionate exclamation was in the clear
mocking tones of Spiridion:

"Bah, mon capitaine! what's in a name?
When anything gets in my way, I crush it, man
or scorpion. Be a man, Alexis Veltrivitch, and
remember what is at stake. The liberty of your