in that lurid light. The mate and carpenter
were sitting near the wheel, looking at the
advancing fog; at the entrance to the fo'ksal
were some men stretched out half asleep.

The captain said not a word, but walked
straight up to the man at the wheel, and looked
at the compass.

"Why, you're steering south," he said,
quietly, "and I told you nor'-nor'-west an hour
ago."

"I am steering as the first mate told me,"
said the fellow, sullenly. "I can't steer as
everyone wants me. If it was my way, I'd
'steer home.'"

The first mate, as the man said this, came up
and took the wheel from him insolently, as if in
defiance of the captain.

"Jackson's steering right," he said.

"Right you call it," said the captain, storming.
"I'm a plain man, and I like plain dealing.
Mr. Cardew, I've had enough of your lying
tricks; let go the wheel, sir, and go to your
cabin. Consider yourself under arrest for
mutinous conduct. Purser, you are witness; take
this man down."

Cardew still refused to let go the wheel.
With the quickness of thought, the captain felled
him with a blow; in a moment the deck seemed
alive with shouting and leaping men. Five
sailors threw themselves on the captain, three
on the purser. The mutiny had broken out at
last. A cruel yell rang from stem to stern. All
who favoured the captain were in a moment,
with curses and cruel threats, overpowered and
bound to the mast and rigging.

"Now, Captain Ritson," said Cardew, as he
rose with a yellow face, down which the blood
streamed, and advanced to where the captain
stood bound and pale with rage, "you see I am
stronger than you thought. If I chose, I could
at once let you overboard with a rope and freeze
you to death; I could have you pelted with
bottles, or put an end to in some other agreeable
way; but I shall spare you now, to pay you out
better for that blow and other indignities. Last
night you refused to join me in my sensible
scheme for baffling the rascals who expose us to
danger and then underpay us. Now I will not
accept your partnership. Oh, you're a rash,
violent man, though you are so pious; where's
your Providence now? Come, my boys, leave
these fools, and get out the wine; we'll have a
spree tonight, for tomorrow we shall be on
shore, and, perhaps, starting again for England.
Come, get out this man's brandy. We'll have
a night of it. It's cold enough for these fellows,
ain't it? But it'll make them warm seeing us
drinking."

That night, as the liquor went round, and the
songs circulated among the mutineers to the
doleful accompaniment of the monotonous and
funeral fog-bell, the captain and seven friends
lying bound against the frozen shrouds, the
vapour lifted for a moment eastward and
disclosed an aurora borealis, that lit up all the
horizon with a majestic fan of crimson and
phosphorescent light that darted upward its
keen rays, and throbbed and quivered with
almost supernatural splendour. The electric
lustre lit the pale faces of the captain and his
fellow-prisoners.

"Why, here are the merry dancers," said the
first mate, now somewhat excited by drinking,
as he walked up to the captain, and waved a
smoking hot glass of grog before his face.
"Why, I'll be hanged if they ain't the blessed
angels dancing for joy because you and your
brother saints will so soon join them. What do
you think of Providence by this time, Ritson,
eh?"

The mutineers put their glasses together, and
laughed hideously at this.

"Just as I always did. God watches us at
sea as well as by land," was the captain's calm
reply. "I'd rather even now be bound here,
than change my conscience with yours, Cardew.
I'm a plain man, and I mean it when I say that
it's no worse dying here than at home in a
feather-bed. It is less hard to part with the
world here."

"Oh, if you're satisfied, I am. Here, glasses
round to drink to the Pious Captain. All his
gang are here but that boy, that little devil
Harrison; search for him everywhere, men; he
mustn't be left; if he is in the hold, smoke him
out with brimstone; never mind if he doesn't
come out, he'll have his gruel if you keep the
hatches well down."

"Ay, ay, sir," was the reply, with a brutal
and disgusting laugh; and away the men went
on their search, eager as boys for a rat hunt.

An hour after, all but the watch to toll the
fog-bell, the mutineers on board the Shooting
Star were sunk into a drunken and wallowing
sleep. That night, from time to time, Captain
Ritson kept his men's hearts up with cheerful
words; the cold was hard to bear, but they
survived it. When day broke, they all united in
prayer that God would allow them to die soon
and together. They had sunk into a torpid
semi-sleep, when the sound of a gun through
the fog, in the distance, aroused them. At the
same moment, the loud taunting voice of the
mate awoke the bound men to a sense of their
misery and despair.

"Good morning, Captain Ritson," said the
mate. "Lord, lads, how chopfallen that smart
fellow the purser is, and look at those A.B.
sailors, who used to sneer at you, and call you
skulkers, and loafers, and Liverpool dregs.
How our fat friend the quartermaster must miss
his grog; hard, isn't it? Captain Ritson, it is
my painful duty to inform you (lower the two
boats there, quick, men, and stave the third)
that we are about to leave this ship, which will
sink, as I am informed by my excellent friend
the carpenter here, almost exactly three hours
after our departure. A more pliant disposition
and a more graceful concession to those business
arrangements, in which I solicited your
co-operation, would have led to very different
results; gentlemen, that gun is from a
vessel lying off the ice field which we are now
skirting; that vessel will take us up. How