By dawn the Hawk was churning her way at full speed towards the Java Sea and a destination unknown to any one but the Captain. It was too early to judge of the qualities of the ship, but those of the crew were already becoming manifest. Indeed, it looked as if the prophecies of the mate and the engineer were likely to be fulfilled sooner than even they expected. The men did not work with a will; worse still, they didn't even grumble. They maintained a solid, stolid, sullen silence that had the same effect on the nerves as a black and threatening cloud on a still day. They quarrelled amongst themselves, but for the officers they only had lowering glances and threats muttered below the breath. One would imagine that they had all been shanghaied or shipped under false pretences. Besides the boatswain, his mate and a couple of quartermasters, there were very few white men amongst them, and between these and the rest of the crew a state of hostility already existed.

When the boatswain's mate put his head inside the forecastle door to call the morning watch no one swore at him, and that was a very bad sign indeed.

"Now then, my sons, and you know the sons I mean! Show a leg, show a leg, show a leg!" he called.

Nobody threw a boot at him, nobody consigned him to the nether regions, nobody told him what his mother had been. The men tumbled out of their bunks with surly, glowering faces and with scarcely a word spoken.

"Rouse out! Rouse out! You hang-dog, half-caste, loafing swine!" roared the boatswain's mate, hoping that he might thus goad them into cheerfulness and induce a homely feeling.

He failed, however, and though one man made a tentative movement with his hand in the direction of a sheath-knife at his hip, nothing came of it.

The matter was reported to Mr. Dykes, who shook his head gloomily.

"You ought, by rights, to be half-dead by now," he said, looking resentfully at the boatswain's mate.

The latter evidently felt his position and tried to look apologetic.

"Can't even get an honest curse out of 'em," he said. "They've had three feeds already, and the cook says not one's threatened to kill 'im. He don't like it because, of course, he feels something's wrong. 'Tain't natural that men should just fetch their grub and go away without telling the cook just what they think of 'im. I've never see'd anything like it before."

"Something's going to bust, and pretty soon," remarked the mate. "An' it'll be a gaudy shindy when it does."

Later on he reported the state of affairs to Calamity, who merely smiled.

"The men are doing their work, aren't they?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well?"

"The fact is, sir, things ain't settlin' down as they ought to. The ship feels like a theatre when the boys are loosenin' their guns before the curtain goes down. I've been in the foc'sle and there ain't so much as a photo nor a picture-postcard nailed up. There's nothing homely about it, sir, like you'd expect to see; no cussin' nor rowin' nor anything cheerful."

"Probably the men will be more cheerful later on, Mr. Dykes," answered the Captain. "They are new to the ship, remember."

The mate went away in deep dudgeon. So this was the notorious Captain Calamity; the man whose name, he had been told, was sufficient to cow the most disorderly ruffians that ever trod a ship's decks. Here he was, with a crew who were on the very verge of mutiny, making excuses for them and talking like some mission-boat skipper with the parson at his elbow. It was disgusting.

That evening he confided his opinions to McPhulach, in the latter's cabin.

"I reckon we've got this old man tabbed wrong," he said. "He ain't no bucko skipper as they talks about; a crowd of Sunday School sailors is about his mark. When I told him the men were only waitin' a good opportunity to slit all our throats, he jest coo'd like a suckin' dove. 'Remember they're new to the ship,' says he, as soft as some old school-marm."

"Aye, but he's a quare mon till ye ken him," remarked the engineer thoughtfully.

"Queer! He'll let us all be dumped into the ditch before he raises a finger."

"I wouldna go sa far as tae say that. Yon's a michty strange mon, I'm telling ye, and the lead-line hasna been made that can fathom him."

Mr. Dykes gave a contemptuous grunt, and, as he walked away, opined that the skipper and the chief engineer were a pair, and about as fit to control men as their grandmothers would have been.

As he had anticipated, matters were not long in coming to a head. At the machine-gun drill and rifle exercise, which occupied several hours each day, the men grew increasingly slack. On the fourth day out it was as much as he could do to get the men to obey orders, and if ever a crew showed signs of mutiny it was the crew of the Hawk. But, early in the morning of the following day, an incident occurred which, if it served to distract everybody's attention for a little while, had the ultimate effect of bringing about the long-threatened crisis.

The grey mist of dawn still lay upon the waters, when the sound of firing was heard, apparently coming from the eastward. The Hawk's course was changed slightly and an hour later those on the bridge were able to make out, with the aid of glasses, a small German gunboat "holding up" a French liner.

"Guess we could sink that little steam can as easy as swallowin' a cocktail," remarked the mate. "Say, Cap'n, do we butt in here?"

Instead of answering, Calamity stepped up to the engine-room telegraph and rang down "Stop!" By this time the Germans could be seen conveying things from the liner to their own vessel, and, somehow or other, the rumour spread among the Hawk's crew that they were bullion cases. Presently the liner was allowed to proceed on her way, and the German steamed off in a north-easterly direction. Then Calamity rang down, "Full speed!" to the engine-room and turned to the mate.

"Follow that packet," he said, indicating the German, "but don't overhaul her."

"Then we're goin' to let that square-head breeze away?" asked Mr. Dykes in a tone of acute disappointment. "Durned if this lay-out don't get me stuck," he went on. "We could have froze on to them bars ourselves."

His opinion of Captain Calamity had touched zero by now, and he hardly troubled to conceal his contempt. He, like the remainder of the Hawk's company, knew that she was engaged on a privateering expedition, and was eager to "taste blood." And it must be admitted that Calamity had induced many of the men to ship with him by holding out promises of fat bonuses, with, perhaps, the opportunity of a little plundering thrown in. Now, when chance had thrown what appeared to be a rich prize under their very noses, the skipper was calmly letting it slip through his fingers.

It was pretty obvious that the mate's resentment was shared by the crew. For the last half-hour they had lined the bulwarks, watching the Germans transfer their plunder from the liner. Every man-Jack of them felt certain that, in the course of a very short time, that same plunder would find its way on board the Hawk with material benefit to themselves. When, however, it was seen that the Captain had no intention of carrying out their notion, scowling faces were turned towards the bridge, and there were angry mutterings. Soon the muttering grew louder, and at last one of the men, a huge serang, stepped out of the crowd, and shook his fist at Calamity, who was watching from the bridge.

Then, urged on by the others, he demanded that the ship should be put back to Singapore and the men discharged with a month's wages. They did not like, he said, being on a ship without knowing what port she was bound for. They did not like the officers, and, more than anything else, they did not like the Captain. The spokesman wound up his peroration in broken English by hinting that, unless the Hawk was put about at once, the crew would take charge of her.

All this while Calamity had stood leaning on the bridge-rail, listening to the serang with an expression of quiet, almost anxious, attention. The mate, watching him out of the corner of his eyes, saw no sign of that terrible berserker rage with which he had so often heard the Captain credited. In fact, a member of Parliament could not have listened to a deputation of constituents with more polite attention.

"I reckon if we don't do what they want they'll hand out some trouble," said the mate. "Them that ain't got one knife ready at their hips has got two."

Calamity made no answer, but a peculiar pallor had overspread his face. He turned away from the bridge-rail, and, without any sign of haste, descended the companion-ladder and stepped calmly into the midst of the snarling rabble.

"What are you doing on deck?" he asked the serang quietly. "Your place is in the stokehold."

The man started to make an impudent reply, but before he had uttered two words the Captain had snatched him off his feet as easily as if he had been a child and flung him bodily into the crowd of astonished men, knocking several of them over. Then, as the serang landed against a steam-winch with a terrible crash, Calamity snatched up a capstan bar and dashed into the crowd.

Then the mate, standing on the bridge, witnessed such a spectacle as he had never seen before and devoutly hoped he would never see again. Swinging the heavy iron bar above his head as though it were a flail, the Captain smashed left and right among the men, hitting them how and where he could—on the head, body, limbs—no matter where so long as he hit them. Two or three drew their knives and made a desperate rush at him, but there was no getting through the swinging circle of iron. In two minutes the forward deck bore a horrible resemblance to a shambles, for it was littered with injured men and blood was trickling down the white planks into the scuppers. Groans, shrieks, and curses resounded on all sides; the men scurried for shelter in every direction like rats, and two or three, reaching the forecastle, locked themselves in. But a couple of blows from the iron bar smashed the door to splinters and then cries rang out again and with them the sound of the terrible weapon as it crashed against a bulkhead or smashed a bunk to splinters. One man managed to escape out of the forecastle and was running for his life towards the poop when Calamity, his face distorted with demoniac fury, flung the bar at him. It caught the man on the back of the head and he pitched forward on the deck, where he lay weltering in his own blood.

Then, without so much as a glance at the fearful havoc he had wrought, the Captain returned to the bridge.

"What were you saying before I left, Mr. Dykes?" he inquired calmly.

"Er—I was saying that it looked as if the wind would change round to the nor' west before long, sir," answered the mate in a subdued and extremely respectful tone.