a moist, heavy atmosphere; day after day went in a quest which became
dreary, and night after night settled upon discontent. Then came
threats. But this was chiefly upon the Bridgwater Merchant. Phips had
picked up his sailors in English ports, and nearly all of them were
brutal adventurers. They were men used to desperate enterprises,
and they had flocked to him because they smelled excitement and booty.
Of ordinary merchant seamen there were only a few. When the Duke of
Albemarle had come aboard at Plymouth before they set sail, he had
shrugged his shoulders at the motley crew. To his hint Phips had only
replied with a laugh: these harum-scarum scamps were more to his mind
than ordinary seamen. At heart he himself was half-barbarian. It is
possible he felt there might some time be a tug-of-war on board, but he
did not borrow trouble. Bucklaw had endorsed every man that he had
chosen; indeed, Phips knew that many of them were old friends of Bucklaw.
Again, of this he had no fear; Bucklaw was a man of desperate deeds, but
he knew that in himself the pirate had a master. Besides, he would pick
up in Boston a dozen men upon whom he could depend; and cowardice had no
place in him. Again, the Swallow, commanded by Gering, was fitted out
with New England seamen; and on these dependence could be put.

Therefore, when there came rumblings of mutiny on the Bridgwater
Merchant, there was faithful, if gloomy, obedience, on the Swallow.
Had there been plenty of work to do, had they been at sea instead of
at anchor, the nervousness would have been little; but idleness begot
irritation, and irritation mutiny. Or had Bucklaw been on deck, instead
of in the surgeon's cabin playing a hard game with death, matters might
not have gone so far as they did; for he would have had immediate
personal influence repressive of revolt. As it was, Phips had to work
the thing out according to his own lights. One afternoon, when Gering
was away with the canoes on the long search, the crisis came. It was a