138 WHALING 



Payne, now left in command, and fearing that Comstock, who 

 had gone with half a hundred natives in the direction of a 

 village, would eventually succeed in his scheme, posted heavy 

 guards that night; and the next morning, seeing Comstock ap- 

 proaching, he and Oliver, with others of the crew, concealed 

 themselves behind some bushes and with loaded muskets 

 waited for their recent leader. 



Comstock did not discover them until he was almost upon 

 them. Then he cried, "Don't shoot me! Don't shoot me! 

 I will not hurt you!" 



They fired, and he fell. One ball had pierced his right breast, 

 the other his head; but Payne, not certain that he was really 

 killed, ran out and cut his head nearly off with an ax, to make 

 sure of him. 



Wrapping the body of this lad of twenty-one in an old sail, 

 they read over it, with unconscious irony, a chapter from the 

 Bible, fired a musket by way of requiem, and buried it five 

 feet deep in sand. All this, two-and-twenty days after he 

 had led the mutiny and struck down four men with his own 

 hands. 



Had the survivors been of one mind, they could have put 

 their theories of Utopia to a practical test; but, unhappily for 

 our knowledge of social science, there were certain among them 

 whose conception of an earthly paradise did not conform to the 

 ideas held by Comstock and Payne. 



In the course of the day, Payne ordered Smith, the surviving 

 boat-steerer, who, it will be remembered, had declared his 

 sympathy with the mutiny only after it was successfuly carried 

 out, and who had had no active part in it, to fetch the binnacle 

 compasses on shore. Payne himself chose six men to take 

 charge of the ship, placed Smith in command of them, and sent 

 them on board. Then, setting a watch on shore to guard 

 against the natives, he and his party turned in for the night. 



At about ten o'clock an outcry woke them: ''The ship has 

 gone ! The ship has gone !" 



They found, to their alarm, that the ship had, indeed, dis- 

 appeared. The strong breeze that was blowing made plausible 



