The Sisters: A Mystery of Good and Evil, Horror and Suspense (Book One of the Dark Forces Series) by Don Sloan Page B

the British Navy, is a thin, hawklike man with wide-set eyes and an icehook nose. He bows his assent, knowing from experience that argument is out of the question, and goes below decks to a waiting throng in the schooner’s small mess area.
    “Lads, the Old Man is hard-set against heaving to, and vows to go down dead afore he makes landfall here,” says the mate.
    An angry sound erupts from the crew, who have seen the Cape May light and know that their voyage of 64 sea-tossed days could soon be over if they can but convince the captain to put into port.  “There ain’t nothing for it now but mutiny,” says one man named Bill McAfee. He is the eldest among the crew and carries the most weight with the men. “Says he’ll go down dead afore we heave to, eh? We’ll see about that. Come on, mates.” And with that said, all 20 of them swarm up on deck and confront the captain where he stands amidships.
    “What’s this, then?” yells the captain.
    “Aye, I reckon you know full well, sir, that we ain’t going to pull one more watch under your command. We are relieving you of duty and confining you to your cabin for the duration. We’ll find land close by and get off this stinking rat-hole of a ship,” says McAfee.
    The captain edges over close to a bulkhead and reaches behind his back. Before McAfee can say another word, or command someone to lay hands on the captain, the Old Man pulls out a short two-barrelled pistol and fires point blank at McAfee’s chest. The man drops dead to the deck before the gunpowder smoke has been blown away by the driving rainstorm.
    “And who’ll be next among ye?” shouts the captain as the men push back against the bulwarks. The angry murmur soon becomes a roar and the captain crouches down by the bulkhead, waving the weapon before him. “Ye’ll go down with me to the bottom of this here bay afore I lose command of this vessel,” he cries. The crew hems him in like a cornered animal, each one waiting to see who might be the one to make a run at him.
    “Come on, then, ye rotten, stinking cowards. By God, there’s not an honorable man among ye if ye don’t disperse and go below decks and stop this foolishness. Go on now.” The men look at each other, torn between rage and fear. No one stoops down to see about McAfee, who lays face-up and staring into the sheets of wind and rain that buffet the ship. One by one, they break from the circle and climb the ladder back down to the mess, and from there back to their bunks, each man muttering oaths, but none wanting more bloodshed.
    “So it wasn’t mutiny atall,” leers the first mate as they file past him down below. His name is Willingham, and he sits propped carefully on a salt-pork barrel smoking his pipe. “I feared as much. Now the Old Man will be twice as determined to turn stern-to on the light and make for open sea again, the weather be damned.” He puffs for a few minutes more, then knocks out the ashes against the aft bulkhead and makes for his own locker. In it is a brace of derringers, cleaned and loaded the night before. There is also another item―a tall bottle filled with a clear liquid that he picked up while in the last port. “I’ll be damned if I go down in this stinking tub before my time,” he says, and with that he goes above to have a word with the captain himself, stopping first at the barrel of ale to refresh himself.
    He finds the Old Man supervising the disposal of the unfortunate mutineer’s body. One seaman has him by the feet while another digs his hands into McAfee’s armpits and, between them, they swing him back and forth a few times before finally tossing him over the gunwales of the schooner. In the driving storm, the splash is barely audible. “Let that be a lesson to ye,” said the captain to the seamen, while Willingham steps up quietly behind him. He puts one of the derringers to the Old Man’s temple and, without saying a word, pulls the trigger. Blood and brains instantly fly