midnight
Walsingham strongly and repeatedly represented to Captain Jemmison the danger , and remonstrated with him and the other officers upon the imprudence of leaving the ship at this juncture ; but Jemmison , in a prettily rounded period , protested he saw no penumbra of danger , and that till he was called upon by Mars , he owned he preferred the charms of Venus . `` This was vastly elegant ; but , nevertheless , it happened one night , when the captain , after having eaten an admirable supper , was paying his court to a Creole lady of Spanish Town , news was brought him , that the crew of the Dreadnought had mutinied , and that Lieutenant Walsingham was killed . One half of the report was true , and the other nearly so . At midnight , after having been exhausted during the preceding week by his vigilance , Walsingham had just thrown himself into his cot , when he was roused by Birch at his cabin-door , crying , ` A mutiny ! a mutiny on deck ! ' -- Walsingham seized his drawn cutlass , and ran up the ladder , determined to cut down the ringleader ; but just as he reached the top , the sailors shut down the hatchway , which struck his head with such violence , that he fell , stunned , and , to all appearance , dead . Birch contrived , in the midst of the bustle , before he was himself seized by the mutineers , to convey , by signals to shore , news of what had happened .