title: Demon of the Waters: The True Story of the Mutiny on the Whaleship Globe
author:  Gregory Gibson 
description: In 1978, a sailor's log of apparently little value surfaced in Vevay, Ind., and the notebook was eventually discovered to have been penned in 1827 by a 17-year-old sailor named Augustus Strong, stationed aboard the Dolphin, a U.S. Navy schooner dispatched to rescue surviving members of a mutiny in the South Pacific. Using Strong's 150-page record as a primary source, Gibson (Gone Boy), a collector of rare maritime books, retells the shocking tale of the gore-drenched mutiny aboard the whaler Globe. The mutiny was led by rogue Samuel Comstock so the 21-year-old could sail to the remote Marshall Islands, where he intended to build a kingdom for himself and enlist the natives in his private army. Word of the mutiny prompted the rescue voyage of the Dolphin and Strong's personal ledger. While Gibson diligently recounts the building of the Globe and the history of Nantucket whaling as well as the life and hard work aboard a whaler the chronicling of the mutiny lacks punch and the key figures are devoid of significant character. By the time Gibson personally visits the isle of Comstock's landing and death, readers might find it difficult to share the author's interest in what comes across as a bloody though bland story. Illus. <br />Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
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  _For Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm_
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ##
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  “A ship is floating in the harbour now,
  
  
  
  
  
  A wind is hovering o’er the mountain’s brow;
  
  
  
  
  
  There is a path on the sea’s azure floor,
  
  
  
  
  
  No keel has ever plough’d that path before;
  
  
  
  
  
  The halcyons brood around the foamless isles;
  
  
  
  
  
  The treacherous Ocean has forsworn its wiles;
  
  
  
  
  
  The merry mariners are bold and free:
  
  
  
  
  
  Say, my heart’s sister, wilt thou sail with me?”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  —SHELLEY, “Epipsychidion”
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  THE first indication I had of the mutiny came as we approached the inner limit
  of the first asteroid belt. Of course I didn’t know what it meant at the time;
  it was no more than a locked door. The first belt we call the dud belt,
  because the asteroids in it are basaltic achondrite, and no use to miners. But
  we would be among the carbonaceous chondrites soon enough, and one day I went
  down to the farm to get ready. I fed a bit more light to t