Captain Cheap discovers a trail of gunpowder leading toward his hut and hears reports that Mitchell’s separatists nearly plotted to blow him up. Suspicion spreads through the camp as Cheap questions loyalties among officers: Pemberton, Baynes, and King draw his ire, while gunner John Bulkeley hosts meetings and consolidates influence.

Cheap, starving and exhausted, fixates on his eroding authority and the honor bound up in his captaincy. Byron observes Cheap’s mounting jealousy over power he feels slipping away.

On June 7, Cheap orders Midshipman Henry Cozens to roll a cask of peas into the store. Cozens refuses, is called drunk, and is struck with a cane and confined. That night, Cozens curses Cheap and compares him unfavorably to the buccaneer Shelvocke; a sentinel prevents Cheap from beating a prisoner, and Cheap unexpectedly releases Cozens.

Days later, in heavy rain during rations, a rumor that Cozens’s wine will be cut triggers a confrontation. Purser Thomas Harvey draws a pistol as Cozens advances; a nearby seaman knocks the barrel up and the shot misses. Hearing “mutiny,” Cheap rushes out, shouts, “Where’s that villain?”, finds Cozens, presses a pistol to his cheek, and proceeds to extremities.