CHAPTER XVII.
PEAS AND BEANS.
The business of the Chain had been managed with extreme caution by the conspirators, and more than one third of the crew had been initiated without the knowledge of the principal and professors, or of the officers and seamen who were not members.

Pelham and Shuffles ordered the affairs of the League, and no "link" was allowed to approach an outsider for the purpose of inducing him to join without the consent of one of these worthies.
As the scheme progressed, various modifications had been made in the plan to adapt it to circumstances, the principal of which was the choice of two "shackles," who should be deemed the officers of the League until a regular election had taken place.

By this invention, Shuffles and Pelham had been enabled to compromise their differences, for they assumed the newly-created offices, and labored as equals in the bad cause.

Each endeavored to make as many new "links" as possible, for already the conspirators consisted of two factions, one of which favored the election of Shuffles, and the other that of Pelham, to the captaincy.

Each, in a measure, controlled his own recruits, and was reasonably sure of their votes when the election should be ordered.
These young gentlemen were not only plotting to take the ship, but to "take in" each other.