When they had passed the Nore, leaving the light a cable's length on the starboard bow, it became evident that Kenner was acting with a good deal of discretion. he has run his yacht well past the lightship to wait for the tug, and then had seemed to steer for the North Foreland. This was a mere subterfuge, a precaution which assumed the very unlikely possibility that other ships would observe him and sin some measure connect him with the tug. The intention of the menœuvre was not lost either upon Messenger or upon Kess Robinson; and they had scarcely come at the Mouse before the skipper of the tug expressed his satisfaction.
"He's layin' as if for Margate," said he; "and I don't know that he could better it. He'll pick up we in the open fast enough, and the wind's going to hold nor'-west and quiet, or I ain't fit for this job."
"He's certainly standing rather far down Channel," replied Messenger, as he leaned upon the rail and watched the disappearing hull of the American yacht; "but he's got the legs of us at any time, and it's wiser as it is. It wouldn't do to come near him or speak him till we're past Spurn Heas, any way; and he's not likely to lose us in a mist this watch, if I'm any judge of weather."
He spoke with some slight quaver of anxiety in his voice, for he was thinking of that curious play of chance which had so ordained it that the Gargantuan emprise of his life was not to be his own work, but that he must rely in some part upon others. Had it been possible that he could have gathered into his own hands the many reins which controlled so ill-assorted a team of rogues and vagabonds no quake of unpleasant apprehension would have moved him. But he was well aware that the ultimate success of the hazard hung upon the fidelity, the common sense, and the courage of many. And who could answer either for the men in the fo'castle of the tug or for the cutthroats that Kenner had shipped under his flag?
As he minded these things, watching the play of light from the North Foreland, and the twinkling lamps in the distant hamlets of Kent, the tug, under the skipper's direction, began slowly to alter her course. She had been laying with her head almost full east; but now she gradually came round, standing for a couple of hours well beyond the remoter shallows of the Maplin Sands, and soon was following a track which brought her far out in the North Sea. The movement was not lost upon the crew, looking to make straight for Flushing, and three of them came from the fo'castle to wait and watch with some expectancy. Even the engineer looked up from his hatchway as though something would mark the departure at the outset, and the whole company maintained a curious silence, lingering for an opening of the drama in which they played such very minor rôles.
It was no matter for surprise that the first words of the play were spoken ultimately by one who had been forgotten altogether by this company in the larger interest which the watching of the yacht promoted. Mike Brennan had gone down to his cabin again after the moment of the flare; but now, of a sudden, when all aboard were gazing over the starboard bow at the evolutions of the Semiramis, the mate appeared at the foot of the bridge, armed with a great bludgeon of iron; and behind him there stood Arthur Conyers, the elderly clerk, who had drawn his revolver and wore the aspect of a man puckered up for great emergencies. And it was the voice of the mate, then raised in a clear and unmistakably meaning tone, which awakened the others to the situation.
"Skipper," said the man, with one foot upon the ladder and a hand upon the rail, "I've a question to ask av ye concerning the course. Will ye hear it now, or will I be waiting?"
At the first sound of the mate's voice the skipper glanced down to the scene below. Temper and fear alike held him as the moment of the spectacle dawned upon him. Yet he spoke with some command, even before Messenger—who had reckoned up the danger at a look—could give counsel or take action.
"Mike Brennan," said he, "it's not the first time ye're concerning yourself with my affairs. Put yer dirty body in bed before I kick it there!"
The contempt of this was keen enough, but far from judicious, for it sent hot blood coursing through the Irishman's veins, and the skipper's lips were scarce shut before the mate had sprung up the ladder, and with one blow from the bar had sent him hurtling over the paddle-box into the sea, where he sank as a bag of rock, and left almost unruffled the long wave that engulfed him.
From that moment—as the scant record bears witness—the deck of the tug became a shambles. The greed of blood consumed the Irishman until he raved uncontrollably, and, making a mighty cut at Messenger, he missed his aim, and fell headlong to the deck below, where now the crack of Conyers' revolver was heard. The man, with his eyes open to the trap he had fallen into, had lost all self-restraint, and fired haphazard, the bullets singing above the heads of the tug's crew, who lay huddled together by the fore hatch, or skimming the deck, or burying themselves in the bulwarks, or ringing upon the cowls. And through it all he did not cease to cry out with all his voice, so that the tug rang with his shouts, and, believing that Capel was with him in the work, he appealed to him, and to Messenger upon the bridge.
"Capel," he cried, "for God's sake, shoot, man! There's murder done here—murder, I tell you! They're killing the mate! Do you hear me? We're in a trap, I tell you! in a trap, by Heaven!"
But Capel made no answer—he was cowering and sobbing aft, and when bis honest fellow had cried himself hoarse and emptied the chambers of his revolver, a new sound of firing burst up by the forecastle, where two of the crew were using their pistols at the mate, but to small purpose. Brennan, staggering with the dizziness of his fall, had got what shelter he could under the shadow of the paddle-box; but presently he ran with his bar at the three forward, and the skull of one cracked like a globe, while the other two fell howling down the hatchway. In that moment this man and Conyers were masters of the deck, and only Messenger, who had watched the whole scene from the bridge, was powerful to raise a hand.
Unto this point there had been little danger from Conyers, who, in his wild blundering and haphazard suspicion, had left Messenger alone, scarce understanding whether he were friend or foe. But when he had emptied his revolver and stood fumbling to refill the chambers in the black patch of shade which the wheel cast. Messenger sprang down lightly from the bridge and appeared before him as a swift apparition from the dark.
"Come," said he in that peculiarly stern voice he could command on occasion, "I think you've done enough for one night. Put down that pistol!"
Conyers obeyed him, as the weak ever obey the strong, even in the moment of danger.
"Now," continued the other in the same tone, "march aft, and don't come up again until I call you unless you want a body full of holes!"
The man, weary of the butchery, and suffering the terrors of reaction, went to the companion without a word and descended it, when the other locked the cabin-door upon him and turned round to see Capel's pallid face and trembling form.
"Capel," said he, "I'm thinking you're a big man in a difficulty. How came it that this cub got loose?"
"It was the mate," whimpered the other, "the mate, upon my word; he came down to the cabin when you had gone and swore he'd shoot me if I moved. Then he told Conyers—you know what—and they went forward together."
"Just as I thought. Well, some one's got to make it level with that mate, and there's no time to be drivelled away either; I'm going forward, and you're coming with me."
Capel had little relish for the job, but he was nigh as much afraid to stay as to advance, and he hid himself in Messenger's shadow and skulked forward with the new master of the ship. The mate, now scared