He raised his rifle at the word, and let go straight at the corner of the light wood erection. A dull groan followed, and by the shadow on the deck I saw one man fall forward amongst the others, who held him up with their shoulders; but his blood ran in a thick stream out to the top of the hatchway, and then ran back as the ship heaved to the seas.
For the fifth time the skipper hailed them.
"There's one down amongst you," he said; "and that's the beginning of it; I'm going to blow that shanty to hell, and you with it."
He raised his rifle, but as he did so one of them answered for the first time with his revolver, and the bullet sang above our heads. The skipper's shot was quick in reply; and the wood of the shanty flew in splinters as the bullet shivered it. A second man sprang to his feet with a shout, and then fell across the deck, lying full to be seen in the moonlight.
"That's two of you," continued the skipper, as calm as ever he was in Portsmouth harbour; "we'll make it three for luck." But at the suggestion they all made a run forward, and lay flat right out by the cable. There we could hear them blubbering like children.
The skipper was of a mind to end the thing there and then. He sprang down the ladder to the deck, and we followed him. They fired three shots as we rushed on them; but the butt ends of the two muskets did the rest. Three of them went down straight as felled poplars. The others fell upon their knees and implored mercy; and they got it, but not until the skipper, who now seemed roused to all the fury of great anger, set to kicking them lustily, and with no discrimination—for they all had their full share of it.
We had the other hands up by this, and, despite the tragedy and horror of the thing, a smile came to me as the true men set to binding the others at the skipper's order; for Piping Jack and Planks, and the whole ten of them, fell into such a train of swearing as would have done your heart good to hear. They got them below at the first break of dawn, and the dead they covered; while Paolo, who lay groaning, we carried to a cabin in the saloon, and did for his broken head that which our elementary knowledge of surgery permitted us.
As the day brought light upon the rising sea, I looked to the far horizon, but the rolling crests of an empty waste met my gaze. Again we were alone. The night's work had lost us the welcome company.
CHAPTER XI.
THE SHIP IN THE BLACK CLOAK.
The day that broke was glorious enough for Nature's making, but sad upon our ship, in that the folly of eight poor fellows should have cost the life of two, with three more lying near to death in the fo'castle. The sea had risen a good deal when we got under steam again, and clouds scudded over the sun; but we set stay-sails and jibs, and made a fine pace towards the shores of America. It was near noon when we had buried the two stokers shot by the skipper, and more on in the afternoon before the decks were made straight, and the traces of the scuffle quite obliterated. But Paolo lay all day in a delirium, and Mary went in and out, bearing a gentle hand to the wounded, who alternately cried with the pain of it, and begged grace for their insanity. The second officer's case was worse than theirs, and I thought at noon that the total of the dead would have been three; for he raved incessantly, crying "Ice, Ice!" almost with every breath, while we had all difficulty possible to hold him in his bunk. His words I could not get the meaning of; but I had them later, and in circumstances I had never looked for.
After the hour of lunch the skipper called Roderick and me into his cabin, and there he discussed the position with us.
"One thing is clear," he said; "you've brought me on more than a pleasure trip, and, while I don't complain, it will be necessary at New York for me to know something more—or, maybe to leave this ship. Last night's work must be made plain, of course; and this second officer of yours must stand to his trial. The men I would willingly let go, for they're no more than lubberly fools whose heads have been turned. But one thing I now make bold to claim—I take this yacht straight from here to Sandy Hook; and we poke our noses into no business on the way."
"Of course," said Roderick somewhat sarcastically, "you've every right to do what you like with my ship; but I seem to remember having engaged you to obey my orders."
"Fair orders and plain sailing," replied Captain York, bringing his fist down on the table with emphasis; "not running after war-ships that could blow us out of the water without thinking of it. Fair orders I took, and fair orders I'll obey."
"That's quite right, Roderick," I said; "there's no reason now why we shouldn't go straight on—if we don't meet with anyone to ask questions on the way; of that I'm not so sure, though."
"Nor I," said the skipper meaningly, and waiting for me to add more; but I did not mean to gratify him, and we all went out on deck again after we had agreed to let him have his will. We found the first officer on the bridge, looking away to the south-east, where the black hull of a steamer was now showing full. I do not know that the distant sight of a ship was anything to cause remark, but as I looked at her, I noticed that she steamed at a fearful speed, and she showed no smoke from her funnels.
"Skipper," I said, "will you look at that hull? Isn't the boat making uncommon headway?"
He took a long gaze, and then he spoke—
"You're right. She's going more than twenty knots."
"And straight towards us."
"As you say."
"Is there anything remarkable about that?"
He took another sight, and when he turned to me again he had no colour in his face.
"I've seen that ship before," he said.
"Where?" asked Roderick laconically.
"Five days ago, when she fired a shell into the Ocean King."
"In that case," said I, "there isn't much doubt about her intentions: she's chasing us!"
"That may or may not be," he replied, as he raised his glass again, "but she's the same ship, I'll wager my life. Look at the rake of her—and the lubbers, they've left some of their bright metal showing amidships!"
He indicated the deck-house by the bridge, where my glass showed me a shining spot in the cloak of black, for the sun fell upon the place, and reflected from it as from a mirror of gold. There was no longer any doubt: we were pursued by the nameless ship, and, if no help fell to us, I shuddered to think what the end might be.
"What are you going to do, skipper?" asked Roderick, as gloom fell upon the three of us; and we stood together, each man afraid to tell the others all he thought.
"What, am I going to do?" said he. "I'm going to see the boats cleared, and all hands in the stoke-hole that have the right there"; and then he sang out, "Stand by!" and the men swarmed up from below, and heard the order to clear the boats. They obeyed unquestioningly; but I doubt not that they were no less uneasy than we were; and, as these things cannot be concealed, the whisper was soon amongst them that the danger lay in the black steamer, which had been five days ago the ship of gold. Yet they went to the work with a right good will; and presently, when a canopy of our own smoke lay over us, and the yacht bounded forward under the generosity of the stoking, they set up a great cheer spontaneously, and were ready for anything. Yet I, myself, could not share their honest bravado. The black ship which had been but a mark on the horizon now showed her lines fully; there could be no two opinions of her speed, or of the way in which she gained upon us. Indeed, one could not look upon her advance without envy of her form, or of the terrifying manner in which she cut the seas. Churning the foam until it mounted its banks on each side of her great ram, she rode the Atlantic like a beautiful yacht, with no vapour of smoke to float above her; and not so much as a sign that any engines forced her onward with a velocity unknown, I believe, in the whole history of navigation. And so she came straight in our wake, and I knew that we should have little breathing time before we should