"BURKE SHOT AT HIM TWICE"
It was now a horrid scene. One of the Spaniards was dead, as they thought; the other hid behind the cases, craving for mercy and shaking in all his limbs. To shoot at this man was impossible, even had there been light by which to load; but the dark was unbroken, and they knew the hiding-place only when they saw gleaming eyes, as the eyes of a brute, shining up from the shadow, or heard the muttered prayer of one to whom death was very near. Others, perchance, would have let the man go, leaving him at the worst a prisoner upon the rock. But the lust of the gold and the terror of pursuit were upon the men; and, having whispered together, they suddenly stepped over the cases, and as the cowering sailor rose up to receive them Burke struck at his head with his revolver, and Messenger gripped his arm with all the strength left to him.
For some moments the three rocked in desperate embrace. Burke had missed his blow, and, staggering, had fallen across the chest of the Spaniard, who dug the nails of his left hand into his throat, and was threatening to choke him every time he renewed his grip. The very fall of the giant skipper prevented the Prince aiming a blow at the Spaniard's head, and he needed the strength of both his hands to cope with the tremendous arm which held the sheath-knife. Thus for a spell they rolled about on the floor, the one now as fierce as the two, enraged and hopeless in the terrible combat. Indeed, the daring of his struggle was beyond description; and Burke was upon the very point of unconsciousness when a chance move brought it to an end.
The great American was, as I have said, near to being choked. So strong was his agony that he rolled at last right round under the Spaniard's clutch; and, thus turning his body, the sheath of his knife struck Messenger's leg. Burke himself could not speak; but his partner felt the touch of the haft, and, holding to the doomed man's arm with one of his hands only, he drew Burke's blade from the sheath quickly, and with savage strength drove it into the soft body again and again. Yet still the man was not done with, for as the others rose up he of a sudden, in the horrid contraction of his muscles, slashed fiercely with the hand that held his knife; and at the stroke he laid open Burke's face from the temple to the chin, sending the huge scoundrel howling from the cabin to the deck, where he lay, with oaths upon his lips, near blinded with his blood. Thither Messenger followed him, white and sick with the shock of reaction, sweat gathering thick upon his forehead, his ragged clothes torn the more, his legs scarred and slashed—yet with his nerve as ready and his purpose as set as at the beginning of it.
"Burke!" he cried, when he came to the top of the companion, "where are you?—did you get cut, man?"
"Cut!" yelled Burke, "cut! Look at me; I guess there's coals on my cheek—burn his body! I'm blinded!"
Messenger bent down and looked at the upturned and hideous face. He shuddered as he saw it, and, pulling at his soft linen shirt at the throat, he tore off a great piece and bound op the wound clumsily, while the other howled childishly with the pain of it.
"That'll hold you till we're ashore," said the Prince, as he worked with deft fingers; "get into the boat and take a pull at the spirits—you, there, Joe! bring her in and come aboard."
"Aye, aye!" sang out the man, and with the words he brought the nose of the life-boat up to the rock, and Burke staggered into it, falling prone when he had made the step, and lying like a hulk by the bow-thwart. But the nigger jumped to the rock, and, descending the companion, began to haul up the remaining kegs; and at last, with prodigious labour, they raised the case of sovereigns, though the roughly fastened lid came off again, and sent many coins jingling upon the steps and to the floor.
Of the bullion all, with the exception of two small kegs, was now either sunk in the white haven or stowed in the lifeboat; but one keg lay near the body of the dead Spaniard, and his left hand rested upon it. The light in the cabin was at this time somewhat better, and Messenger, taking a last look round, observed the forgotten plunder, and made a step forward to take it; but the upturned visage of the dead man was so repellent, there was such a distortion of feature and of form, that the observer was seized for the first time with uncontrollable terror, and he rushed from the cabin with a cry in his throat. The sharp air, for the west wind was now blowing strongly, nerved him again, but not to dare the saloon. He knew that he could not have looked upon that face again for ten kegs of the bullion, and he strove to send the nigger in his place. But the man howled out at the suggestion, and fell upon his knees imploringly.
"De Lord help me, sah, I not touch it! I not go there; he look at me, sah!"
"Then get up for a fool!" snarled Messenger; and he gave him three sound kicks, which sent him headlong into the longboat.
The wind now blew a full gale, and the sea was beginning to surge heavily upon the reef. Fisher, who had sat at the tiller of the longboat through the whole affair, and upon whom the fight had come as a revelation, compelling him to see of what kind were the men his friends, still kept the nose of the boat toward the centre of the pool; but Messenger called upon him to take an oar, and he obeyed as a man who hears, but can make no answer. The nigger was at the bow-thwart; and, thus manned, they backed out the ship to the rough of the open, and were preparing to row for the shore when a new idea arose.
"Hold her there!" cried Messenger. "I'd clean forgotten their boat; and that won't do at all. Back astern, stroke and paddle on, bow."
The Spaniards' "ketch" had been made fast in the inner channel, the painter being hitched to a boat-hook driven between a crevice. She now rode uneasily, labouring in the fresher wind. A dog curled up in the cuddy barked loudly as the longboat ran alongside.
"When we've got the keg, and before we let her go," said Messenger, when the ships touched, "we might see if there's any thing to eat aboard. Just climb up, Hal, and look; but don't be long about it."
Fisher went doggedly with the nigger, while the other held with boat-hooks to the shrouds of the smack. The sea was then so fresh that it was no easy matter to reach the ketch's deck, and, once there, the lad needed a seaman's feet to keep his hold. Yet this he scarcely noticed, for his thoughts were about the scene in the other cabin, and the light which it had thrown upon the character of the one man he called a friend. What desperate adventure was he embarked upon? he asked himself again and again. How came it that the companion who had shown through long years the placid face of an emotionless being had become of a sudden a madman or a fiend? The answer took in his mind a hundred shapes, but all of them reflected only his own helplessness, or seemed to tell him to hold his tongue and go through with it. There was no other course; yet he knew that now he stood alone, and fell to wondering about the future both of the others and of himself.
These things, I say, he thought as he rolled the keg to the lifeboat and searched the ship's cabin, wherein there was a stove burning with the embers of charcoal; but they passed for a moment from his mind when the dog came to him and barked a truce. The truth was that when he beat open the locker of the cabin, and took therefrom two great hunks of coarse meat, with a sack of biscuit, some rye bread, and another sack of potatoes, he knew the adventurer's joy at the prospect of food, and in that matter was at one with the others of the party. Thus it came that he