not keep
open some means of retreat. I halted at the closed scuttle of the
forecastle, for from there I could have my choice of getting aft again
along either rail. I clung to the wooden hood, naked to the waist, and
swept continually by the spindrift from the seas which met the vessel.

As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I could distinguish the
outlines of the machinery on deck, the foremast and the companionway
forward of the superstructure. I could make out the bridge and the funnel
well enough to see a figure moving over the rim of the storm-apron. The
vessel rolled and the side-lights threw red and green glares over the sea
on either side.

As I stood there waiting for some sound which might tell me the position
of the mysterious man who had attacked me, eight bells was struck on the
bridge, and I knew it was midnight. I expected that there would be some
answer from the bows, as there should be a man on lookout there, and the
faint double notes of the bell in the wheel-house should have been
repeated from the ship's bell near to where I stood.

I had about decided to make another sortie toward the ladder, when I
heard a commotion on the bridge, and then a yell as a man might give who
had been stricken suddenly with death. It chilled my blood, for I knew
that another blow had been struck which took another life on board the
_Kut Sang_, and I realized that the striking of the bells had been a sort
of signal for the assassin.

After a minute I heard Harris bawl: "The Dutchman has been killed! Ho,
cap'n--the Dutchman has been knifed on the bridge!"

"The devil and all ye say!" shouted Captain Riggs from the fore-deck, and
I heard him clamber up the ladder and knew it must have been he who
grabbed me as I was about to gain the upper deck.

"Who was it, Mr. Harris? What in God's name is this, Mr. Harris? Mutiny?
Is this mutiny aboard me?" He was mounting to the bridge.

"They got the Dutchman," repeated Harris. "They done for him--he's dead
as a red mackerel!"

"It's mutiny, Mr. Harris," said the captain.

"Ye know cussed well what it is," shouted Harris, as loudly as though
Captain Riggs were still below. "I come up to take the watch and find the
Dutchman hangin' over the port ladder bleedin' like a dead goose! More
work of yer fine passengers, that's what it is, and ye know why."

A lantern flickered above the storm-apron and then swung in the break of
the bridge-rail at the ladder-head, and I