he knives as they come along in
the black, Bucky."

"No knife-play for me with Harris--he's got a gun," said Buckrow. "Come
along below, Jim, and let 'em go for now. Quick, or the mate'll have
ye. Thirkle said he'd have the fo'c's'le by now. He run the chinks out,
him and Petrak. Scuttled 'em aft. Come below."

"Not till Mr. Mate 'as this in 'is ribs," said Long Jim.

"Ye fool--here they be, on us, and Harris with a couple of guns. Run for
it, Jim, I tell ye," and Buckrow rose up out of the dark within reach of
my hand and thrust back the slide of the forecastle-hood and swung below.

Long Jim came after him, chuckling with the joy of battle. I wanted to do
something, to have some hand in the fight, to capture one of the
murderers, and so prove to Riggs that I was not in league with them. This
impulse to aid the captain's side of the fight came to me swiftly, and I
put it into action at once by jumping directly in Long Jim's path at the
head of the forecastle ladder. I planned to grab his arms and hurl him
back, yelling at the same time to Harris not to shoot, that it was I,
Trenholm, and that I was holding Long Jim.

It was a foolish enough thing to do, for in the excitement of the minute
Harris would have undoubtedly shot me and Long Jim, too, and with good
reason, for he would have suspected a trap if I had asked him to hold his
fire and approach us in the dark.

As it happened, Long Jim was throwing himself forward in a sort of dive
beneath the hood of the scuttle, just as I thrust my body against the
opening. His shoulder caught me in the stomach, and my head and feet flew
out and we grabbed each other and went tumbling down the old wooden
companion together and rolled into the black forecastle.

"Blime me, I thought ye was down afore me, Bucky," gasped Long Jim,
recovering himself and stumbling over me. I rolled to one side and found
myself under a bunk.

"I was down," said Buckrow. "What ye trying to do--make a Punch and Judy
show of yerself? Ye come down like a lubberly farmer, and then blame it
on me. What made ye tumble like that?"

"I thought ye was down."

"I was down--well clear of ye and waiting for ye."

"Then how come ye under my bleedin' feet. Mind yer eye now, or the two of
'em'll be down on us. That mate is a bad un, I tell ye, Bucky--bad as the
nigger in the _Southern Cross_. No end of trouble with him, if ye
remember as I do."

"Aw, stow the gab," whispered Buckrow, "We're working now.