Mind what yer
about. I've got another gun from Thirkle."

"Thirkle here?" asked Long Jim. "W'ere be ye, Thirkle?"

"Standing by," was the whispered reply. "Shoot if they come down, but
keep still a minute. Fire up before they have a chance to drop on you,
and stand clear, with the gun around the bulkhead at that side, while I
let go at them from this side."

"Below thar!" called Harris down the scuttle. "All hands on deck and look
lively, or I'll make a tailor's dummy of the last up."

"Don't say a word, but let him have it when he gets well down," whispered
the man who had been addressed as Thirkle, which mystified me.

"Below thar! I want the man as killed the Dutchman! All hands up and one
at a time, or I'll let daylight through ye all. Hear me below?"

"Don't say a word," cautioned Thirkle.

Riggs and Harris were talking together, but we could not make out what
they were saying. I lay under the bunk at the very feet of Buckrow, dazed
and bruised from my fall, yet keenly aware of the situation and strangely
cool, thrilled and fascinated with the drama being played about me.

I knew that I had small chance of escaping with my life if my presence
should be discovered by the men who lay in wait for Harris and the
captain; but it was not fear which kept me an auditor when I might well
have been an actor to good purpose. I desired to see what would be the
end of the act, and, far from being terrorized as I should have been, I
enjoyed the invisible scene. It was not that I was unmindful of the
danger, but that I was surprised at myself for feeling no fear.

"I'll give all hands a minute to get up, and if they ain't, I'll be
down," thundered Harris. "I know yer down thar, Buckrow, along with Jim
and the red chap, and I know yer game. If I have to go down I'll kill a
couple of ye, lay to that; so ye can come up and save yer necks, or take
yer chances if I go below."

"Pass him some insolence," said Thirkle. "We've got to get out of here.
Give him lip, Buckrow, so he'll come down, or he'll batten down on us
until morning, and ye know what that means."

"What ye want of me?" called Buckrow.

"Ye stabbed the Dutchman, ye murderin' hound," said Harris. "Ye know what
I want ye for well enough, and if ye don't come up I'll see that Jim and
Petrak swing with ye."

"I didn't kill nobody," said Buckrow. "Ye want to blame it on me, don't
ye, ye big monkey."

"It was you that stabbed him and then took a shot at me. I k