little chance of hitting her. Every
moment, however, the distance was decreasing, and the two men fired
steadily and carefully. But the Winchesters still cracked for another
five minutes. Then the fire from the captain's boat ceased as a shot
from Atkins's rifle smashed into her amidships. She was suddenly put
before the wind, and then Chard came aft, and began firing at the
approaching boat with his Snider, in the hope of disabling her, so that
he and his fellow-murderer (now that their plan of utterly destroying
all the occupants of both boats had been so unexpectedly frustrated)
might escape.

But the work of slaughter in which he had just been engaged and the
rolling of the boat, together with the continuous hum of bullets
overhead, made his aim wild, and neither the second mate's boat nor any
of its people were hit, and she swept along to the rescue.

CHAPTER VIII

An exclamation of horror burst from Harvey as the boat, with its panting
crew, dashed up alongside that of the chief mate.

"For God's sake, Tessa, do not look!" he cried hoarsely.

For the half-sunken boat was a shambles, and of her nine occupants
only three were alive--the second steward Jessop, Morrison, and Oliver
himself. The latter lay in the stern sheets with a bullet hole through
his chest, and a smashed hip; he had but just time to raise his hand in
mute farewell to Harvey and Atkins, and then breathed his last.

Morrison, whose spine was broken by a Winchester bullet, but who was
perfectly conscious, was at once lifted out and placed in Atkins's boat,
and Tessa, with the tears streaming down her pale face, and trying hard
to restrain her sobs, pillowed his old, grey head upon Atkins's coat.
Then Jessop, who was evidently still in agony from his broken ribs,
one of which, so Morrison said in a faint voice, had, he thought, been
driven into his lungs, was placed beside him.

Poor Studdert and the five native seamen were dead, some of them having
received as many as five or six bullet wounds. Studdert himself had been
shot through the head, and lay for'ard with his pale face upturned to
the sky, and his eyes closed as if in a peaceful sleep.

The boat had been pierced in several places below the water-line by
Snider bullets, and by the time Morrison and Jessop had been removed,
and Harvey and Atkins had satisfied themselves that the other seven men
in her were dead, she was nearly full of water--not the clear, bright
water of the oc