t? If
we only had our crew aboard; if we were only ten to their dozen--if we
were only six--by Jupiter! I'd fight them for it."

The two enormous red eyes of the junk loomed alongside and stared
over into the "Bertha's" waist. Hoang and seven of the coolies swarmed
aboard.

"What now?" shouted Moran, coming forward to meet them, her scowl
knotting her flashing eyes together. "Is this ship yours or mine? We've
done your dirty work for you. I want you clear of my deck." Wilbur stood
at her side, uncertain what to do, but ready for anything she should
attempt.

"I tink you catchum someting, smellum pretty big," said Hoang, his
ferret glance twinkling about the schooner.

"I catchum nothing--nothing but plenty bad stink," said Moran. "No, you
don't!" she exclaimed, putting herself in Hoang's way as he made for the
cabin. The other beach-combers came crowding up; Wilbur even thought he
saw one of them loosening his hatchet in his belt.

"This ship's mine," cried Moran, backing to the cabin door. Wilbur
followed her, and the Chinamen closed down upon the pair.

"It's not much use, Moran," he muttered. "They'll rush us in a minute."

"But the ambergris is mine--is mine," she answered, never taking her
eyes from the confronting coolies.

"We findum w'ale," said Hoang; "you no find w'ale; him b'long to
we--eve'yt'ing in um w'ale b'long to we, savvy?"

"No, you promised us a third of everything you found."

Even in the confusion of the moment it occurred to Wilbur that it was
quite possible that at least two-thirds of the ambergris did belong
to the beach-combers by right of discovery. After all, it was the
beach-combers who had found the whale. He could never remember afterward
whether or no he said as much to Moran at the time. If he did, she had
been deaf to it. A fury of wrath and desperation suddenly blazed in her
blue eyes. Standing at her side, Wilbur could hear her teeth grinding
upon each other. She was blind to all danger, animated only by a sense
of injustice and imposition.

Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the coolies jumped
forward, and Moran's fist met him in the face and brought him to his
knees. Then came the rush Wilbur had foreseen. He had just time to catch
a sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang when a little hatchet glinted
over his head. He struck out savagely into the thick of the group--and
then opened his eyes to find Moran washing the blood from his hair as he
lay on the deck