; still I
battered: and still I was battering blindly when a rush of footsteps came
down the street and a hand, gripping me by the collar, swung me round into
the blinding ray of a dark lantern.

"Hands off!" I gasped, half-choked, but fighting to break away.

"All right, my game-cock!" A man's knuckles pressed themselves firmly
into the nape of my neck. "Hullo! By gosh, sir, if it ain't a
midshipman!"

"A midshipman?" said a voice of command. "Slew him round here. . . .
So it is, by George! . . . and a nice time of night! Hold him up,
bo'sun--you needn't be choking the lad. Now then, boy, what's your name
and ship?"

"Rodd, sir--of the _Melpomene_--and there's another inside--" I began.

"The _Melpomene!_"

"Yes, sir: and there's my friend inside, and for all I know they're
murdering him. . . . A lot of men dressed up as women. . . . His name's
Hartnoll--" I struggled to make away for another rush at the door, and
had my heel against it, when it gave way and Hartnoll came flying out into
the night. The officer, springing past me, very cleverly thrust in a foot
before it could be closed again.

"Men dressed as women, you say?"

"It's an old trick, sir," panted the bo'sun, pushing forward.
"I've knowed it played ever since I served on a press. If you'll let the
boys draw covert, sir . . . they've had a blank night, an' their
tempers'll be the better for it."

He planted his shoulder against the door, begging for the signal, and the
crew closed up around the step with a growl.

"My dirk!" pleaded Hartnoll. "I was getting it away, but one of 'em
half-broke my arm and I dropped it again in the passage."

"Hey? Stolen your dirk--have they? That's excuse enough. . . . Right you
are, men, and in you go!"

He waved his cocked hat to them as a huntsman lays on his hounds. In went
the door with a crash, and in two twos I was swept up and across the
threshold and surging with them down the passage. By reason of my inches
I could see nothing of what was happening ahead. I heard a struggle, and
in the midst of it a hand went up and smashed the lamp over the stairway,
plunging us all in total darkness. But the lieutenant had his lantern
ready, and by the rays of it the sailors burst open the locked door at the
end and flung themselves upon the Amazons before the candles could be
extinguished. At the same moment the lieutenant called back an order over
my head to his whippers-in, to find their way aroun