roaring flash of a pistol hard by,
followed immediately by another and, as I lay deafened and half-dazed,
the floor quivered to the soft, vicious thud of leaping,
swift-trampling feet, and on the air was a confused scuffling, mingled
with an awful, beast-like worrying sound. And now (though I was
broad-awake and tingling for action) I constrained myself to lie still,
nothing stirring, for here (as I judged) was desperate knife-play,
indeed more than once I heard the faint click of steel. And now rose
shouts and cries and a tramp of feet on the stair without. Someone
reeled staggering across the room, came a-scrabbling at the open
casement and, as I leapt up, the door burst open and Joel Bym appeared
flourishing a naked hanger and with Godby behind bearing a lanthorn,
whose flickering light showed Adam, knife in hand, where he leaned
panting against the wall, a smear of blood across his pallid face and
with shirt and doublet torn in horrid fashion.

"The window!" he gasped. "Shutters! 'Ware bullets!" I sprang
forward, but Joel was before me, and crouching beneath the open lattice
swung the heavy shutters into position, but even as he did so, a bullet
crashed through the stout oak.

"Doors all fast, Joel?"

"Aye, Cap'n! But who's here--is't the preventive? And me wi' the
cellars choke-full. My cock! Is't the customs, Cap'n?"

"Worse, Joel!" says Penfeather, wiping sweat from him.

"Art hurt, Adam?" I questioned, eyeing his wild figure, and now I saw
that the thin, steel chain was gone from his sinewy throat.

"No, shipmate. But the dagger, look ye--'tis clean disappeared,
Martin."

"And good riddance," quoth I. "But, Adam--what o' your chart--gone
along o' the dagger, has it?"

"Tush, man!" says he, sheathing his knife, "'Tis snug in that wallet o'
yours."

"My wallet!" I cried, clapping hand on it where it hung at my girdle.

"Aye, shipmate. I slipped it there as I bid ye good-night! But,
Martin--O Martin, the dead is alive again--see how I'm all gashed with
his hook."

"Hook?" quoth Joel, shooting great, hairy head forward. "Did ye--say
a--hook, Cap'n?"

"Aye, Joel--Tressady's alive again."

"God love us!" gasped the giant and sank into a chair.

CHAPTER XIII

WE SET OUT FOR DEPTFORD POOL

Penfeather drew clenched hand across his brow, and coming to the table
reached the half-emptied flagon and drank what remained of the wine
thirstily, while Bym, his great body huddled in the ch