between two fires. We
crowded in on them, and for a time the jam was so thick that none of us
could do much damage.

Now they fought as desperately to get out of the wheelhouse as they had
a minute earlier to get in. They were in a panic of fear, fancying
themselves trapped.

I was flung against Bothwell, his furious face so close to mine that the
hot breath filled my nostrils. We tried to grip each other, but in the
huddle we were thrust apart.

Suddenly the room was no longer full, I could see that the enemy was in
flight. Before I reached the open I knew that the day was won.
Alderson, Billie Blue, and Morgan were pursuing the flying rabble.

Bothwell, making play with his cutlas against both Blythe and Yeager,
was retreating slowly to the bridge rail. I remember crying out as I ran
toward them.

Bothwell vaulted over the rail to the deck below. I followed like a
fool, for in the row I had lost my weapons. As I recall it now, Sam
shouted to me to come back. But there was some idiotic notion in my head
that the Russian might run into the reception room with his fellows and
get possession of the women.

Instead, he turned and slashed at me. The blow would have carved my head
had not I dodged. At that I received a nasty swipe in the arm. It was
not possible to stop. All I could do was to slip past him and continue
running.

George Fleming had stopped at the head of the stairway to the main deck.
He leveled a pistol and waited for me. Bothwell was at my heels. I was
between the devil and the deep sea.

"We've got him!" the Russian cried.

I swung in behind one of the boats which lay under a tarpaulin near the
edge of the deck. Simultaneously I heard the engineer's gun crack. No
rabbit could have clambered around the boat quicker than _I_. Bothwell
had doubled back and was charging me. His whistling cutlas hissed down
not an inch from my ear and ripped through the tarpaulin to bury the
blade in the wood of the bow.

I scudded back toward the bridge, my enemy in full chase.

Every instant I expected to feel the slash of his blade between my
shoulders. It seemed to me that my leaden feet clung to the planks, that
a toddling child could do that stretch to safety quicker than I was
doing it.

As I ran the deck began to tilt dizzily. Before my eyes there spread a
haze. All grew black even while my feet still automatically moved.

"Badly hurt, old man?"

The voice came to me from a great distance. With return