e deck with a squad of Kanakas and as Mart went
below he heard the davits creaking, and saw one of the boats descending
to the water.

Jerry vouchsafed no explanation of his ordered consultation until the
three men in question had come down to the cabin where he and the boys
waited. Mart detected something strange in the old man's manner, and the
instant the men came down he saw an insolent expression on Birch's face
that he did not understand. He was soon to understand it, however, with
a good many other things.

"Now, comrades, what had best be done?" asked Jerry. "These here lads
don't want us to make the Kanakas go down, and you don't want to go down
neither. Our dynamite's gone, so I asks you again, what's to be done?"

Yorke leered with his twisted mouth.

"Take a rope's end to the Kanakas, Shark. Ain't you master aboard here?"

"Aye, that I am, Yorke, but owners is owners."

Jerry chuckled again, which disarmed Bob's anger. Mart was watching the
four men anxiously. Their attitude puzzled him, for the seamen were
undoubtedly insolent, but Jerry seemed to pay no attention; and the old
quartermaster was usually a stickler for sea etiquette.

"Are you sure the Pirate Shark's down there, Jerry?" asked Bob suddenly.
"Don't you think he's gone out to sea--"

"No, no, lad, he lives down there--eight fathom down, in the wreck, with
the fish all around and us up above."

"He didn't go after the Kanakas," persisted Bob skeptically.

"You're right, lad, he didn't--'cause why, he knowed better, he did!
He's waitin' till a diver goes down, lads--a real diver wi' the shoes
an' helmet, as can't swim about like the Kanakas. I'll go down myself."

"What!"

The cry of surprise broke from men and boys alike, but Jerry nodded, his
jaw set and his old face showing a sudden angry determination.

"Yes. I'll go down, wi' some kind o' weapon, and I'll--"

"Take that kris of mine!" shouted Bob eagerly.

"Stow your jaw!" The one-eyed Birch turned on them roughly and
threateningly, to Mart's amazement. "Jerry, stop this fooling. What you
goin' to do with these kids, eh?"

"Let them go down," broke in Borden, a malicious expression on his
wrinkled face. "Let 'em go down, Jerry, to the wreck."

"Shut up!" Jerry straightened up. So swiftly had this dialogue passed
that the two boys had hardly realized its import, when the old
quartermaster shook his fist at Birch. "Shut up, I say! Them boys ain't
a-goin' to be hurt, understa