been torn
to pieces by the dog whom death could not force to relinquish his grip!

Immediately running up to the colonel, who was feebly trying to rise,
his wrestle with the black having crippled his wounded leg and arm, I
helped him to his feet as quickly as I could, while others clustered
round to shelter us.

"Poor Ivan, true as steel in death as in life!" he faintly muttered,
glancing from the break of the poop on the two bodies huddled together
below, the blood of the faithful dog flowing with that of his ruthless
foe into a crimson pool that was gradually extending its borders from
the middle of the deck to the lee scuppers. "He has defended my little
Elsie, I am sure, to the last, likewise, even as he defended me. I hope
and trust my child is still safe in the cabin. Help me aft, my lad, to
see; quick, quick!"

Of course I assisted him as well as I could under the circumstances, but
as he limped along towards the companion-hatchway, the leader of the
desperadoes, that villainous "marquis," who I thought had met with his
just deserts long since, not having seen him for some little time among
the other fighters, most unexpectedly jumped from the rigging in front
of the colonel and aimed a vindictive blow at him with a marline-spike.

This must have settled the colonel if it had fallen on his uncovered
head. Fortunately though, dropping quickly the colonel's arm, I fended
off the blow with the revolver I held in my hand, while at the same time
I gave the scoundrel a drive in the face that must have astonished his
black lordship a good deal, for my clenched fist met him square on the
mouth and shook his teeth, making them rattle, as well as disarranging
the twist of his crinkly moustache!

He came at me with a snarl like an angry tiger, and then, hugging me
tight, with his hideous black face thrust close against mine, and his
muscular arms pressed tightly around my ribs, he squeezed every ounce of
breath out of my body.

I thought my last hour had come.

But help came to my aid from a most unlooked-for quarter.

"Ah! you blackguard," cried a voice that sounded dimly in my ears, my
head at the time seeming to be whirling round like the arms of a
windmill from the sense of suffocation and the rush of blood to the
brain. "Coward! miscreant! you are here again."

Breathless though I was, I was so surprised, and indeed frightened at
the voice and accent of the speaker, which I immediately recognised,
that