falling with a great clatter and the loss of his pistol, which,
however, he regained almost immediately.

What all the uproar meant he could not tell, but he presently heard
Captain Manly's voice from somewhere suddenly calling out, "You bloody
pirate, would you choke me to death?" wherewith some notion of what
had happened came to him like a flash, and that they had been attacked
in the night by pirates.

Looking toward the companionway, he saw, outlined against the darkness
of the night without, the blacker form of a man's figure, standing
still and motionless as a statue in the midst of all this hubbub, and
so by some instinct he knew in a moment that that must be the master
maker of all this devil's brew. Therewith, still kneeling upon the
deck, he covered the bosom of that shadowy figure point-blank, as he
thought, with his pistol, and instantly pulled the trigger.

In the flash of red light, and in the instant stunning report of the
pistol shot, Barnaby saw, as stamped upon the blackness, a broad, flat
face with fishy eyes, a lean, bony forehead with what appeared to be a
great blotch of blood upon the side, a cocked hat trimmed with gold
lace, a red scarf across the breast, and the gleam of brass buttons.
Then the darkness, very thick and black, swallowed everything again.

But in the instant Sir John Malyoe called out, in a great loud voice:
"My God! 'Tis William Brand!" Therewith came the sound of some one
falling heavily down.

The next moment, Barnaby's sight coming back to him again in the
darkness, he beheld that dark and motionless figure still standing
exactly where it had stood before, and so knew either that he had
missed it or else that it was of so supernatural a sort that a leaden
bullet might do it no harm. Though if it was indeed an apparition that
Barnaby beheld in that moment, there is this to say, that he saw it as
plain as ever he saw a living man in all of his life.

This was the last our hero knew, for the next moment somebody--whether
by accident or design he never knew--struck him such a terrible
violent blow upon the side of the head that he saw forty thousand
stars flash before his eyeballs, and then, with a great humming in his
head, swooned dead away.

When Barnaby True came back to his senses again it was to find himself
being cared for with great skill and nicety, his head bathed with
cold water, and a bandage being bound about it as carefully as though
a chirurgeon was atten