XXXVI
A moment of silence followed, silence as complete as the darkness of the night. On the ladder Pierce and I hung as if frozen to the rungs. The tone of Betty’s call seemed to permeate the air; its pleading, compelling notes lingered like a perfume. Oh, the power of woman! The might of so slight a part of her as the nuances of her speech! For the call of Betty was a command. Nay, it was a force, a law, as indubitable as the law of gravity. It was surcharged with the thrill and power of Nature’s will. It was Woman. And Brack would go. He must go, in response to it. And Betty knew it.
Brack’s laugh, short and excited, sounded aft.
“Ah! Yes, yes; one minute.” His voice was exultant. “I’m coming.”
He must have leaped at the last words, for instantly there was a clatter as he dropped into the boat. Then the creak of an oar as he swung the boat clear.
“Where are you, Miss Baldwin?” he laughed.
And then, when it was too late, I recovered from the shock that had congealed me. I cried out, an involuntary, agonized cry, and as if in response a man come running swiftly to the ladder and peered over the rail.
“Who’s dere; who is it? Speak, or I’ll shoot!”
Head and voice I recognized as one of the most vicious of Brack’s men, and it was too late to attempt to retreat.
“It’s Mr. Pitt,” said I, and climbed upward.
“Hold on; stop right dere.”
I had thrown one leg over the guard rail. The man was a yard away, a revolver pointed at my chest.
“’S all right, Joe.” From below the quick-witted Freddy sent up a reassuring growl. “’S all right; let ’im go.”
“Hah?” The seaman, startled, bent forward to look, and I leaped, sinking both hands into his throat and bearing him to the rail.
In the same second Pierce seemed to be on the rail. His rifle rose over his head and came down on my man’s arm, knocking the revolver from his hand.
“The gun—the gun! Get his gat’!” whispered Freddy.
I had it even as he spoke, and with a weapon in each hand I ran aft, madly, unthinkingly, wishful only to follow whither Captain Brack had gone. Riordan was the first man I met, and as he retreated at the sight of me and tugged at his hip pocket, I struck at him, saw him fall, and went on with scarcely a pause.
I heard Freddy pounding at George’s stateroom, but I ran past. Garvin leaped at me from aft the main cabin. I fired twice at his right arm and heard his weapon clatter on the deck.
On the after-deck Barry caught me about the hips and threw me down, the violence of the fall throwing my weapons from my hands. I was beneath him and the man was trying to stab me as I hugged him tight to my breast. I felt the knife enter my thigh. Barry was the stronger, and I cried out a curse of despair.
“Hang tough for a jiffy, sir,” came Wilson’s calm voice from a companionway. He, too, was fighting. I heard the sound of two bodies falling. “Hang tough!”
I put all my strength into a paroxysm of pressure, but Barry managed to cut me once more ere Wilson, hobbling on one leg, came to my relief.
I found myself on my knees feeling ill.
“That’s three down,” said Wilson.
He was at the rail, pulling the stern sea-ladder up on deck. Vaguely I realized then that Wilson, too, had heard Brack leave the ship. Afterward I learned that he had attacked his guards at the sound of my first shot, which he had thought to come from Dr. Olson’s revolver as a signal for the revolt. In that way only had it been possible for him to reach me in time to save my life.
The negro and Garvin were fighting near us, with a stamping and roaring as of two great animals locked in battle. Like the hissing of an over-driven pump came the negro’s:
“Got you now; got you now, bad man.”
Garvin in turn panted.
“You —— nigger! You —— nigger!”
They whirled from the darkness into the shaft of light from a port-hole. The negro struck with some weapon; the thick glass crashed in splinters. They whirled on, into the dark again.
“Swing him around, Sam, and I’ll club him for you,” said Wilson quietly, hobbling after them.
“Don’ touch ’im!” pleaded the negro. “’Foh Gawd! Don’ nobody touch ’im. He’s mah meat.”
Forward, at George’s stateroom, there was a tumult; then cries and shots. The door was locked, and as I came running up, Pierce and Dr. Olson were fighting Riordan, and the man who had detected me on the ladder. In the stateroom George and Simmons were battling to keep their guards from joining the fight on deck.
I leaped upon Riordan from behind and Wilson, with his iron bar, began to beat down the door. Barry had recovered consciousness and with one of my pistols came hurrying forward, dancing around seeking for a chance to shoot one of us.
Pierce was knocked down, and as Barry sprang toward him, Wilson turned, and hurled himself clumsily at the fellow’s legs. Barry fell, leaped up, and still holding the revolver, went over the side. The other seaman did likewise at the sight of Wilson, and Riordan, felled by the butt of Dr. Olson’s revolver, soon followed his example.
“—— ’im! He copped my rifle, too!” spluttered Pierce, Riordan having snatched the weapon from the deck as he went over the side.
In the cabin cracked a shot and there came a shriek which we knew to be Simmons’s. Three of us threw our weight with Wilson’s, and the door went in.
George was on his feet, throttling one of the guards over a chair. Simmons lay like a bundle of old clothes in a corner. Near by the other guard, on all fours, strove to rise and fell flat. Wilson’s right fist smote George’s victim senseless and Chanler stood up, gory and calm.
“They’ve hurt Simmons bad,” he said. “Poor old Simmons. My fault. But I’ll pay that devil, Brack, out if I never do anything else as long as I live.”
The negro had cornered Garvin in the dining-saloon. These two had ceased to resemble human beings. They were all but naked, and their nakedness was red, with spots of white or black showing through. Garvin was crouching on one side of the table with a knife, and at the sight of the negro’s empty hands we sprang to help.
“Don’t spoil it, white folks, don’t spoil it!” growled the negro, moving toward his victim. “I done got ’im; he’s mah meat—mah meat!”
He knocked the knife from Garvin’s hand somehow. Then they wrecked the room with their hurtling falling bodies. The roar of battle rose to a crescendo and began to diminish. Garvin was losing.
“Guahd dat do’h!” cried the negro, but it was too late.
Garvin had turned to flee. In a bound he was in the doorway, one more and he was at the rail, and the negro cried in real agony as the bruiser vaulted over into the water.
“You got ’im plenty, Sam,” said Freddy.
Wilson was hobbling here and there on deck.
“We’ve cleared ship, sir,” he reported. “Now we’ve got to hold her.”
Then I remembered why I had started aft. I was in a fog. Presently I found myself trying to climb the after rail while a cluster of arms held me back.
“Betty! Brack!” I was muttering. “Over there. Let me go.”
“No, no, Gardy, old man. Steady down, Brains; you can’t walk the water. Easy, sir, easy.”
George, Freddy and Wilson; they were all holding me, pleading with me. They drew me forward toward the staterooms.
Suddenly I tore myself free. The light from the open door of George’s room reached up to and illuminated the port bow rail. I had seen a head appear where the ladder reached the deck. It was a small, wet head. Then showed a wet, white face and much wet hair, and finally over the rail came a very wet young woman, pausing bewildered in the glare of light and calling:
“Mr. Pitt! Gardy! Where are you?”
The fog cleared. I was sane again. In the shaft of light Betty Baldwin stood balanced ready to run forward at my response. Her right hand was at her bosom, her head on one side in an attitude of anxious listening, but the darkness hid us from her sight!
There was not one of us but was hideous to behold. Wilson, who had done the most fighting in spite of his wounded leg, was the least damaged and he required water, bandages, and fresh clothes, before being presentable. I closed George’s door, leaving the deck in total darkness.
“Everything is all right,” I said as quietly as I could. “Now come straight ahead.”
I met her in the darkness, caught her wet sleeve and guided her swiftly to the door of her stateroom.
“Go in and shut the door. Quick!”
She obeyed without questioning.
“Where’s Captain Brack?” I asked through the keyhole.
“Over there—ashore, I suppose. I slipped into the water and swam out here you know, as soon as I heard him go crashing into the brush where he thought I was.”
“You—what? You called—you swam?”
“That was why I called to him, of course,” she said. “To get him ashore and slip past him and come aboard. Was it too treacherous to be decent?”
“You—you fooled Captain Brack?” At first the thing seemed impossible. “You fooled Brack!” I laughed wildly because the joke was on the captain.
“Gardy—Mr. Pitt, are you all right? Is——”
“George is all right!” I cried. “Rest easy; he’s all right. But stay where you are.”
I ran aft to break the news. There was no need for this, however. Brack’s boat was even then scraping at our stern.
“Throw down that ladder!” he was bellowing. “Riordan! You —— swab! The ladder!”
Chanler leaned on the rail and called down into the darkness:
“You lose, cappy, Riordan’s overboard, and Wilson is captain. Come aboard, cappy. I promise you that I’ll see you hanged if it takes every cent I’ve got.”
“Ah save you dat trouble, boss,” laughed Black Sam, and fired instantly.
We heard Brack fall on his oars. The boat drifted away out of sight. Then we heard him move again. Presently the sound of a faint laugh came out of the darkness.
“Poor shooting! Pitt, you there?” he called easily.
“Yes,” I said, stepping forward.
“My only mistake was in underestimating you, Pitt. One tiny mistake in an otherwise perfect plan. You haven’t won yet, but—my compliments, Pitt.”
I saw the flash as he fired, a roaring, brain-splitting streak of red, which hurled me like a blast into the pit of oblivion.