"Where is the terrible Lord?" muttered Marie, still not wholly conscious. "I woke with his face against mine. He pricked my breast with his sharp steel."
"Tell me later," cried Madame. "He is dead. Open the door and scream."
The heap moved slowly, and Marie somehow got the door open. Then she howled.
A steward ran up and thrust in his gaping head.
"Call the Captain," ordered Madame sharply.
Summoned by an urgent message, of which he could make no sense, Ching leaped down from his bridge and a moment later stepped over Marie's body into Madame's cabin.
Madame, lying with Willie stretched across her, his feet and hands drooping to the deck on either side, raised her right hand, and beckoned to the Skipper with her pistol muzzle.
"See, I have killed him. It happened very quickly."
Before the slow-witted Skipper could take in this astonishing situation, Alexander Ewing burst through the ring of sailors which had clustered about the door. A rumour had flown through the ship that Madame Gilbert was dead. Alexander burst into her cabin, white and shaking, for he loved her.
The air still reeked with the acrid taste of burnt cordite, and for a moment Alexander could see no more of Madame than a glorious mass of copper tresses on the white pillow beyond Willie's shoulder. He groaned "Is she dead? Is our Madame really dead?"