He started across the few feet of floor separating him from his friend, and, stooped though he was to adjust his height to the low-ceilinged cabin, nevertheless his bulk was a terrifying sight as he stumbled and staggered forward. His hairless head nearly scraped the ceiling, and his shoulders were as broad across as those of two men. His hands, white but strong and bony, twitched at the finger ends as if they were unused to idleness without hurting, or without the handle of his whip to grasp.
Two steps forward, Chris saw, was all Claggett Chew needed to show him where the parakeet had gone, snatch him up, and snuff out his life as a candleflame is pinched between finger and thumb. Chris was tearing with his beak at the silk cord on his foot, raking at it between every look he sent towards Claggett Chew. Chris knew that if the pirate touched Osterbridge Hawsey, or worse, fell, the touch or the noise would succeed in awakening the heavily sleeping fop and the parakeet, exposed, would be an easy prey for Claggett Chew.
The Captain of the Vulture, sweat rolling down his tortured face, his eyes starting from their deep-sunk sockets with the strain of keeping himself on his feet, began roaring at Osterbridge once more.
"Osterbridge! Scummy no-good! Wake! That parrot has a scar on his jaw such as I once gave a boy! Osterbridge!" he roared with a final terrible effort.
Then everything happened at once. Osterbridge Hawsey was aroused at last and sat up abruptly, heavy-headed and bleary, thickly asking: "Claggett! What a noise! Cannot a man be allowed to doze in peace? Where are your manners?"
In the same instant, Claggett Chew reached out to pluck the parakeet from behind the sheltering head and neck of "the fashionable." Chris, with a superhuman effort, changed himself to a mouse, tearing his foot from the frayed cord that held it, and leaped into the air. Simultaneously, Claggett Chew, overcome by the approaching blackness he had been fighting, crashed to the floor unconscious.
CHAPTER 27
