I thought of the night when they had fought together in the galley door. Momentarily Kipping seemed actually to hold his own against the mad negro; but his strength was of despair and almost at once we saw that it was failing.
"Stop!" Kipping cried. "I'll yield! Stop—stop! Don't kill me!"
For a moment the negro hesitated. He seemed bewildered; his very passion seemed to waver. Then I saw that Kipping, all the while holding the negro's wrist with his left hand, was fumbling for his sheath-knife with his right. With basest treachery he was about to knife his assailant at the very instant when he himself was crying for quarter. My shout of warning was lost in the general uproar; but the negro, though taken off his guard, had himself perceived Kipping's intentions.
By a sudden jerk he shook Kipping's hand off his wrist and raised high his sharp weapon.
From the shadow of the deck-house one of Kipping's own adherents sprang to his rescue, but Davie Paine—blundering old Davie!—knocked him flat.
For an instant the cook's weapon shone bright in the glare of the torches. Kipping snatched vainly at the black wrist above him, then jerked his knife clean out of the sheath—but too late.
"Ah got you now, you pow'ful fighter, you! Ah got you now, you dirty scut!" the cook yelled, and with one blow of his cleaver he split Kipping's skull to the chin.
* * * * *
When at last we braced the yards and drew away from the shattered fragments of the junk, which were drifting out to sea, we found that of the lawless company that so confidently had expected to murder us all, only five living men, one of whom was Captain Nathan Falk, were left aboard. They were a glum and angry little band of prisoners.
Lights and voices ashore indicated that some of our assailants had saved themselves, and by their cries and confused orders we knew that they in turn were rescuing others. Of their dead we had no record, but the number must have been large.