If the man was startling, he was no less startled himself. Leaping from the struggling forms of Pierre and Loge, who defeated each other's frantic efforts to rise, he was across the barroom in three wild bounds, shrieking shrilly as he leaped; he bolted through the west door and cleared the verandah at a jump.
Loge, gaining his feet, was after the man in blue in an instant, evidently thinking no more of Cleggett than if the latter had been in Madagascar. And as for Cleggett, although he might have shot down Loge a dozen times over, he was so astonished at what he saw that the thought never entered his head. He had, in fact, forgotten that he held a pistol in his hand. Pierre scrambled to his feet and followed Loge.
Cleggett, running after them, saw the man in the blue pajamas sprinting along the sandy margin of the bay. But Loge, his hat gone, his coat tails level in the wind behind him, and his large patent leather shoes flashing in the morning sunlight, was overhauling him with long and powerful strides. Cleggett saw the quarry throw a startled glance over his shoulder; he was no match for the terrible Loge in speed, and he must have realized it with despair, for he turned sharply at right angles and rushed into the sea. Loge unhesitatingly plunged after him, and had caught him by the shoulder and whirled him about before he had reached a swimming depth. They clinched, in water mid-thigh deep, and then Cleggett saw Loge plant his fist, with scientific precision and awful force, upon the point of the other's jaw. The man in the blue pajamas collapsed; he would have dropped into the water, but Loge caught him as he fell, threw his body across a shoulder with little apparent effort, and trotted back into the house with him.
Cleggett had left his sword cane in the barroom, but he judged it would be just as well to allow it to remain there for the present. He turned and walked meditatively across the sands towards the Jasper B.
CHAPTER XII
THE SECOND OBLONG BOX
When Cleggett returned to the ship he found Captain Abernethy in conversation with a young man of deprecating manner whom the Captain introduced as the Rev. Simeon Calthrop.
"I been tellin' him," said the Cap'n, pitching his voice shrilly above the din the workmen made, and not giving the Rev. Mr. Calthrop an opportunity to speak for himself, "I been tellin' him it may be a long time before the Jasper B. gets to the Holy Land."
"Do you want to go to Palestine?" asked Cleggett of Mr. Calthrop, who stood with downcast eyes and fingers that worked nervously at the lapels of his rusty black coat.