“No, you promised us a third of everything you found.”
Even in the confusion of the moment it occurred to Wilbur that it was quite possible that at least two-thirds of the ambergris did belong to the beach-combers by right of discovery. After all, it was the beach-combers who had found the whale. He could never remember afterward whether or no he said as much to Moran at the time. If he did, she had been deaf to it. A fury of wrath and desperation suddenly blazed in her blue eyes. Standing at her side, Wilbur could hear her teeth grinding upon each other. She was blind to all danger, animated only by a sense of injustice and imposition.
Hoang uttered a sentence in Cantonese. One of the coolies jumped forward, and Moran's fist met him in the face and brought him to his knees. Then came the rush Wilbur had foreseen. He had just time to catch a sight of Moran at grapples with Hoang when a little hatchet glinted over his head. He struck out savagely into the thick of the group—and then opened his eyes to find Moran washing the blood from his hair as he lay on the deck with his head in the hollow of her arm. Everything was quiet. The beach-combers were gone.
“Hello, what—what—what is it?” he asked, springing to his feet, his head swimming and smarting. “We had a row, didn't we? Did they hurt you? Oh, I remember; I got a cut over the head—one of their hatchet men. Did they hurt you?”
“They got the loot,” she growled. “Filthy vermin! And just to make everything pleasant, the schooner's sinking.”
VIII. A RUN FOR LAND
“SINKING!” exclaimed Wilbur.
Moran was already on her feet. “We'll have to beach her,” she cried, “and we're six miles out. Up y'r jib, mate!” The two set the jib, flying-jib, and staysails.
The fore and main sails were already drawing, and under all the spread of her canvas the “Bertha” raced back toward the shore.