We had come through a grove of wild hemp-trees, and, keeping the bush that had concealed me between me and the pirates, I crawled to one of these wide-spreading bunches of gigantic leaves drooping to the ground, and managed to get behind it. But as I rolled under the stalks a bird rose near me and screamed shrilly in long-drawn cries of alarm, and several of its young, hunting for cover, set up a racket in the dead leaves on the ground.
I lay still for a minute, hoping that the two pirates would not think anything amiss; but the mother bird wheeled above me, screaming and darting down, and I heard Petrak and Long Jim cursing and running toward me. I jumped up behind the tree, and, looking through the big leaves, saw them coming with drawn pistols.
"Blow me if it ain't the bally pressman!" said Long Jim, stopping within a hundred feet and peering through the tree. "That's Trenholm there, or I'm a Dutchman!"
"That's who it is," I called to them, cocking my pistol. "Come on and see what you get!"
"You're in the Kut Sang" said Petrak queerly, his knees shaking as if he had seen a ghost. "You're dead in the Kut Sang!"
"Have it your own way," I told him. "Maybe I am dead in the Kut Sang, along with Captain Riggs and the rest of them. For that very reason you had better not bother with me."
I kept my pistol resting in the hollow of a hemp-stalk, thinking it would be better not to let them know I had a weapon, for I knew they had no more relish for using their firearms than I did. If I showed the gun to them they would then keep in cover, and could attack me from two sides.
If I could keep it a short-range fight, I had the advantage as long as I held the tree against them, and they would not hesitate to expose themselves to my fire.
"What ye doin' of 'ere?" demanded Long Jim. "Where's the skipper and all the rest we left aboard?"
"That's for you to find out," I said. "You wouldn't shoot a helpless man, would you?"