Meanwhile the men in the cabin continued anxiously discussing their leader’s absence, until after a few minutes Beamish swore irritably.
“Curse that fool Benson,” he growled. “What the blazes is keeping him all this time? I had better go and hurry him up. If they’ve got hold of Archer, it’s time we were out of this.”
Willis’s hand closed on the sergeant’s arm.
“Same thing again, but with three men,” he whispered.
The four had hardly disappeared down the port ladder when Beamish left his cabin and began to descend the starboard. Willis felt that the crisis was upon him. He whispered to the remaining constables, who closed in round the cabin door, then grasped his revolver, and stood tense.
Suddenly a wild commotion arose on the lower deck. There was a warning shout from Beamish, instantly muffled, a tramp of feet, a pistol shot, and sounds of a violent struggle.
For a moment there was silence in the cabin, the men gazing at each other with consternation on their faces. Then Bulla yelled: “Copped, by heck!” and with an agility hardly credible in a man of his years, whipped out a revolver, and sprang out of the cabin. Instantly he was seized by three constables, and the four went swinging and lurching across the deck, Bulla fighting desperately to turn his weapon on his assailants. At the same moment Willis leaped to the door, and with his automatic levelled, shouted, “Hands up, all of you! You are covered from every quarter!”
Henri and Fox, who were next the door, obeyed as if in a stupor, but Raymond’s hand flew out, and a bullet whistled past the inspector’s head. Instantly Willis fired, and with a scream the Frenchman staggered back.
It was the work of a few seconds for the remaining constables to dash in under the inspector’s pistol and handcuff the two men in the cabin, and Willis then turned to see how the contests on deck were faring. But these also were over. Both Beamish and Bulla, borne down by the weight of numbers, had been secured.
The inspector next turned to examine Raymond. His shot had been well aimed. The bullet had entered the base of the man’s right thumb, and passed out through his wrist. His life was not in danger, but it would be many a long day before he would again fire a revolver.