“Scratches!” he cried. “Let the sun dry ’em up!” He shoved the doctor forward, and followed him, kicking to right and left a ruck of weapons and débris. Together the men advanced, stumbling over bodies.
“Patch those fellows up the best you can,” directed Briggs, gesturing at the pair by the deck-house. “One of ’em, anyhow, may be some good. We’ve got to save every man possible, now. Not that I love ’em, God knows,” he added, swaying slightly as he stood there, with his blood-stained hand upon the rail. “The yellow-bellied pups! We’ve got to save ’em. Though if this was Singapore, I’d let ’em rot. At Singapore, Lascars are plenty, and beach-combers you can get for a song a dozen. Get to work now, sir, get to work!”
Life resumed something of order aboard the Silver Fleece, as she wore slowly down Motomolo Strait. The few Malays of the crew, who had survived the fight and had failed to make their escape with the retreating forces, were for the present kept locked in the deck-house. Briggs was taking no chances with another of the yellow dogs running amok.
The number of hands who mustered for service, including Briggs, Wansley and the doctor, was only nine. This remnant of a crew, as rapidly as weak and wounded flesh could compass it, spread canvas and cleaned ship. A grisly task that was, of sliding the remaining bodies over the rail and of sluicing down the reddened decks with buckets of warm seawater. More and more canvas filled—canvas cut and burned, yet still holding wind enough to drive the clipper. The Silver Fleece heeled gracefully and gathered way.
Slowly the scene of battle drew astern, marked by the thin smoke still rising from the wreckage of the proa. Slowly the haze-shrouded line of shore grew dim. A crippled ship, bearing the dregs of a mutilated crew, she left the vague, blue headland of Columpo Point to starboard, and so—sorely broken but still alive—passed beyond all danger of pursuit.
And as land faded, Captain Alpheus Briggs, drunk, blood-stained, swollen with malice and evil triumph, stood by the shattered taffrail, peering back at the vanishing scene of one more battle in a life that had been little save violence and sin. Freighted with fresh and heavy crimes he exulted, laughing in his blood-thick beard. The tropic sun beat down upon his face, bringing each wicked line to strong relief.
“Score one more for me,” he sneered, his hairy fists clenched hard. “Hell’s got you now, witch-woman, an’ Scurlock an’ all the rest that went against me. But I’m still on deck! They don’t stick on me, curses don’t. And I’ll outlaugh that Eyeless Face—outlaugh it, by God, and come again. And so to hell with that, too!”
He folded steel-muscled arms across his bleeding, sweating chest, heaved a deep breath and gloried in his lawless strength.
“To hell with that!” he spat, once more. “I win—I always win! To hell with everything that crosses me!”