“And one ought to forgive everybody,” I said to myself, just as Mr Brymer cried—
“Oh, here you are, Dale. Take this gun, and mind, you are the reserve. Be ready to go and help any one who is most pressed. There must be no nonsense now. Shoot down without mercy the first scoundrel who reaches the deck. If it is Jarette, aim at his head or breast; if it is one of the others, let him have it in the legs.”
He hurried to the side then, leaving me with a double-barrelled gun and a handful of cartridges, which, after seeing that the piece was loaded, I thrust into the breast-pocket of my jacket.
“This is a rum way of forgiving one’s enemies,” I said to myself; “but I suppose I must.”
And then I began patrolling the deck as we waited on our defence, with the boats coming on and the insidious enemy within, for the fire was certainly making a little way in the hold.
The boats were only a couple of hundred yards away now. I could see Jarette seated in the stem of one of them, as they came on abreast, making straight for the port-gangway abaft the main-mast; and my breath came thick and fast, for the fight was about to begin, and I felt that we could not expect much mercy at the hands of the leader of the men.
Chapter Forty Seven.
“It’s all over,” I thought to myself; “they’ll take the ship and send us adrift now;” but all the same I knew that the defence would be desperate as soon as Mr Brymer gave the word.