"Let me stay," she murmured breathlessly.
"No, no; go," I said. "Your place is in your cabin just now. Remember, I know where it is and I can find you."
"Yes, find me," she panted. "Please find me. See, I—I have this." She put the butt of a revolver into my hand. "That has been by me since the first. But come; find me—if—if it is necessary."
I raised her hand to my lips and she melted away. I turned to the door.
"Lane!" I called. "Lane!"
His voice sailed back to me. "What's gone wrong with the lights?"
"They're coming," I said. "Look to your door." And even as I spoke a bar crashed upon mine from without. In an instant the corridor was full of noises. The mutineers were upon us, but they had divided their forces, and were coming at different quarters. It remained to be seen at which spot their main attack was to be delivered. I put my revolver through one of the holes we had drilled in the door, and fired. It was impossible to say if my shot took effect, but I hoped so, and I heard the sound of Lane's repeater at the farther end. The blows on the door were redoubled, and it seemed to me to be yielding. I emptied two more cartridges through the hole at a venture, and that one went home I knew, since I had touched a body with the muzzle as I pulled the trigger. Ellison was on guard in the saloon below, and Grant and the cook in the music saloon; and I judged from the sounds that reached me in the melée that they also were at work. By this time Barraclough and Jackson and the Prince had arrived on the scene, the last with a lantern which he swung over his head. Barraclough joined me, and Jackson was despatched to grope his way into the saloon to assist Ellison. The Prince himself took his station with Lane, and I heard the noise of his weapon several times. My door had not yet given way, but I was afraid of those swinging blows, and both Barraclough and I continued to fire. The corridor filled with smoke and the smell of powder.
"Do you think he's made up his mind to get through here?" asked Barraclough.
"I don't know," I shouted back. "He's attacking in three places, at any rate. We can't afford to neglect any one of them."
"Confound this darkness!" he exclaimed furiously. "Oh, for an hour of dawn!"