The Star Woman

by H. Bedford-Jones

With one movement he lifted the heavy table with his knees, threw his shoulder against it, and hurled it back upon Vanderberg and the men. One of them plunged at him with knife ready, and Crawford’s pistol roared in his very face. Over his body Crawford leaped for the ladder, and shot down with his second pistol a negro in his way. Then he was upon the ladder.

The hand of the dying negro clamped upon his ankle.

A long howl, as of ravening beasts, filled the cabin; the men hurtled forward, knives out, fighting each other to get at the tripped figure. The empty pistols smashed in their faces, but they gripped him, they had him down, they dragged him back from the ladder and seethed above him in a wild tangle of fighting shapes. In that confined space the reek of powder went to their lungs and brains. They were no longer men, but blood-scenting beasts, each of them striving only to sink his knife into the man who had dared them. The powder-smoke rolled up to the ceiling and back down upon them, blinding everything, creating an obscurity that was hideous with yells and the spreading stink of raw blood. Man slashed man indiscriminately. The roaring bellow of Vanderberg was drowned in yells and maddened oaths.

In one corner the twisting mass of men disintegrated. Crawford, writhing from the heart of the blind fury, came to one knee, knife and tomahawk in hand. A Frenchman screamed out horribly. Coming to his feet, Crawford dimly beheld the hulking figure of Bose rushing at him; he slipped aside, struck out with the deadly tomahawk, felt the blade sink in between ear and shoulder. Neck half severed, dead in his stride, Bose pitched forward headlong at the cloth covering the window, burst it away, lingered limply for an instant over the sill, and then lurched through the smashed frame and was gone. The morning sunlight streamed in across the reek of powder.

Crawford plunged for the window, seeing there his one chance of getting clear. He was at it, had a hand at the opening, when a man swung into him full force, hurled him aside, drove at him with a knife. They went down together, and now the pack was upon him once more with shrill yells as the new flood of light betrayed their prey.

Again Crawford rose, back to window, and cut with knife and axe at the ringing faces. Knives bit back; blood was streaming from him in a dozen places. Then, flailing his way through the midst of them, splitting the serried rank asunder, came Vanderberg, whirling in both hands a leg from the wrecked table. He whirled and struck. Crawford ducked the blow, the club struck the cabin wall—and the tomahawk left Crawford’s hand.

Too slow! Vanderberg interposed the club, and the steel glanced. Again the table-leg swung; as it fell, Crawford darted inside the blow, though the force of it jarred him to the heels, and struck out with his knife. The point raked across Vanderberg’s brow, no more, and from one side came a thrown knife that struck Crawford over the temple, but haft first. He threw out his arms, caught at the cabin wall, fell to one knee, crouched.

A wild howl roared up, and the men surged in on him. Then, under their very hands and knives, he sprang. The leap took him upward, sent him head first through the window-opening, banged his hips against the frame—and he was gone.

Meantime, regardless of the raging tumult down below, Frontin had been hard at work on deck. He got his dram of rum, then he clapped on the companion-hatch and stoppered it. Moving with incredible agility, he went to the smashed mahogany chests, filled two of them with the scattered gold bars, whipped slings around them, and drew in the block and tackle, still reeved, which had brought them aboard.

One by one he lowered them into the boat lying alongside. From the men crowded at the rail of bark and ketch, who had heard the two pistol-shots, were coming angry shouts and queries, but Frontin only waved his hand at them and followed the chests down into the boat. This was a perilous matter, since now she rode heavily, but he put an oar from the stern and began to scull. He went, not toward the other craft nor the shore, but along the side of the Irondelle to the stern, where he waited.