“Whisky, Simmons! Where is it? I’ve got to have some, quick.”
He grimaced guiltily.
“I—I had a tiny bottle in my coat, sir. It’s lying over there. If the bottle isn’t smashed—ah! The master’s silver flask, so it was. I—I had a bit of cold, sir, and there was no other bottle——”
I drank the stuff like water. My veins, which had felt empty and slack, seemed to fill with warm blood.
I drank again. My legs stiffened and grew firm. My head was in a whirl, but I had strength enough to move easily now, and I went out of the room with a rush. Betty tried to stop me as I went through the saloon, but I lurched on.
The sound of firing came to me as if from far away. In the whirl of my head it seemed first in one direction then in another. I steadied myself for an instant as I came out on deck. The yacht seemed to be heaving and falling, and presently it felt as if it were whirling in a maelstrom.
Where was the aft? Where was the firing? I held my head to steady it. The firing broke out afresh. There it was! It was in front of me. No, it was behind me. A non-drinker shouldn’t take so much whisky. Ah! There it was. I lurched forward, intending to go aft. It was not strange that I should cross the fore-deck on my way aft. Nothing was strange in my present condition. Not even the fact that Brack and Garvin were climbing over the rail at the bow, as I came forward.
I was very steady.
“Hello, Brack.”
At the sound of my voice and the sight of the revolver in my hand Garvin gave a spring backward and splashed into the water. Brack smiled and vaulted on to the deck. There was a wound on one side of his head where the negro’s bullet had marked him, but he bore himself as confidently and masterful as ever. He had two revolvers in his belt, but as I made ready to shoot him when his hands moved toward them he desisted and smiled again.