We all rushed aft to the companion, and at that instant Antonio sprang up the cabin stair. By the clear splendor of the tropical moonlight, we could see that his usually swarthy visage was pale as death, while his black eyes blazed like two burning coals. He grasped his unsheathed knife, the blade of which, as well as his hands and clothes, were covered with blood!
My heart grew sick with vague apprehension, and my first thought was for a weapon; but none was near.
"What have you been about, you rascally picaroon,—and why did you leave the wheel?" shouted Lambourne, becoming greatly excited; "the masts might have gone by the board,—what devil's work have you been after below?"
Then the dark Spanish Creole grinned, as the blood dripped from his hands on the white and moonlit deck.
"Knock him down with a handspike, Carlton," added Lambourne, who could not leave the wheel; "knock him down,—the shark-faced swab!"
On hearing this, Antonio drew from his breast a revolver pistol, one of a pair which we knew always hung loaded in Weston's cabin, and fired straight at the head of Carlton, who dodged the shot, which killed the seaman, named Will White, who stood behind him.
The ball pierced the brain of the poor fellow, who bounded convulsively, nearly three feet from the deck; he fell heavily on his face, and never moved again, for he was dead,—dead as a stone!
In its suddenness, this terrible deed paralyzed us with horror, not unmixed with fear, as we were all unarmed and completely in the power of this Spanish demon, the report of whose pistol brought all the startled crew, tumbling over each other, out of the forecastle.
"Aha, maldita! Santos y Angeles!" said the Spaniard, waving the pistol, the muzzle of which yet smoked, toward us in a half circle, as a warning for all to stand back; "did you think to run your rigs upon me? I am Antonio el Cubano, and don't value you all a rope's-end or a rotten castano, as you shall find. I am now the captain of this ship, and shall force you all to obey me, or else"—here he swore one of those sonorous and blasphemous oaths which run so glibly from a Spanish tongue—"I will shoot you all in succession, till I am the last man left on board; and when I am tired of the ship I can burn or scuttle her. Do you understand all this?"
Dead silence followed this strange address, the half of which was scarcely understood by our men, as it was said in Spanish.