"And the wretched Jewess?"
"Mother Snatchblock?"
"Yes."
"Ha! ha! burned too; but who the devil are you, that you know all this?" he added, savagely, while coming forward.
"Back—back!" I exclaimed, "or I shall run my bayonet into you; I am Oliver Ellis, the boy whom you would have sold to the press-gang—do you hear me, rascal?—to the press-gang, to whom I shall surrender you in five minutes as a prisoner. Time about is fair play, Mr. Dick Knuckleduster."
For a few seconds the fellow was silent; and while our eyes glared into each other, we could hear the bustle on board the ships,—the breaking open of hatches,—voices calling the rolls of crews,—the scuffles, oaths, and plunging overboard of those who sought to escape the gang by swimming to the quays, where they were captured by the guards of fusiliers under Mr. Haystone. In muscular strength I was but a child, when compared to a ruffian so brawny as Knuckleduster; but my position as sentinel, and my loaded musket, gave me a power of life and death over him. He felt this; his features contracted with intense ferocity, and I could see his sinister eyes glaring like those of a polecat in the dark.
"What—here's our powder-monkey that bolted become a full-blown lobster!" he exclaimed, with an affected laugh; "but you'll shake hands, won't you, Oliver?"
"Back!" I replied, keeping my charged bayonet at his breast; "back, for my finger is on the trigger."
"You will let me past, won't you?"
"Not an inch."