"Be ye sure, Adam, so sure?"
"As death, Tressady, for I have ye secure at last."
"Bleed me but you're out there, Adam, you're out there! The boot's on t'other leg, for hereabouts do lie thirty and eight o' my lads watching of ye this moment and wi' finger on trigger."
"I know it!" says Adam nodding. "But there's never a one dare shoot me, for the first shot fired ashore shall bring a whole broadside in answer, d'ye see. But as for you, Tressady, pray if you can, for this hour you hang."
"Hang is it, Adam?" says Tressady, and with swift glance towards the sinking moon, "And who's to do it—who?"
"There be thirty and eight shall swing ye aloft so soon as I give 'em the word, Tressady."
"You do talk rank folly, Adam, folly, and ye know it!" says he smiling and stealing furtive hand to the dagger in his girdle. "But and I should die this night I take you along wi' me and you can lay to—" But he got no further, for Smiling Sam (and marvellous nimble) whipped up a stone, and leaping on him from behind smote him two murderous blows and, staggering helplessly, Tressady pitched forward upon his face and lay upon the verge of the incoming tide.
Beholding his handiwork, Smiling Sam uttered a thin, high-shrilling laugh, and spitting upon that still form kicked it viciously.
"Oho, Cap'n Penfeather," cries he, "'tis the Smiler hath saved ye the labour, look'ee! 'Tis Sam hath finished Tressady at last and be damned t' him! And now 'tis the Smiler as do be first to 'list wi' ye!" and he began to shamble across the sands; but passing that rock where crouched Abnegation Mings he tripped and fell, and I saw the flash of Abnegation's knife as they rolled and twisted in the shadow of this rock, whiles, from this shadow, rose a shrill crying like the wail of a hurt child, and into the moonlight came a great, fat hand that clutched and tore at the sand then grew suddenly still, and with crooked fingers plunged deep into the sand like a white claw. Then, tossing aside his bloody knife, Abnegation Mings struggled to his feet and came staggering to kneel above his comrade Tressady and to turn up the pallid face of him to the moon.
And now Adam thrust away his pistols and with hands clasped behind him, turned to face the gloomy shadows of Skeleton Cove: