She stopped suddenly and stood in the light of the fire, looking from one to the other of us with that smile I ever found so hateful.
"I am Joanna," said she softly and nodding at Mings; "I am your Captain Jo and command here. Get you and your fellows aboard and wait my bidding."
"Aye, aye!" said Mings in strangled voice, his eyes fixed and glaring. "But what o' Cap'n Tressady? Where's my comrade, Roger?"
From behind her back Joanna drew forth a slender hand, awfully bedabbled and let fall a reeking thing at Abnegation's feet and I saw this for Tressady's silver-hilted dagger.
"Black Tressady is dead!" said she. "I have just killed him!"
"Dead!" gasped Mings, shrinking. "Roger dead! My comrade—murdered—I—" Uttering a wild, passionate cry he whipped forth his pistol, but in that moment Resolution fired, and rising to his feet, Abnegation Mings groaned and pitched upon his face and lay mute and still.
"Glory to God!" said Resolution, catching up the dead man's weapon and facing the others. "Come, my lads," quoth he; "if Tressady be as dead as Mings, he can't walk, wherefore he must be carried. And wherefore carried, you'll ask? Says I, you shall take 'em along wi' you. You shall bring 'em aboard ship, you shall tell your mates as Captain Jo sends these dead men aboard to show 'em she's alive. So come and bring away Tressady first—march it is for Roger, and lively, lads!"
Now when they were gone, Joanna came beside me where I sat and stood a while, looking down on me in silence.
"He forced me to it!" said she at last. "Oh, Martino, there—was none other way. And he killed my father."
But I not answering, she presently sighed and went away, leaving me staring where Mings lay huddled beyond the dying fire. And presently my gaze chanced to light on Tressady's dagger of the Silver Woman where it lay, stained by his life's blood, and leaping to my feet, I caught it up and sent the evil thing whirling and glittering far out to sea.