“‘You dog!’ said Black Harry again, after a stop to see if the captain would speak. ‘I’ve got three slugs in my stomach, and you’ve swore three times at me to-day like a dog—that makes six in all; I intend to send six shots through your vile carcass without killing you if I can help it. You knocked me down on the deck with the butt-end of your pistol, and ordered my body to be taken below by the hands, or else you said you’d throw it overboard. For that outrage I’ll take my last revenge, after riddling you like a sieve, by smashing in your skull, and pitching your vile carcass to the sharks—Dog!’
“With that the ruffian fired his first shot with the revolver at his powerless victim. The captain winced slightly, and I saw the bullet had carried off part of one of his ears.
“‘Ha!’ said Black Harry, ‘nervous, are you? Here’s another fillip for you.’
“But at the same moment the storm, which I had seen brewing up to windward, burst over the ship; and a tremendous wave seemed to flatten me down on the deck, the ring-bolt to which I was lashed preventing me from slipping away. When the rush of water had subsided, and I was able to hold up my head once more, my wounded eye smarting worse than ever, I saw that the mizzen and main masts with part of the foremast had been washed clean away with the shrouds, running-gear, and all their hamper, and, of course, the body of the poor captain, Black Harry, and all his companions in crime had been carried off too in the general wreck.
“How long I remained lashed to the deck of the crippled vessel with the waves dashing over me, the sport of the sea and the mark of the weather, I know not. The first thing I recollect after what appeared to be an eternity of torture, was that I found myself on board the Saracen, a screw steamer bound from New York to Southampton, which had sighted the Gulnare tossing at the mercy of the wind and waves, and sent a boat to see whether there was anybody alive on board. I was on board, alive though senseless for a time, and brought to after much kindly solicitude; so, too, was little Peter, the cabin-boy, whom the mutineers had tied up in his bunk in the forecastle, and who was also alive, though nearly starved to death. Besides our two selves, there was no other living thing; but the bodies of Gripper, the second officer, Painter, the boatswain, and those of the mutineers who had not been washed overboard, were found floating about in the cabin, all with the marks of bullet and shot wounds and other injuries, to show that they had come by a violent death after a hard struggle.
“When my senses were to the fore again, naturally I informed my salvors of all that had occurred; and as the cargo of the Gulnare was a valuable one, her hull not very much damaged, and the weather calm and favourable, the captain of the Saracen, which had so providentially come across her—and a right good fellow he has been to me!—made up his mind to salvage my old ship if he could.”
“And so he towed her in here at Falmouth, and you made your depositions along with the cabin-boy, Peter, the only survivors of the catastrophe, about the facts of the case, for the benefit of the underwriters and the clearance of your own character?”
“Just so, mister,” said the man with the shade over his eye, who it strikes me from certain circumstances was of American nationality; “and that’s the whole story about ‘Black Harry,’ I guess!”