These happenings were plainly visible from the deck of the pursuing proa. The sharp chug-chug of a motor suddenly sounded, and the disguised launch darted forward like a hawk swooping down on a chicken. Casting aside all pretense, her crew showed themselves above the rail. There were at least fifty of them, mostly Chinese and Malays, fierce, wicked-looking men, big and powerful, some of them nearly as large, physically, as the resident himself. They were armed with magazine rifles and revolvers and long-bladed krisses. A rapid-firer was mounted on the forward deck.
Paddy turned to his chief with a whimsical smile. "Pretty big contract," he remarked with unimpaired cheerfulness.
Peter Gross's face was white. He knew what Paddy did not know, the fiendish tortures the pirates inflicted on their hapless victims. He was debating whether it were more merciful to shoot the lad and then himself or to make a vain stand and take the chance of being rendered helpless by a wound.
The launch was only a hundred yards away now—twenty yards. A cabin door on her aft deck opened and Peter Gross saw the face of Ah Sing, aglow in the dying rays of the sun with a fiendish malignancy and satisfaction. Lifting his rifle, he took quick aim.
Four things happened almost simultaneously as his rifle cracked. One was Ah Sing staggering forward, another was a light footfall on the deck behind him and a terrific crash on his head that filled the western heavens from horizon to zenith with a blaze of glory, the third was the roaring of a revolver in his ear and Paddy's voice trailing into the dim distance:
"I got you, damn you."
When he awoke he found himself in a vile, evil-smelling hole, in utter darkness. He had a peculiar sensation in the pit of his stomach, and his lips and tongue were dry and brittle as cork. His head felt the size of a barrel. He groaned unconsciously.
"Waking up, governor?" a cheerful voice asked. It was Paddy.
By this time Peter Gross was aware, from the rolling motion, that they were at sea. After a confused moment he picked up the thread of memory where it had been broken off.
"They got us, did they?" he asked.