“Sure!”
Bittle wrenched the guns from his pocket.
“Get him—don’t stand about staring like a lot of stuck pigs!” he screamed. “Go to the armoury—heel yourselves! . . . A hundred pounds to the man who kills him!”
The Saint’s laugh pealed out as she had thought she would never hear it again.
“Can’t you make it more than that, dearest cherub?”
And then Patricia saw him. He was standing up on the rail at the poop, and there were two men beside him. She thought at first that the third member of the party was Algy, until she saw the limp figure which Orace was holding like a shield was fully dressed. She heard a rush of feet on the decks below, and four men emerged on the upper deck and ran towards the stern. They were carrying rifles—the quartermaster or someone must have had a duplicate key to the gun-room.
Then the Saint stepped down, and there were three men clustered in a little group by the taffrail.
“Tell ’em to be careful how they shoot, Bittle,” warned Simon. “This here sandbag we’re sheltering behind is the long-lost Bloem himself!”
“Stop!”
Bittle had collected himself.