“Everything. All the gentry up for'ard are bussed up comfortably like fowls for cooking. No one has been hurt; Maliè's men simply picked the mongrels up by the scruff of their necks and then tied them up. The ship is ours.”
“Then you are in command, Mr. Frewen. Please give your orders.”
“Very well, Mr. Raymond. But first let me see to the distinguished Senor Almanza.”
He opened the door of Almanza's stateroom. The Chilian was asleep. Frewen was about to touch and awaken him but pity for a badly wounded man predominated, so he let him lie undisturbed.
“Now, Mr. Raymond, I am at your service. Will you ask Malië to man his boats, and we will start towing again.”
“With pleasure. But let us first call our good men together and drink success to ourselves and the Esmeralda. And then, whilst we are being towed towards Samatau, we can overhaul poor Captain Marston's cabin. All the specie, so this scoundrel tells me”—and he pointed to the Chileno steward—“is still in a safe in the captain's cabin, and has not yet been touched. But it was to be divided to-morrow.”
And then Randall Cheyne sprang on deck and shouted out in Samoan—
“Friends, the ship is ours! Let ten men remain on board to guard these murderers, and the rest take to the boats and tow the ship to Samatau.”
The willing natives answered him with a loud “Ave!” and ten minutes later the Esmeralda was again moving through the water.
An hour before daylight her cable rattled through her hawse-pipe, and she swung quietly to her anchor in Samatau Bay.