“Bring the prisoner inside, Adams,” said Lieutenant Fenton, briefly.
With hands handcuffed behind his back and a seaman on each side, Jim Swain was marched inside his father's house. A bullet had ploughed through his left cheek, and he was bleeding profusely.
“Stand aside, old man,” and the officer held up a warning hand to old Jack. “It is folly for you to attempt to interfere.”
And then a blue-jacket, almost as old as the trader himself, placed himself between father and son.
Taking a paper from his pocket the officer read it to himself, glancing every now and then at the prisoner.
“He's the man, sure enough,” he muttered. “Poor devil!” Then turning to the man Adams, he asked—“Are you absolutely certain that this is the man, Adams?”
“Certain, sir. That is the man who murdered the boatswain of the Saginaw. I took particular notice of him when I served in her, because of his colour and size, and his sulky temper.”
“Jim,” broke in the old man's voice, quaveringly, “you haven't murdered any one, hev' you?”
The half-caste raised his dark, lowering face and looked at his father, and for a moment or so he breathed heavily.
“Yes, dad. I killed th' man. We had a muss in Valparaiso, an' I knifed him.”