“Very well, sir,” answered the mate, “but this is not the time nor place to talk about it.”
“No,” broke in Atkins fiercely; “no more is it the time or place to charge you, Captain Hendry, and you, Mr. Chard, with the murder of the two native seamen whose bodies we saw lying on the main hatch.”
Hendry's face paled, and even Chard, self-possessed as he always was, caught his breath.
“We fired on those men to suppress a mutiny——” began Hendry, when Oliver stopped him with an oath.
“What are your orders, I ask you for the second time?” and from the natives there came a hissing sound, expressive of their hatred.
Chard muttered under his breath, “Be careful, Louis, be careful.”
Suddenly the second steward raised himself from the bottom of Oliver's boat, where he had been lying, groaning in agony, and pointed a shaking finger at Chard.
“That's the man who caused it all,” he half sobbed, half screamed. “'E told me to let Tim Donnelly go into the trade-room, and it was Donnelly who upset the lamp and set the ship afire. 'E sent Donnelly to 'ell, and 'e's sending me there, too, curse 'im! But I'm goin' to make a clean breast of it all, I am, so help me Gawd. 'E made me give the young lady and the girl the drugged coffee, 'e did, curse 'im! I'll put you away before I die, you——”
He sank back with a moan of agony and bloodstained lips as Chard, with clenched hands and set teeth, glared at him savagely.
A dead silence ensued as Harvey picked up a loaded Winchester, and covered the supercargo.