By one of those queer chances which sometimes decide the hazard between life and death, the window nearest that end of the room where the sailors strove to protect a few shrieking women had not been broken in. Here, then, was a tiny bay of refuge; from it the men of the Andromeda and the Unser Fritz, Bulmer, Verity, Iris, and such of the Brazilian ladies as had not fled to the upper rooms at the initial volley, looked out on an amazing butchery. De Sylva, no longer young, and never a robust man, had been dragged from mortal peril many times by his devoted adherents. Carmela had snatched a machete from the fingers of a dying soldier, and was fighting like one possessed of a fiend.
Once, when a combined rush drove the defenders nearly on top of the non-combatants, Iris would have striven to draw the half-demented girl into the little haven with the other women.
But Coke thrust her back, shouting:
"Leave 'er alone. She'll set about you if you touch her!"
Dickey Bulmer, too, who was displaying a fortitude hardly to be expected in a man of his years and habits, thought that interference was useless.
"Let 'er do what she can," he said. "She doesn't know wot is 'appenin' now. If she was on'y watchin' she'd be a ravin' lunatic. God 'elp us all, we've got ourselves into a nice mess!"
Somehow, the old man's Lancashire drawl, with its broad vowels and misplaced aspirates, exercised a singularly soothing effect on Iris's tensely-strung nerves. It seemed to remove her from that murder-filled arena. It was redolent of home, of quiet streets, of orderly crowds thronging to the New Brighton sands, of the sober, industrious, God-fearing folk who filled the churches and chapels at each service on a Sunday. These men and women of Brazil were her brothers and sisters in the great comity of nations, yet Heaven knows they did not figure in such guise during that hour of intense emotions.
But if Dickey Bulmer's simple words exalted him into the kingdom of the heroic, David Verity occupied a lower plane. Prayers and curses alternated on his lips. He was stupefied with fear. He had never seen the lust of slaying in men's eyes, and it mesmerized him. Many of the sailors wanted to join in on behalf of their friends. It needed all Coke's vehemence to restrain them. "Keep out of it, you swabs," he would growl. "It's your on'y chanst. This isn't our shindy. Let 'em rip an' be hanged to 'em!" Yet he was manifestly uneasy, and he kept a wary eye on De Sylva, whom he appraised at a personal value of five thousand pounds "an pickin's."
A tall, distinguished-looking man, wearing a brilliant uniform, his breast decorated with many orders, now appeared on the scene. He shouted something, and the attacking force redoubled their efforts. He raised a revolver, and took deliberate aim at Dom Corria. Coke saw him, and his bulldog pluck combined with avarice to overcome his common sense. Without thought of the consequences, he sprang into the swaying mob and pulled De Sylva aside. A bullet smashed into the wall behind them.
"Look out, mister!" he bellowed. "'Ere's a blighter 'oo wants to finish you quick!"