At the first sound of it the three men sat rigid, and when it had ceased there was no sound for several seconds save for the water lapping against the side and the scream of the gulls overhead.
Blueneck was the first of the sailors to recover. He lifted his eyes cautiously to the direction from which the laugh had come.
He saw what he feared and expected. Up against the other side of the mast, directly behind Mat Turnby, stood a slight figure dressed extravagantly in the French style of the day, a dandy from the Brussels frill at his throat to the great silver buckles of rich workmanship which adorned his tanned shoes. But it was not these things which stopped the three sailors so suddenly in their talk and caused them to sit aghast.
The most remarkable thing about the newcomer was his face—long, lean, brown, and unhandsome, it yet had a character at once interesting and repulsive. The finely marked eyebrows met across the low, well-tanned brow in an almost straight line, and the hair—oiled and curled—showed as black as the silk kerchief which covered the greater part of head and neck. The eyes beneath the lids, fringed with heavy lashes, smiled and glittered disconcertingly. The whole face was smiling now, viciously, almost fiendishly, but yet smiling and with some enjoyment.
Blueneck’s eyes dropped before that terrible smile and, as they travelled slowly downward, suddenly dilated, and he shivered as though a snake had touched him.
The figure by the mast had moved a little more round and his hand was visible. It was at this that Blueneck stared.
Among the small, white, much-beringed fingers, and round the slender wrist from which the lace ruffle had been pushed back a little, slid the thin blue blade of a Spanish stiletto. Through the thumb and first finger it slipped, over the blue vein of the white forearm, mingled its brightness with the flashing jewels on the third and fourth fingers—and so round again, all without any apparent effort or even movement of the hand. It was an exhibition to be admired and praised, yet Blueneck and the shivering little man at his side shuddered and looked away.
Mat Turnby, on the other hand, had not seen anything. He sat quite still, the pistol lying idly in the palm of his great hand, staring fixedly in front of him.
A hand, white and slender, slid over his left shoulder and away again—the pistol vanished. Still Mat did not move.
“A very pretty toy, and a useful, my friend,” said the same soft voice, just behind Mat’s ear.