"Begin!" said Henshaw.
The blacksnake whistled around the head of the third mate and there was a long scream from Kamasura—but the blacksnake only cracked loudly in the air. Borgson laughed with a hideous delight. Harrigan, sickly white, bowed his head. Again the blacksnake whirled and again it cracked, but this time on naked flesh, and the scream of Kamasura was like the cut of a knife.
Again, again, and again the blacksnake fell, and now Kamasura twisted his head toward the captain and cried in a voice made thin by pain and rage at once: "I confess! Captain, let me speak!"
At a gesture from Henshaw, the third mate reluctantly stepped back, drawing the lash of the blacksnake slowly through his hands with a caressing touch. Van Roos, the color completely gone from his usually blooming cheeks, cut the ropes, and Kamasura rose, facing the captain. He extended a naked, trembling arm toward Hovey.
"Mutiny!" he yelled. "The whole crew—the whole forecastle—mutiny,
Cap'n Henshaw! I know—"
The piercing whistle of the bos'n cut into his speech, and the crew rolled forward over the hatch with a single shout that might have come from one throat except for its shrill volume.
CHAPTER 32
"It's come!" cried Harrigan to McTee. "Kate!"
But even as he whirled, two sailors leaped on him from behind and bore him to the deck. At the same time a gun flashed in the hand of Henshaw, and he fired twice into the onrushing host. Two men crumpled up on deck and the others gave back a little—they were glad to turn to the easier prey of Van Roos and Borgson, who were instantly overpowered, while Henshaw, with brandished revolver, made his way toward the main cabin.
The second and smaller rush of the mutineers had been toward Harrigan and McTee, where the two men stood together. Harrigan, taken from behind, went down at once and then grappled with his assailants before they could use their knives. McTee stood over the struggling three and smote right and left among the mutineers. A knife caught his shirt at the shoulder and ripped it to the waist; a club whizzed past his head, but his great fists smashed home on face and head and sent men staggering and sprawling back. The confusion gave him an instant of freedom in a small circle, and he leaned and caught one of Harrigan's assailants by the heels. It was a little man, a withered fellow scarcely five feet tall and literally dried up by the tropic heat. He was wrenched from his hold, heaved into the air, and then whirled about the head of McTee like a mighty bludgeon. As the sailors rushed again, that living club smashed against them and flung them back. Even to the herculean strength of McTee it was a prodigious feat, but the danger gave him for the moment the power of a madman. Twice he swung the shrieking little sailor, and twice that body smashed back the attack, while Harrigan leaped to his feet in time to knock down a man who sprang at McTee from behind with a brandished knife.