He cringed away from me—excellent fellow that he was, and I knew that he blamed his own indiscretion—and spoke no further word for many minutes. All hands on the yacht had now come up to see a spectacle at once so terrible and unlooked for. Upon my part, I stood by the taffrail to watch the puffs of heavy white smoke and try to depict the tragedy then consummated on the decks of the Diamond Ship. What a scene of horror and bloodshed it must be! I could readily imagine that there had been two parties, and that they had come first to words and then to the arbitrament of deeds. Some of the Jew’s men, I said, had been for running to a South American port, others had been for standing by such of their comrades as Sycamore’s relief might bring. They fell to hot talk upon it, I might suppose, and then to blows. And now we could hear the crack of their rifles and could see the smoke of them soaring upwards amid the taut white sails even to the truck of the mainmast. What sights and sounds that curtain of the vapour must hide from us! And who shall wonder if the situation provoked us to a rashness without precedent. We had temptation enough, surely.
“Larry,” I said, “I am going to see what is happening yonder. Let Mr. Benson know that we shall want all the steam he can give us. There is no risk to anyone. Please let the men understand as much.”
“You are going up to the ship, sir?”
“Within a biscuit toss, and nearer perhaps——”
“It’s staking much, sir.”
“So little, Larry, that we’ll have our breakfasts while we watch them. Even Mr. McShanus, you observe, is not disturbed. I believe that he imagines himself in a theatre——”
But Timothy McShanus answered this for himself.
“Indade and I do,” said he, “and no more disturbed than a man at a hanging. Set a dish of parritch before me and ye shall see. Faith, should I weep tears because one thief is cutting another thief’s throat? Divil a tear at all.”
We laughed at this splendid earnestness, while Larry went up to the bridge, and Timothy himself came up to me and spoke a more serious word.
“Ye are easier in your mind,” he said, scanning my face closely. “’Tis good to see it, Ean, me bhoy. Ye don’t think Miss Joan will suffer—now, do ye?”