"Keep your course, keep your course!" I cried to the captain as we ran on. "Hold to it, for your life—it's our only chance!"
He set one of the children on the sand, and, bidding the little one run on ahead, he drew his revolver and stood shoulder to shoulder with me.
"A straight barrel and mark your men," cried he, very quietly; "it's a cool head that wins this game. We have ten shots and the butts will do for two. You will make that twelve if you add it up, captain."
His coolness surprised me, but it was not to be wondered at. Never from the first had I heard this man utter one word which complained of our situation or of its difficulty. To Captain James Nepeen a tight corner was a pleasure-ground; and now with these yelling devils all round him, and the vapour steaming in the woods behind, and the sea shimmering like a haven that would beckon us to salvation, he could yet wear that cynical smile of his, and go with lighter step, and bear himself like the true seaman that he was. Of all that I have ever sailed with I would name him first as a true comrade in peril or adversity. To his skill I owed my life that night.
"One," said he, suddenly, when a great head showed itself on the cliff above us and was instantly drawn back. So quick had he been, so wild did the aim appear, that when a body rolled presently down the grassy bank and lay stark before us I could not believe that a bullet had done its work.
"One," cried he again, triumphantly—"and one from twelve leaves eleven. Ha, that's your bird, captain, and a big one!"
Another man fell with a loud cry.
I had pulled my trigger, prompted by his example, and another man from the cliff above lifted his arms and fell with a loud cry. And this was the astonishing thing, that though we two were caged in a ravine like rats in a trap, and had shot two of the devils stone-dead, no answering shot was fired from above, no rifle levelled at us.