And before we could interfere, he was on board, with four desperadoes as powerful almost as himself. I had never witnessed such devilish ferocity before in any animal, human or inhuman, except in his worship's dog, who was jumping and foaming about the deck as if he had been possessed by a kindred devil, or had been suffering under hydrophobia; only waiting apparently for the holding up of his master's little finger to lunch on Toby Tooraloo, or breakfast on me Benjie.
"Here, Matamoro, here," roared our amigo, indicating the companion to this beautiful pet, who thereupon glanced down it like a ferret after a rat; and from the noise below it was clear he had attacked Lennox. Adderfang and two of his men instantly followed, and presently the poor dominie, bleeding from his recent wound, and torn by the dog in the shoulder, was dragged up the ladder, like a carcass in the shambles, bound hand and foot, and hove bodily into the boat. I was petrified with horror. The poor fellow, in the midst of all the misery of this his closing scene, gave me one parting look as he passed—one last concentrated look of the most intense wo. I never shall forget the expression: it seemed to say, a thousand times more forcibly than language could have expressed—"Do you believe what I told you at Havanna to have been a dream now, Mr Brail?"
The next moment he cried aloud and imploringly to the demon in human shape, into whose power he had indeed, against all probability, fallen, "Where are you going to take me, Mr Adderfang?" The only answer he gave him was a brutal kick on the mouth. "I have had no communication with the schooner in the offing. Don't you see I am wounded by her shot? I have had another blow. Mind what you do, or you shall repent this," cried the poor fellow again as they dragged him along.
"Let him go," I sung out, as they were about shoving off. "Men, stand by me. Release him, you murdering villain! Where would you take him to, you bucaniering scoundrel?"
"To hell—and mind you don't keep him company—to meet the fate of a spy! one that has brought an enemy on me, when I was willing to have forgotten and forgiven. Let go the painter, sir—let go, I say."
And he made a blow with his cutlass, that missed me, but severed the rope; and as if the action had lashed him into uncontrollable rage, he instantly drew a pistol, and fired it at my head. The bullet flew wide of its mark, however, but down dropped Toby Tooraloo; while Adderfang shouted,—
"Shove off, men—give way for your lives—pull."
And in a twinkling the boat disappeared behind the small cocoa-nut tree point.
"Good God, sir," said Toby, lying flat on his back, where I thought he had been shot, "what is to be done? They will murder Mr Lennox."
"Very like; but I thought you were killed yourself, Toby."