"They'll murder us both!" said Springall, in a mournful, and almost a reproachful tone.
"My poor boy!" replied Dalton looking in his face, and poising on high the oar he had so vigorously dipped in the blue wave—"My true-hearted boy! it would be, indeed, a bad recompense for your devotedness, to lead you into the tiger's den;—for myself, I have no fear;—I will put you on shore, and return."
"Never, master!" exclaimed the lad. "There is no one in the wide world I care for but yourself. To serve you, I would venture all. No, no, master, I may be but a poor weak boy in some things, but in this I am a man. I will never leave you while I have power to serve you."
"And you will not repent it," observed the Buccaneer; the spirit of former days rallying round his heart at the idea of danger, which ever appeared to him the path to glory: "you will not repent it—in a right cause too. What can I have to fear? I know that the instant I show myself among them, they will return as one man to their duty; and IF THEY DO NOT——"
As they neared the vessel, they perceived that not more than five or six of their comrades were, like shadowy things, pacing the deck. Jeromio himself, however, they noted, waiting to receive them.
Dalton, who was vigilant as brave, had previously thrown his boat-cloak over Springall, so that he might not be recognised, and handed him a cutlass and pistol. Whether the appearance of two, when he only expected one, or whether the natural dread with which he always, despite himself, regarded his captain, overpowered Jeromio, we may not guess; but as the Buccaneer strode up the ladder, his penetrating look steadily fixed upon the wily Italian, his quick eye perceived that twice he attempted to level a pistol; while his more cowardly accomplices crowded behind him. Had the villain possessed courage enough to fire as Dalton was ascending, his life would in all probability have been the sacrifice; but once upon the deck of his own ship, he was indeed a sea-king! For an instant he stood proudly before Jeromio; then, presenting his pistol to the head of the Italian, who trembled violently, he said as calmly as if he were in the midst of friends,—
"One moment's prayer; and thus I punish traitors——"
There was a breathless silence; one might have heard a pin drop upon the deck; the very air seemed to listen within the furled sails. Jeromio's pistol fell from his grasp; he clasped his hands in agony, and falling before the Buccaneer, upon his knees, uttered a brief prayer, for well he knew that Dalton never recalled a doom, and he felt that all had been discovered! In another instant a flash passed along the ship, and danced in garish light over the quiet sea! The bullet shattered a brain ever ready to plot, but never powerful to execute. With unmoved aspect Dalton replaced the weapon, and planting his foot upon the prostrate dead, drew another from his belt. Springall was still by his side, ready to live or die with his commander.
"Come on! come on!" said Dalton, after surveying the small and trembling band of mutineers, as a lion of the Afric deserts gazes upon a herd of hounds by whom he is beset. "Come on!" and the sentence sounded like the tolling of a death-bell over the waters, so firmly yet solemnly was it pronounced, as if the hearts of a thousand men were in it. "Come on! Are ye afraid? We are but two. Or are ye still men; and do ye think upon the time when I led ye on to victory, when I divided the spoil of many lands among ye? Ye are friends—countrymen of this—that was a man; yet if ye will, ye shall judge between us. Did I deserve this treachery at his hands? Can one of ye accuse me of injustice?"
A loud, a reiterated "No," answered this appeal, and the mutineers rushed forward, not to seize on, but to lay down their weapons at the feet of their captain.