Without waiting to cross over to the port side and ascend by the almost intact ladder, Burgoyne swarmed up one of the steel rails supporting the bridge, and gained the dangerously swaying structure.
The Old Man looked at him as he approached.
"Women aboard," he muttered, like a man speaking to himself. "Women aboard and the dirty swine are firing into us. Worse than Huns."
"Shall I carry on, sir?" asked Burgoyne.
"No," was the reply. "But—yes. Carry on, I've stopped something here. Feel a bit dazed."
He stood aside and allowed Alwyn to take his place at the wheel. In the absence of a compass there was nothing definite to steer by. The Donibristle, like a sorely-stricken animal, was merely staggering blindly along at the mercy of her unscrupulous pursuer.
Then it dawned upon the Third Officer that the cruiser had not fired for some minutes. It was too much to hope that the pirate, sighting another craft, had sheered off. He glanced aft, across the debris-strewn decks, tenanted only by the dead. The pirate cruiser was still there. She had closed her distance, and was about two cables' lengths on the merchantman's starboard quarter. She had lowered the White Ensign, and now displayed a red flag with the skull and crossbones worked in black on the centre of the field. This much Alwyn saw, but what attracted his immediate attention was the plain fact that he was looking straight at the muzzles of four of the pirate's quick-firers, and, as the cruiser forged ahead, those sinister weapons were trained so that they pointed at the merchantman's bridge and the two men on it.
Burgoyne realized that if those guns spoke he would not stand a dog's chance. Through long-drawn-out moments of mental torture he waited for the lurid flash that meant utter annihilation. He wanted to shout: "For Heaven's sake fire and finish with me."
Yet the quick-firers remained silent, although not for one moment did the weapons fail to keep trained upon the Donibristle's bridge. There were machine-guns, too, served by yellow, brown, and white featured ruffians, who were awaiting the order to let loose a tornado of bullets upon the defenceless merchantman.
The tension was broken by the appearance of a gigantic mulatto, who, clambering on to the domed top of the for'ard gun-shield, began to semaphore a message. He sent the words slowly, coached by a resplendently-garbed villain who spelt out the message letter by letter.