Snatching an axe from the rack in the wheel-house, he jumped for the row of cabins. The first door was locked and he smashed it in with mighty blows. The chief officer of the Alsatian was discovered within, irons on his wrists, a nasty wound slanting across his forehead.
“Take me out of this and give me a gun,” sobbed the stalwart Englishman.
“How about the rest of ye?” shouted O’Shea.
“They shot the old man and clubbed Hayden, second officer, to death. The others are alive.”
“Lay your hands on the rail yonder and hold steady,” O’Shea commanded him. “I will shear the links of those bracelets with the axe.”
This done they broke into the other rooms and released the surviving junior officers who had been surprised while asleep. Raging and cursing, they caught up axes and iron belaying-pins and joined O’Shea in the sally to release the seamen locked up in the forecastle and the stewards penned below. Recognizing the grave danger, Vonderholtz tried to rally his armed men and hold the boat-deck against attack. But his force was divided and disorganized and part of it was in the boats. His power had crumbled in a moment. He was on the defensive, fighting for life.
Now the crew of the Alsatian came swarming against him, even the stewards no longer obsequious slaves of the tray and napkin but yelping like wolves. Heedless of bullets, the large force led by O’Shea, Johnny Kent, and the chief officer of the Alsatian charged with irresistible ferocity. They penned forty of the Communal Brotherhood between the rail and the deck-house amidships, and fairly hammered and jammed them through the nearest doorway and made them prisoners.
Vonderholtz comprehended that the ship was lost to him and that it was every man for himself and flight into the boats. He somehow got clear of the whirling conflict, found room to turn, and stood with his back to a derrick-mast while he let drive with his pistol and put a bullet through O’Shea’s arm.
Roaring vengeance, Johnny Kent would have killed the blond leader in his tracks, but just then Miss Jenness ran swiftly to Vonderholtz, caught hold of his hand, and urged him frantically toward the nearest boat. Johnny Kent forbore to shoot. He could not hit his target without driving a bullet through the girl. Nor did any man hinder them, as Vonderholtz and Miss Jenness, dark, tragic, incomprehensible, moved quickly to the edge of the ship and leaped into the crowded boat that had just swung clear. It descended from the overhanging davits and plopped into the smooth sea. As the falls were unhooked at the bow and stern, the men on the thwarts set the long oars in the thole-pins and clumsily pushed away from the side of the liner.
It would have been easy to shoot Vonderholtz from the deck above, but he crouched in the stern-sheets with the girl clinging close at his side, so that she seemed to be trying to shield him. No one was willing to risk killing the woman in order to deal retribution to the chief criminal.