His features were in themselves of an unctuous cast, smooth, flat, snub-nosed, clean-shaven as a rule, except for a straggling fringe of whisker. His white hair and weak, winking eyes added to his smugly sanctimonious expression. He was squat of build, unduly short in the legs and long of arm. And, altogether, he cut no very dashing figure in his ridiculous garments, one sleeve of his coat hanging limp and empty, the arm that should have filled it lying across his chest in a sling, his chin disfigured by a week's growth of stubble, his whiskers all unkempt.
But it had never been by his gallant presence that he had held to heel the cut-throats who composed his crew, and, even then, when they had him before them helpless, a certain target for their loaded rifles, not one of them seized the immediate opportunity.
He steadied himself with his free hand on the rail of the narrow stairway, and so stepped downward among them. Still no one else moved. It may have been that his almost inhuman daring daunted them in spite of themselves. But Sallie, in the background, was holding her breath. She knew he was courting a bloody death, and feared he would meet it there, before her shrinking eyes. That tragedy and all its unspeakable consequences were literally hanging on a hair-trigger.
He reached the level below, still smiling blandly, and, letting go the rail, shuffled forward, slowly but steadily enough, his slippers flapping at his heels with ludicrous effect. Two or three of the men confronting him stepped to one side, gave him free passage into the throng, and closed in again behind him. He took no notice of anyone, but held on his way till he reached the ladder which led from the break of the poop to the quarter-deck.
He climbed that at his leisure, panting a little, his back toward them. They had faced about and were following his every movement with malevolent eyes. A single shot would have made a quick end of him, but no shot was fired. And, at the top of the ladder, he turned to speak.
"I'll send Mr. Hobson aft to issue your ammunition," he said, in a voice without any tremor of weakness. "Get two full bandoliers, each of you, and then file forward again while the others come aft for theirs."
And with that, leaving them to their own reflections, agape, absolutely dumfounded by his audacity, he made his way up on to the bridge, the skirts of his night-dress fluttering from under the shorter length of his heavy coat.
They fell to whispering among themselves, excited and distrustful. They had only a few loose rounds for their rifles, and Captain Dove alone knew how the ship's magazine might safely be entered. It would undoubtedly have cost some of them their lives to force that secret. No one of them would be willing to sacrifice himself for the common cause, and Captain Dove's unlooked-for concession of their chief need had no doubt mystified them altogether.
Hobson, the second mate, came aft a few minutes later, a beetle-browed, foxy-looking fellow, with a furtive smile of encouragement for his accomplices. At a sign from him they unshipped the hatches. He disappeared into the hold, a bunch of keys dangling from one wrist, and presently shouted up some order, in terms much more polite than he had lately been in the habit of using, to them at least. A chain of living links was promptly formed from the magazine, and packed bandoliers, passed rapidly from hand to hand, soon reached its farther end. The men grinned meaningly at each other as they slung the web belts crosswise over their shoulders. For with these they were still more absolutely masters of the situation.
Reuben Yoxall, back at his dangerous post by the stairway, was watching them no less narrowly than before. It seemed the sheerest madness on Captain Dove's part to have disclosed to their ringleader the secret of the magazine, and no one could tell at what moment they might now assume the offensive. The sun was already dipping behind the sea-rim.