The light had gone out. He was limp and dead on the deck of the ship he had tried so nobly to save. My hand was wet with blood, and as I withdrew it, the wild abhorrence of the thing came upon me.
I stood up, and there, within ten feet of me, was that sneering ruffian standing coolly, with his pistol in his hand.
It was such a cold-blooded, horrible thing, done without warning, that I was speechless. Chips stood near my side, cursing softly, and looking with fierce eyes at the assassin. Jim came up the companionway, but saw that all was over. My three sailors were like statues, Phillippi muttering unintelligibly.
For nearly a minute after the thing happened I stood there gazing at Andrews and the rest, paralyzed for action, but noting each and every movement of the men as though some movement on their part would give me a cue how to act.
All of a sudden the piping voice of our third mate rose in a laugh, while he cried, "He's gone to heaven."
It was as though something gave away within me, and before I fairly knew what I was doing, I was rushing upon Andrews to close.
I remember seeing a bright flash and feeling a heavy blow on my left side. Then I found myself in the scuppers looking up at a struggle upon the Sovereign's quarter-deck.
At the signal of my rush for Andrews, Jim, who was somewhat expert at tackling persons, dashed at him also from starboard. Chips instantly followed on the other side, and then, our men seeing how things were to go, closed from the rear. All six of us would have met at Andrews as a converging point, had it not been for the scoundrel's pistol.
His first shot struck me fairly under the heart. It knocked me over, and I rolled to port, deathly sick. Thinking for a moment I was killed, I made no immediate effort to recover myself, but lay vomiting and clutching my side. Then in a moment the weakness began to leave me, and I was aware that I was clutching the heavy knife I carried in my breast pocket. I drew it forth, and as I did so, something fell to the deck at my side, and I saw it was a piece of lead. Then I saw that Andrews's bullet had jammed itself into the joint of the hilt, smashing flat on the steel and breaking up, part of it falling away as I drew it forth. The knife had saved my life; for the shot had been true, and would have been instantly fatal had it penetrated.
I started to my feet and saw Jim lying motionless just outside the swaying crowd, which had now closed about the murderer. At that instant Andrews fired again, and Hans, who had tried to use his knife, staggered out of the group and fell dead. Three of the Sovereign's own men who had intended going back with us were now in the fracas also, and as I started in two more joined.