Courage came back to the capitan of the lighter then, and with it all his powers of mean impertinence. He shouted up curses at the first-officer. They were vile, as curses can only be vile in that “language of prayer.” And the first-officer understood them perfectly. But he had no time to take notice of them. The ship had got to get off that night. And the stacks had got to be unloaded. But it was far from simple to get even this first one lowered into the launch. Several times they dropped it almost to its place, then, because the empty scow bobbed one way in a swell, and the ship another, it had to be hoisted once more. And once the windlass refused to work at a signal. There was a delay until it could be repaired. The capitan of the lancheros waxed more impertinent and abusive; the tequila with which he had been refreshing himself on shore was beginning to take its violent effect. In the absorption of his abuse of the ship and all its crew, he forgot to order his own men. The stack was coming down once again, with a fair chance of landing squarely in the bottom at last—if the lancheros should be quick enough at guiding it. But they were doing nothing, frightened half out of their little available senses. And their capitan was yelling foul words aloft. It was a critical instant. The white lanchero knew it. He gave an order. It was all the men needed—a head. They made to obey. But the boss, in the madness of tequila, turned on his white hand. Was he the capitan? Was he in command? He had the signal conch shell in his hand. He brought it down with a cracking blow on Stanwood’s head.
The first-officer, watching the critical descent of the iron monster with all his attention, saw Stanwood spring at the boss’s throat, saw the knives of the other lancheros drawn, saw them swarming astern to the rescue of their fellow, ten of them against one. And the iron stack was swaying just above them. Another starboard roll—they would be crushed under it. And another moment lost and the Gringo would have ten knives in his neck and back. The little whistle shrilled sharply twice, and even as its order was obeyed and the windlass reversed, the first-officer was sliding overside down the manrope, had kicked himself off from the hull, and landed in the launch.
It was a short fight. The first-officer had his six-shooter, the white lanchero his knife, like another. The natives were fierce with blood lust, and the drunkenness of knife gleam and tequila. But it was a matter of coolness and of the dominant race. Before the captain on the hurricane-deck could run to his cabin for his carbine, it was over with. Two lancheros had disabling bullet wounds, and the rest had retreated to the bow, all the flush of fight gone out of them, whipped and cringing and scared.
The first-officer and the white lanchero stood astern. They had been cut, and the ducks of the first-officer were red. Blood oozed through the lanchero’s rags. He got breath for a moment clutching at the gunwale. Then he turned to the first-officer. “Thank you,” he said.
Marsden looked at him, slowly, from his shaggy black hair to his bare feet. “Don’t mention it,” he answered. Then he looked up at the ship. “Unhook that stack for the present, and send down the chair for us,” he ordered, coolly.
He considered his left arm. The blood was bubbling out just above the elbow. He knew what it meant. He had seen the thing before. It would be all right once a tourniquet should be put above it. But before that, before the doctor could get down in the chair, he would very likely faint. He was feeling light-headed already—and his eyes were glazing over. He shut his right hand hard above the wound.
“You can’t stay with this, Stanwood,” he told the lanchero. His voice sounded to himself far away and dead. He was not altogether sure what he was saying. He glanced up. Away and away overhead in a vague distance of hot blue, the chair was beginning to lower. He must make haste. He spoke carefully, with precision, swaying unsteadily as the launch rolled.
“We lost a man at Corinto,” he went on; “we—need an—other. You can ship to Frisco with us if——” he staggered, then caught himself, “if you—like.”
The chair with the doctor touched the bottom of the scow. The first-officer had fallen, and was lying quite still. The white lanchero was bending over him, clenching his two hands tight about the wounded arm.