The driver, ready for his work, snatched up the girl's light form.
"Have a care what you do—all of you!" cried Jack Benson, warningly, and now, in his hand, the revolver gleamed.
But one of the wretches, darting in at Jack's right, from behind, aimed a blow with a cudgel at the weapon. He struck it from the young lieutenant's hand.
Down to the ground it fell, but Lieutenant Benson was as quick as thought, now.
He bent over, snatching up the weapon, then ducked away from a follow-up blow at his own head, and sprang back.
"You first, then, Millard!" cried the young acting naval officer.
Full of purpose, Lieutenant Jack pressed the trigger. It stuck. No report followed. That blow from the cudgel had jammed the cylinder.
Having dropped the senseless form of Daisy Huston in the cab the driver sprang to the box, lashing the horses, just as Lieutenant Benson discovered the uselessness of his weapon as a firearm.
Then, indeed, young Benson knew that this must be a fight to the very death. Yet he was a naval officer at heart, as much as by special appointment. At a time like this he held life cheaply.
The first man to get within reach was laid flat by a blow with the butt of Jack's revolver.