"There are men on Dallis' ship who can change your mind, Captain Thorne."
"With hot irons, I suppose," he sneered. "You're a primitive sort of brute, Iris."
"We won't touch you, Thorne," interposed Dallis, coldly. "But we'll put these kids under the knife one by one until you sign." He nodded to the unconscious group about them. "Shall they deal with them as they did to the passengers of the 'Orion' and the 'Pantagruel' and a dozen others? It'd be slow and ugly, Thorne."
He looked from one to the other of them. Greed and weakness marred the symmetry of their handsome faces, drawing down their lips in cruel, heartless determination that would brook no obstacle. They would not falter.
He was spared an answer by a thunderous bang in the liner's engine room. A second and a third echoed instantly, then a rolling crescendo of fast pistol-shots.
Iris looked back with a cry, her skin blanching as she flung up her gun, but Dallis only laughed uproariously. "They didn't all sample your wares, Iris," he jeered her. "The boys must have found some conscious back there."
There were no further sounds and she lowered her gun, smiling weakly. Neither saw Thorne's hand slip half-way down the lounge arm to pause directly above the butt of his Blandarc. But he had one more card to play.
"What of your own crews?" he demanded. "What of your dupe, Chain Lucas?"
The thin mask of restraint broke and the mean, naked soul of Thomas Dallis glared venomously at him. Even Iris stared at her boon companion in alarm.
"We take care of our own crews our own way, you fool! If you go, they go with you. There'll be no blackmailing us when we roll ashore, my friend, if that's what you mean. There'll be no one left. I saw to that." His sharp teeth gleamed.