He moved across the deck toward us with that little roll usually peculiar to dismounted horsemen of the plains.
"I do like him," the young woman murmured. "He's so strong and gentle and good-natured. I don't suppose he could get mad."
"Oh, couldn't he? I'll ask him about that."
"Now I do think you're mean," she reproached with a flash of her eyes.
"You sent for me, Miss Wallace? Was it to throw him overboard because he's mean?" Yeager asked genially.
Her eye was sparkling and her lips open for an answer, but the words were never spoken. For at that instant a man burst past us with blood streaming down his face from a ghastly cut in the forehead. He was making for the bridge.
"It's come," I said, rising and drawing my revolver.
"I must go to Auntie," Evelyn said, very white about the lips.
"Not now. She's perfectly safe. They won't trouble her till they have won the ship."
"And there will be some merry times before then, I expect," said Tom, his hand on the butt of a revolver and his vigilant eye sweeping the deck.