"I'll see you hung up to dry at my yardarm first! If you want the ship come and take it, you scurvy scoundrel!"
It looked like long odds—fourteen to two. I began to wonder if Bothwell had forgotten us, and I ordered Alderson to unlock the door for a sortie if one should be necessary.
Even while I was speaking the rush came. They divided like running water when it reaches a big rock in midstream. Some of them poured toward us, the rest made for the bridge. I heard the crack of Sam's rifle, the rattle of small arms, and then the battle was upon us.
CHAPTER XIV
THE BATTLE
I fired through the window and brought down one fellow while they were still coming in a huddle toward us. Before I could fire again they were in the saloon and at close quarters with us.
To me it seemed that a hundred men were struggling in that narrow, smoke-filled space. A grimy, black-faced stoker leaped at me and I fired. I remember beating him over the head with my revolver and that we went down together in a clinch.
As I was falling it came over me that the attack was only a feint to keep us busy. The main body of the mutineers was storming the wheelhouse.