red too,
and listened.

We heard a shot, a single pistol shot.

The captain wheeled upon Newman. His hand flew to his pistol pocket.
But he did not draw. He would have died then and there, if he had, for
I was tensed for the leap.

But he was uncertain. This was not the hour--and the other shots, the
volley, we both expected did not come. Instead, came the second mate's
voice bellowing orders, "Connolly--the wheel! Hard alee! Weather main
brace!" Then, clearer, as he shouted through the cabin skylights,
"Captain--on deck, quick!"

It was the hail for which I had waited so long and anxiously. But the
news that came with it was strange and startling.

"The man at the wheel," shouted Lynch, "has jumped overboard with the
mate!" Then his cry went forward, "Man overboard!"

Swope leaped for the ladder. I saw consternation in his face as he
scurried aloft.

So I knew that this was something he hadn't arranged.

CHAPTER XXII

I was at Newman's side before Captain Swope's feet vanished from the
ladder. If he had paused to close the lazaret hatch behind him, he
must surely have seen me. But he did not pause; I heard his steps
racing up the companion stairs to the poop, and his voice shouting his
command: "Watch the main deck, Mister! Light a flare!"

I threw my arms about Newman, and babbled in his ear. "Oh, the
beast!--it's I--Jack--the devil, I heard what he said!--come to free
you!" Truth to tell, the things I had overheard unnerved me somewhat,
and I was incoherent, almost, from rage and horror.

But Newman brought me to myself in short order. "I know--but not so
loud--they'll hear you!" Aye, his first words, and he smiled into my
face. This man on the rack smiled, and thought clearly, whilst I
babbled. "Be quick," he bade me. "Cut the lashings."

I obeyed in jig time. The chains of both the hand and foot irons were
secured to the limbers by rope lashings. With two strokes of my knife
I severed them. Before I could catch him, Newman fell forward upon his
face. His misused limbs could not support him.

I knelt by his side, sobbing and spluttering, and fishing in my pocket
for the key the lady had given me. It was the sight of his raw,
bleeding wrists and ankles that maddened me; aye, the sight of them
would have maddened a saint. You will recall that the Old Man had
commanded that Newman's wrists be tightly cuffed; and he had seen to it
that the leg cuffs were equally tight. T