painfully, laboriously, they
pushed towards the rock; yard by yard the devil's crew were bearing
down upon them. And still Dolly kept his shot; the gun had nothing to
say to them. No crueller sight you could plan or imagine. It was as
though we were permitting poor driven people to be slaughtered before
our very eyes.

"Fire, Dolly, lad!" cried I, at last--"fire, for pity's sake! Will you
see them die before our very eyes?"

His fingers trembled upon the gun. He had all the heart to do it; but
still he would not fire.

"I can't," says he, half mad at his confession; "the gun won't do
it--it's cruel, captain--cruel to see it--they're half a mile out of
range. And the others dropping their oars. Look at that. A man's down,
and another is trying to take his place----"

It was true as I live. From some cause or other, I could only surmise,
the longboat lay drifting with the tide and one of Czerny's boats, far
ahead of its fellows, was almost atop of her.

"They're done!" cries Peter Bligh, with an oath, "done entirely. God
rest their souls. They'll never make the rock----"

We believed it surely. The refugees were done; the pirates had
unsheathed their knives for the butcher's work. I saw no human help
could save them; and saying it a voice from the open door behind me
gave the lie to Peter Bligh, and named a miracle.

"'Tis the others that need your prayers, Mister Bligh--Czerny's lot are
sinking sure----"

I looked round and found Seth Barker at my elbow. His orders had been
to watch the gate of the corridor below. I asked him what brought him
there, and he told me something which sent my heart into my mouth.

"There's knocking down below and strange voices, sir. No danger, says
Mister Gray, but a fact you should know of. Belike they'll pass on,
sir, and please God they'll leave the engine for their own sakes."

"Does Mister Gray say that?" asked I. "Does he fear for the engine?"

"If it stops, we're all dead men for want of breath, the doctor says."

"Then it sha'n't stop," said I, "for here's a man that will open the
trap if two or twenty stand below."

He had quickened my pulse with his tale, for the truth of it I could
not deny; and it seemed to me that danger began to close in upon us,
turn where we might, and that the outcome must be the worst, the very
worst a man could picture. If I had any satisfaction, any consolation
of that wearing hour, it was the sight I beheld out there upon the
hither sea,