Riggs came down every few minutes to get a supply of water. He was black
as a chimney-sweep, but he reported good progress and grinned at our
discomfort from the smoke and heat.

Finally we heard Riggs hammering at the charred board with the
belaying-pin.

"I've got it through!" he yelled to us from a smoking shower of black
fragments of the board, and I ran up to him and saw the sun through the
chains around the frame of the scuttle. The links were glowing with heat
and we dashed water on them. In a short time we had wrenched them apart
so Rajah could get through the strands. Then he threw off the bars of our
prison, and Riggs and I gained the hot plates of the sloping fore-deck,
crawling over the body of the dead Chinese, which we rolled into the
sea.

"They are clean gone," said Riggs, crawling up to the starboard side and
scanning the island and the channel. "They went in behind that point, and
it's a good chance they'll be back if they see she's still afloat."

"Let them come," I said. "Are there any more weapons in the ship?"

"I've got a few guns stowed where even Thirkle couldn't find 'em, or at
least Harris hid some away. Always afraid of mutiny, he was, and he got
one with a vengeance, poor chap. It's my ticket to a penny whistle we'll
find Thirkle and his men on the island."

"Then you'll go after them, captain?"

"Well, I'd rather guess so," he said vehemently. "I'm on fair ground now,
and if they don't come back to burn the ship I'm the man to hunt them out
of their holes ashore. But what I'm afraid of is they will hide the stuff
and make for the mainland, or put off to the north in the boats to see if
they can't be picked up by some steamer for the north coast.

"They'll report the _Kut Sang_ lost, and Thirkle'll figure on getting
back here before folks are suspicious. Of course the people who shipped
that gold may smell a rat and keep tab on him, but he'll see that he
gets clear. He'll report her foundered far from here--leave that to him.
I doubt if he'll quit this place as long as he sees a foot of the
_Kut Sang_ above water. Are you game to go after him, Mr. Trenholm?"

"I'm with you to the end of the whole game--I want to see it played out
now, win or lose."

"I knew you would. I suppose I've been a bit of an old woman, Mr.
Trenholm, but I never looked for the likes of what was aboard last night.
There I was, alone, you might say, blind as an owl on what was going on
around me, and when th