e aft, and how can we hold them? But we must get the
skipper awake, or they'll knock him on the head while he sleeps."

Mary had listened, shivering with the night cold; but she had a word to
add, and its wisdom was no matter for dispute.

"If I went," she said, "what could they do to me?"

We were all silent.

"I'm going now," she said; "while I'm talking to them they won't be
looking for you."

"Certainly, we could follow up," I added, "and might get them down if
you held them in talk; but don't you fear?"

She laughed, and gave answer by running up the companion-way, and
standing at the top; while we cocked our pistols, and crept after her.
Then we lay flat to the deck, as she ran noiselessly amidships, and
into the very centre of the five men. To our astonishment, they gave a
great howl of terror at the sight of her--for it lay so dark that she
seemed but a thing of shadow hovering upon the ship--and bolted
headlong forward; while we rushed in a body to the hurricane deck, and
faced Paolo. He turned very white, and would have opened his lips; but
Dan served him as the other; and hit him with his pistol, so that he
rolled senseless off the narrow bridge, and we heard the thud of his
head against the iron of the engine-room hatch. He had scarce fallen
when Mary, with the laugh still upon her lips, reeled at the sight of
him, and fell fainting in my arms. I knocked at the skipper's door, but
he was already on his feet, and passed me to the bridge, where I laid
the swooning girl on the sofa in the chart-room.

The skipper got the whole situation at the first look, and acted in his
usual silence. He re-entered his own cabin, and came to us again with a
couple of rifles, which he loaded. We were now all crouching together
by the wheel amidships, for Mary had recovered, and insisted that I
should leave her, and we waited for the heavy black clouds to lift off
the moon; but the fore-deck lay dark ahead of us; and we could not tell
whether the men who had fled had gone below, or were crouching behind
the galley, and the skylights of the fore-cabins. Nor could we hear any
sound of them, although the skipper hailed them twice. He was for going
forward at once; but we held back until the light came, and then by the
full moon we saw dark shadows across the hatch. The men were behind the
galley, as we thought--the eight of them.

The skipper hailed them again.

"You, Karl, Williams--are you coming out now, for me to flo