in a mad frenzy which would not brook silence--

"You scoundrel, if you touch another soul here I'll shoot you myself!"
for I had my revolver on me. "Do you make a business of killing
children?" I cried again, and pointed to the dead body of the
girl-child.

I don't know who was more surprised, the captain of the _Bellonic_,
listening, or the man John.

"You cub," he cried; "if you talk to me I'll skin you alive!" But I
said quickly--

"Gentlemen, these men want every shilling on this ship. Give it them
now and save your lives, for you have no alternative. If you give the
money up, you have my word that they won't touch you."

"If there's a God above," exclaimed the young captain, "they shall pay
for this day's work with their lives. I hand my specie over under this
protest; but don't deceive yourselves--half the war-ships in Europe
shall follow you within a week."

He turned away, and presently the ruffians with me had lowered money to
the value of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds into their launch. The
third mate seemed then somewhat cowed by my interference, and though he
went round the ship and cried "Bail up!" every time he met a passenger,
he did not touch one of them. I remained on the bridge a silent
spectator of it all; and when at last we put off again, and the launch
was full of the jewels and the money, it seemed that I had passed
through a hideous dream.

At the time, I shrank from the ruffians in the boat as from men who
were savage fiends and a hundred times assassins; and their brutality
of speech and threat fell upon ears that would not hear; nor did their
pretence of doing me violence then and there move me one jot. I
maintained a stubborn indifference, my pistol still in my hand, my
teeth shut in the defiance of them, until we reached the great craft,
and joined Black upon the gallery. There, the man John explained that I
had stood between him and his purpose of hanging the skipper of the
_Bellonic_; indeed, with such warmth and anger, that I thought my end
had come upon the spot.

"You barking cub," said Black, more quietly than usual, but none the
less to be feared for that, "what d'ye mean by interfering with my men
and my orders?"

"To save you from yourself," I answered, looking him full in the face;
"you've killed children on that ship, if that's news to you!"

He had a spy-glass in his hand, and he raised it as though to strike
me; but I continued to look him full in the face, a