digiously dark space was full of uproar, the hubbub
and confusion pierced through and through by that keen sound of women's
voices screaming, one in the cabin and the other in the stateroom
beyond. Almost immediately Barnaby pitched headlong over two or three
struggling men scuffling together upon the deck, falling with a great
clatter and the loss of his pistol, which, however, he regained almost
immediately.

What all the uproar meant he could not tell, but he presently heard
Captain Manly's voice from somewhere suddenly calling out, "You bloody
pirate, would you choke me to death?" wherewith some notion of what had
happened came to him like a dash, and that they had been attacked in the
night by pirates.

Looking toward the companionway, he saw, outlined against the darkness
of the night without, the blacker form of a man's figure, standing still
and motionless as a statue in the midst of all this hubbub, and so by
some instinct he knew in a moment that that must be the master maker
of all this devil's brew. Therewith, still kneeling upon the deck, he
covered the bosom of that shadowy figure pointblank, as he thought, with
his pistol, and instantly pulled the trigger.

In the flash of red light, and in the instant stunning report of the
pistol shot, Barnaby saw, as stamped upon the blackness, a broad, flat
face with fishy eyes, a lean, bony forehead with what appeared to be
a great blotch of blood upon the side, a cocked hat trimmed with gold
lace, a red scarf across the breast, and the gleam of brass buttons.
Then the darkness, very thick and black, swallowed everything again.

But in the instant Sir John Malyoe called out, in a great loud voice:
"My God! 'Tis William Brand!" Therewith came the sound of some one
falling heavily down.

The next moment, Barnaby's sight coming back to him again in the
darkness, he beheld that dark and motionless figure still standing
exactly where it had stood before, and so knew either that he had missed
it or else that it was of so supernatural a sort that a leaden bullet
might do it no harm. Though if it was indeed an apparition that Barnaby
beheld in that moment, there is this to say, that he saw it as plain as
ever he saw a living man in all of his life.

This was the last our hero knew, for the next moment somebody--whether
by accident or design he never knew--struck him such a terrible violent
blow upon the side of the head that he saw forty thousand stars flash
before hi