had been
written, that the crew of the unfortunate barque had barricaded
themselves in here and made a desperate resistance, for her broken doors
lay splintered and full of the marks made by axes and heavy swords. The
seats were broken; and bulkheads, cabin windows, and floor were horribly
stained here and there with blood, now quite dry and black, but which,
after it had been shed, had been smeared about and trampled over; and
this in one place was horribly evident, for close up to the side, quite
plain, there was the imprint of a bare foot--marked in blood--a great
wide-toed foot, that could never have worn a shoe.

"Rather horrid for you, Herrick," said Mr Brooke in a low voice, as if
the traces of death made him solemn; "but you must be a man now. Look,
my lad, what the devils--the savage devils--have done with our poor
Scotch brothers!"

"Yes, I see," I whispered; "they must have killed them all."

"But I mean this--there, I mean."

I looked at him wonderingly as he pointed to the floor, for I did not
understand.

The next moment, though, I grasped his meaning, and saw plainly enough
what must have happened, for from where we stood to the open stern
windows there were long parallel streaks, and I knew that, though they
were partially trampled out by naked feet, as if they had been passed
over dozens of times since, the savage wretches must have dragged their
victims to the stern windows and thrust them out; any doubt thereon
being cleared away by the state of the lockers and the sills of the
lights.

Just then a peculiar hissing sound came to my ears, and I faced round
quickly, as did Mr Brooke, for I felt startled.

For there behind me was one of our men--a fine handsome Yorkshire lad of
three or four and twenty--standing glaring and showing his set teeth,
and his eyes with the white slightly visible round the iris. His left
fist was firmly clenched, and in his right was his bare cutlass, with
the blade quivering in his strong hand.

"Put up your cutlass, my lad," said Mr Brooke sternly; and the man
started and thrust it back. "Wait a bit--but I don't know how I am to
ask you to give quarter to the fiends who did all this. No wonder the
place is so silent, Herrick," he added bitterly. "Come away."

He led us out, but not before we had seen that the cabins had been
completely stripped.

We did not stay much longer, but our time was long enough to show us
that everything of value had been taken, a