ight
forward and then close up to the foremast, stood with his long knife or
kris in his hand, rolling his opal eyeballs, and evidently prepared to
strike at the first who approached.

"The dog! he has been at the spirits," growled the captain fiercely.
"Confound him! I could shoot him where he stands as easy as could be;
but I arn't like you, doctor, I don't like killing a man. Never did
yet, and don't want to try."

"Don't fire at him," said the doctor excitedly; "a bullet might be
fatal. Let us all rush at him and beat him down."

"That's all very fine, doctor," said the captain; "but if we do some
one's sure to get an ugly dig or two from that skewer. Two or three of
us p'r'aps. You want to get a few surgery jobs, but I'd rather you
didn't."

All this while the Malay stood brandishing his kris and showing his
teeth at us in a mocking smile, as if we were a set of the greatest
cowards under the sun.

"Look here, Harriet," cried the captain; "you'd better give in; we're
six to one, and must win. Give in, and you shall have fair play."

"Cowards! come on, cowards!" shouted the Malay fiercely, and he made a
short rush from the mast, and two of the hatchet men retreated; but the
Malay only laughed fiercely, and shrank back to get in shelter by the
mast.

"We shall have to rush him or shoot him," said the captain, rubbing his
nose with pistol barrel. "Now then, you dog; surrender!" he roared; and
lowering the pistol he fired at the Malay's feet, the bullet splintering
up the deck; but the fellow only laughed mockingly.

"We shall have to rush him," growled the captain; "unless you can give
him a dose of stuff, doctor, to keep him quiet."

"Oh, yes; I can give him a dose that will quiet him for a couple of
hours or so, but who's to make him take it?"

"When we treed the big old man kangaroo who ripped up Pompey, Caesar,
and Crassus," drawled Jack Penny, who was looking on with his hands in
his pockets, "I got up the tree and dropped a rope with a noose in it
over his head. Seems to me that's what you ought to do now."

"Look'ye here," cried the captain, "don't you let your father call you
fool again, youngster, because it's letting perhaps a respectable old
man tell lies. Tell you what, if you'll shin up the shrouds, and drop a
bit of a noose over his head while we keep him in play, I won't say
another word about your coming on board without leave."

"Oh, all right! I don't mind trying to oblige yo