ed Laramore, panting, and leaning
heavily upon his rapier. "They're drawing off; we've tired them out!"

"They'll never tire while that hellhound of an Indian whoops them on and
that yellow devil, Luiz Sebastian, backs him up," said the overseer.

"They are gathering for a rush," said Landless.

The assailants had fallen back to the opposite wall, leaving a space,
cumbered with the dead and slippery with blood, between them and the
defenders of the house. In this space now appeared the lithe figure, and
the watchful, large-eyed, amber countenance of Luiz Sebastian.

"Ohe!" he cried, "slaves, all of you! Ashantees, Popoes, Angolans,
Fidas, Malimbe, Ambrice! you who are all black! think of the jungle and
the village; think of the wives and the children! think of the slaver
and the slave ship! You from the Indies, you who are like me, Luiz
Sebastian, think of the blood which is the white man's blood and yet the
blood of a slave--and hate the white man as I, Luiz Sebastian, hate him!
Kill them and take the women!"

The swollen figure and dreadful face of Roach appeared at his side.
"Ay!" cried the murderer, with a tremendous oath. "Kill them! Smash
them, batter them, hear them scream! In the old man's pocket is the key
of his money chest. It is filled with bright yellow gold. Kill him and
get the money, and away to turn pirate and get more!"

"It grows late!" cried Trail. "We must up sail, and away before the
dawn!"

The gigantic, horribly painted form of the Ricahecrian chief stalked
into the open space and commenced a harangue in his own tongue. It was
short, but effective.

"God!" said the Colonel, under his breath, and grasped his bloodstained
sword more closely.

With one shrill and horrible cry Indians, negroes, mulattoes, and
villainous whites were upon them, breaking their line, forcing them
apart into knots of two and three away from the frail barrier, behind
which cowered the screaming women, striking with knife and tomahawk, axe
and club. Two of the Colonel's men fell, one under the knife of the
seven-year-captive Ricahecrian, the other beaten down by the jagged and
knotted club with which Roach, foaming at the mouth, and swearing
horribly, struck madly to left and right. The Ricahecrian, drawing the
knife from the heart of his victim, rushed on to where Landless and Sir
Charles still maintained, by dint of desperate fighting, their position
before the women, but Luiz Sebastian with Roach and half a doz