hot came from the group, and
Holgate lifted his barrel deliberately.

"So, that's Pierce, by thunder, is it? Well, Johnny Pierce, you're a
brave man, and I'd take off my hat to you if my hands were free. Stand
aside there, men, and let's see Johnny Pierce's ugly mug. Now, then,
divide, d'ye hear, divide!"

I never could determine whether Holgate in that moment realized that
all was up, and the end was come, and had carried things through with a
swagger, or whether he had a hope of escape. Nothing showed in his
voice or in his manner save extreme resolution and contemptuous
indifference. These men he had misled and cheated were to him no more
than brutes of the field, to be despised and ridiculed and browbeaten.
At his words, indeed, the old habit of obedience asserted itself and
the knot fell apart; as it did I saw Pierce with his revolver up, but
Holgate did not move. He fired carefully and Pierce uttered a curse.
Then another weapon barked, and Holgate moved a pace forwards. He fired
again, and a man dropped. Two or more shots rang out, and the
arch-mutineer lifted his left hand slowly to his breast.

"Bully for you, Pierce," he said, and fired yet once more.

The knot now had dissolved, and Gray ran in the gathering gloom a
little way up the beach. He halted, and raising his weapon, fired. It
was abominable. It may have been execution, but it was horribly like
murder. As Gray fired, Holgate turned and put his hand to his shoulder.
Immediately he let his last barrel go.

"Ha! That's done you, Pierce," he wheezed out. "By heavens, I thought
I'd do for you!"

Crack! went Gray's pistol again from his rear, and he swung round; his
weapon dropped, and he began to walk up the beach steadily towards me.
In the blue gloom I could see his eyes stolidly black and furtive, and
I could hear him puffing. He came within ten paces of me, and then
stood still, and coughed in a sickening, inhuman way. Then he dropped
and rolled heavily upon his back.

I had witnessed enough. Heaven knows we had no reason to show mercy to
that criminal, but that last hopeless struggle against odds had
enlisted some sympathy, and I had a feeling of nausea at the sight of
that collapse. He must have fallen riddled with bullets. He had played
for high stakes, had sacrificed many innocent lives, and had died the
death of a dog. And there he would rest and rot in that remote and
desert island.

I stole from my bush and crept upwards through the da