and huskily, out of one corner
of his mouth, "I ain't takin' a chance. D' youse get me? Not a
chancet. Oncet youse reformed, Mr. Cleggett, youse can't be too
careful."

Cleggett returned to the vessel. Miss Pringle the elder was leaving
it. Miss Henrietta Pringle was following. Cleggett gathered that the
niece left reluctantly, and under the coercion of the aunt.

Miss Pringle the elder was about to join the Rev. Mr. Calthrop in the
trench. Morality, as well as misery, loves company. But Mr. Calthrop
saw the Misses Pringle coming. He swiftly rose, passed them by with
his face averted, and went aboard the Annabel Lee. It was evident that
he believed that his fatal gift of fascination had attracted these
ladies towards him in spite of himself. Elmer and the Misses Pringle
sat gloomily on a clean plank in the trench while the dance went gayly
on.

"If you was to ask me," said Captain Abernethy, pausing winded from the
tango, strong old man that he was, "I'd give it as my opinion that them
that gits their enjoyment in an oncheerful way don't git nigh as much
of it as them that gits it in a cheerful way. Mrs. Lady Agatha, ma'am,
if you kin fox-trot as well as you kin tango I'll never have another
word to say agin female suffragettes."

But as Cap'n Abernethy spoke the grin froze upon his face.

"My God! Look there!" he shrilled, pointing a long finger towards the
plain. Simultaneously the Misses Pringle, shrieking wildly, leaped
from the trench towards the ship and Elmer fired a pistol shot.

Cleggett beheld five taxicabs, filled with Loge's assassins, charging
towards the vessel at the rate of thirty miles an hour.

"To arms! To arms!" shouted the commander of the Jasper B.

But the enemy, with Logan Black in the lead, had already reached the
trenches. They flung themselves to the ground and swept over the
trench towards the bulwarks, twenty strong, with flashing machetes. So
confident had Cleggett been that Loge would not dare to attack in broad
daylight that he had scarcely even considered the possibility. It was
the one fault of his military and naval career.

"Cutlasses, men, and at them!" he cried.

CHAPTER XXIII

CUTLASSES

There was no thought of guns or pistols. There was no time to aim or
fire. Loge's rush had lodged him on the deck. Roaring like a wild
animal, he carried the fight to the defenders. He meant to make a
finish of it this time, and with the edged and bitter steel.