ld chap; we're
going to whop them after all."

I ran out of the cabin with the thought in my mind that I might perhaps
be killed.

"And one ought to forgive everybody," I said to myself, just as Mr
Brymer cried--

"Oh, here you are, Dale. Take this gun, and mind, you are the reserve.
Be ready to go and help any one who is most pressed. There must be no
nonsense now. Shoot down without mercy the first scoundrel who reaches
the deck. If it is Jarette, aim at his head or breast; if it is one of
the others, let him have it in the legs."

He hurried to the side then, leaving me with a double-barrelled gun and
a handful of cartridges, which, after seeing that the piece was loaded,
I thrust into the breast-pocket of my jacket.

"This is a rum way of forgiving one's enemies," I said to myself; "but I
suppose I must."

And then I began patrolling the deck as we waited on our defence, with
the boats coming on and the insidious enemy within, for the fire was
certainly making a little way in the hold.

The boats were only a couple of hundred yards away now. I could see
Jarette seated in the stem of one of them, as they came on abreast,
making straight for the port-gangway abaft the main-mast; and my breath
came thick and fast, for the fight was about to begin, and I felt that
we could not expect much mercy at the hands of the leader of the men.

CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN.

"It's all over," I thought to myself; "they'll take the ship and send us
adrift now;" but all the same I knew that the defence would be desperate
as soon as Mr Brymer gave the word.

I could see the faces of Jarette and his men now clearly enough in the
one boat, while in the other I picked out five men, among whom was the
cook, who would have been, I should have thought, the very last to join
in so desperate a game, one which certainly meant penal servitude for
all, and possibly a worse punishment for the leaders, as death might
very probably ensue in the desperate attack upon the ship. But I had no
more time for such thoughts. Jarette just then rose up in the stern of
the boat he was in, and hailed us.

"Ahoy, there! Open that gangway," he shouted, "and let down the roped
steps."

Mr Brymer stepped to the bulwarks just opposite the boat.

"Throw up your oars there," he cried, and the men obeyed, so used were
they to his orders.

"Row, you idiots, row!" roared Jarette, and the oars splashed again.

"Stop there, you in the boats," cried