ne would not stop. "It's the truth, you fool. It's that
cursed petticoat's making a coward of you. It's for her that ye're
afeard--and she, Colonel Bishop's niece! My God, man, ye'll have a
mutiny aboard, and I'll lead it myself sooner than surrender to be
hanged in Port Royal."

Their glances met, sullen defiance braving dull anger, surprise, and
pain.

"There is no question," said Blood, "of surrender for any man aboard
save only myself. If Bishop can report to England that I am taken
and hanged, he will magnify himself and at the same time gratify his
personal rancour against me. That should satisfy him. I'll send him a
message offering to surrender aboard his ship, taking Miss Bishop and
Lord Julian with me, but only on condition that the Arabella is allowed
to proceed unharmed. It's a bargain that he'll accept, if I know him at
all."

"It's a bargain he'll never be offered," retorted Wolverstone, and his
earlier vehemence was as nothing to his vehemence now. "Ye're surely
daft even to think of it, Peter!"

"Not so daft as you when you talk of fighting that." He flung out an arm
as he spoke to indicate the pursuing ships, which were slowly but surely
creeping nearer. "Before we've run another half-mile we shall be within
range."

Wolverstone swore elaborately, then suddenly checked. Out of the tail
of his single eye he had espied a trim figure in grey silk that was
ascending the companion. So engrossed had they been that they had not
seen Miss Bishop come from the door of the passage leading to the cabin.
And there was something else that those three men on the poop, and Pitt
immediately below them, had failed to observe. Some moments ago Ogle,
followed by the main body of his gun-deck crew, had emerged from the
booby hatch, to fall into muttered, angrily vehement talk with those
who, abandoning the gun-tackles upon which they were labouring, had come
to crowd about him.

Even now Blood had no eyes for that. He turned to look at Miss Bishop,
marvelling a little, after the manner in which yesterday she had avoided
him, that she should now venture upon the quarter-deck. Her presence
at this moment, and considering the nature of his altercation with
Wolverstone, was embarrassing.

Very sweet and dainty she stood before him in her gown of shimmering
grey, a faint excitement tinting her fair cheeks and sparkling in her
clear, hazel eyes, that looked so frank and honest. She wore no hat,
and the ringlets of her