the
conviction which Wolverstone's argument was imposing upon his listeners.
"You may be right, and you may be wrong. We've got to chance it. It's
our only chance...."

The rest of his words were drowned in the shouts of the hands insisting
that the girl be given up to be held as a hostage. And then louder than
before roared a gun away to leeward, and away on their starboard beam
they saw the spray flung up by the shot, which had gone wide.

"They are within range," cried Ogle. And leaning from the rail, "Put
down the helm," he commanded.

Pitt, at his post beside the helmsman, turned intrepidly to face the
excited gunner.

"Since when have you commanded on the main deck, Ogle? I take my orders
from the Captain."

"You'll take this order from me, or, by God, you'll...."

"Wait!" Blood bade him, interrupting, and he set a restraining hand upon
the gunner's arm. "There is, I think, a better way."

He looked over his shoulder, aft, at the advancing ships, the foremost
of which was now a bare quarter of a mile away. His glance swept in
passing over Miss Bishop and Lord Julian standing side by side some
paces behind him. He observed her pale and tense, with parted lips
and startled eyes that were fixed upon him, an anxious witness of this
deciding of her fate. He was thinking swiftly, reckoning the chances
if by pistolling Ogle he were to provoke a mutiny. That some of the men
would rally to him, he was sure. But he was no less sure that the main
body would oppose him, and prevail in spite of all that he could do,
taking the chance that holding Miss Bishop to ransom seemed to afford
them. And if they did that, one way or the other, Miss Bishop would be
lost. For even if Bishop yielded to their demand, they would retain her
as a hostage.

Meanwhile Ogle was growing impatient. His arm still gripped by Blood, he
thrust his face into the Captain's.

"What better way?" he demanded. "There is none better. I'll not be
bubbled by what Wolverstone has said. He may be right, and he may be
wrong. We'll test it. It's our only chance, I've said, and we must take
it."

The better way that was in Captain Blood's mind was the way that already
he had proposed to Wolverstone. Whether the men in the panic Ogle had
aroused among them would take a different view from Wolverstone's he
did not know. But he saw quite clearly now that if they consented, they
would not on that account depart from their intention in the matter
of Miss Bi