ace on the horrible hairless face that the girl
was fascinated as by a snake, and could not fly, though she knew that
her fate was trembling in the balance. Brant addressed her very quietly.

"Will you jump overboard yourself, or shall I shoot you first and then
throw you over?" he said, drawing a vicious Derringer from his hip.

Unflinchingly Nettle returned his stare. She even laughed a little. "I
am certainly not going to commit the crime of suicide to save you from
committing the crime of murder. I don't love you well enough for that,"
she replied.

And then the swift thought came to her that the wretch meant to slake
his thirst for revenge and trust to his cunning to avoid the penalty for
it. When the warship's men boarded the _Cobra_ he would have to explain
the kidnapping of Violet Maynard and his treatment of Chermside as best
he could, and he would doubtless have to suffer for it. But he had been
guilty of no capital offence against them, and might contrive to throw
much of the blame on other shoulders.

"I'll give you thirty seconds to reconsider that decision," said Brant,
cocking and raising the pistol.

"It will be about long enough for you to reconsider yours," Nettle
rejoined promptly. "You are relying on the crew of that destroyer not
being aware that there are two women on board your ship. You think that
if they saw me on deck they will have taken me for Miss Maynard, and
that with her rescue assured they will ask no questions about me."

"And they won't," said Brant, though there was a note of interrogation
in the assertion. "How are they to know that I shipped a d----d wild-cat
at Weymouth?"

"That is the hole you have dug for yourself to tumble into," returned
Miss Nettle Jimpson sweetly. "You thought you were being funny at my
expense in allowing the torpedo-boat to nearly catch you, but you
overdid your joke, Captain Brant. That ship is the _Snipe_, with my
young man as acting gunner. You let her come so close that we were
blowing kisses to each other half an hour ago. When my Ned steps on to
your deck five minutes hence he'll ask for me, if he's still the
affectionate youth I've educated him into. And you won't be able to
gammon him with any yarn about my having jumped overboard. He knows
jolly well I'm not built that way."

Brant looked up at her, mouthing and gibbering; then he spat on the
deck, and, turning away without a word, flung his Derringer over the
rail into the sea.

And the