a dram before
meat."

I settled back to my place, re-charging the three pistols I had fired,
and keeping watch with both eye and ear.

Our enemies were disputing not far off upon the deck, and that so loudly
that I could hear a word or two above the washing of the seas.

"It was Shuan bauchled* it," I heard one say.

* Bungled.

And another answered him with a "Wheesht, man! He's paid the piper."

After that the voices fell again into the same muttering as before. Only
now, one person spoke most of the time, as though laying down a plan,
and first one and then another answered him briefly, like men taking
orders. By this, I made sure they were coming on again, and told Alan.

"It's what we have to pray for," said he. "Unless we can give them a
good distaste of us, and done with it, there'll be nae sleep for either
you or me. But this time, mind, they'll be in earnest."

By this, my pistols were ready, and there was nothing to do but listen
and wait. While the brush lasted, I had not the time to think if I was
frighted; but now, when all was still again, my mind ran upon nothing
else. The thought of the sharp swords and the cold steel was strong in
me; and presently, when I began to hear stealthy steps and a brushing
of men's clothes against the round-house wall, and knew they were taking
their places in the dark, I could have found it in my mind to cry out
aloud.

All this was upon Alan's side; and I had begun to think my share of the
fight was at an end, when I heard some one drop softly on the roof above
me.

Then there came a single call on the sea-pipe, and that was the signal.
A knot of them made one rush of it, cutlass in hand, against the door;
and at the same moment, the glass of the skylight was dashed in a
thousand pieces, and a man leaped through and landed on the floor.
Before he got his feet, I had clapped a pistol to his back, and might
have shot him, too; only at the touch of him (and him alive) my whole
flesh misgave me, and I could no more pull the trigger than I could have
flown.

He had dropped his cutlass as he jumped, and when he felt the pistol,
whipped straight round and laid hold of me, roaring out an oath; and at
that either my courage came again, or I grew so much afraid as came to
the same thing; for I gave a shriek and shot him in the midst of the
body. He gave the most horrible, ugly groan and fell to the floor. The
foot of a second fellow, whose legs were dangling through