"There's only five
here--and every man Jack is dead! Where's the other!"

"One did escape," said I. I, too, looked at the lieutenant. "He got
off in a boat just as you and your men were approaching the bar
yonder--I thought you'd see him."

"No," he answered, shaking his head. "We didn't see anybody leave. The
yawl lay between us and him most likely. Where did he land?"

"Behind that spit," I replied, pointing to the place. "He vanished,
from where I stood, behind those black rocks. That was just as you
crossed the bar. And he can't have gone far away, for he was certainly
wounded as he left the yawl--a man fired at him from the bows. He
fired back."

"We heard those shots," said the lieutenant, "and we found a
chap--Englishman--in the bows, dying, when we boarded her. He died
just afterwards. They're all dead--the others were dead then."

"Not a man alive!" I exclaimed.

Scarterfield cast a glance astern--the glance of a man who draws back
the curtain from a set stage.

"Look for yourselves!" he muttered. "Too late for any of your work,
doctor. But--that sixth man?"

Lorrimore and I, giving no heed just then to the detective's
questioning about the escaped man, went towards the after part of the
deck. Busied with their labours in getting the fire under control, the
blue-jackets had up to then left the dead men where they found
them--with one exception. The man whom they had found in the bows had
been carried aft and laid near the entrance to the little
deck-house--some hand had thrown a sheet over him. Lorrimore lifted
it--we looked down. Baxter!

"That's the fellow we found right forward," said the lieutenant. "He's
several slighter wounds on him, but he'd been shot through the
chest--heart, perhaps--just before we boarded her. That would be the
shot fired by the man in the boat, I suppose--a good marksman! Was
this the skipper?"

"Chief spirit," said I. "He was lively enough last night. But--the
rest?"

"They're all over the place," he answered. "They must have had a most
desperate do of it. The vessel's more like a slaughter-house than a
ship!"

He was right there, and I was thankful that Miss Raven and I for
whatever reason on the part of the Chinese, had been so
unceremoniously sent ashore before the fight began. As Lorrimore went
about, noting its evidences, I endeavoured to form some idea, more or
less accurate, of the events which had led up to it. It seemed to me
that either Baxter or the Fr