o your level. For two years I strove
against it, hoping that some other way might come, but I learnt that
there was no other. I've robbed and I have murdered--worse still, I
have laughed and lived with you--and all for the one end. And now my
time has come, and you will die as I would have you die, seeing the
shadow creeping upon you and the devil waiting for you in the shadow."

Sharkey could hear the hoarse voices of his rovers singing their chanty
over the water.

Where is the trader of Stepney Town?
Wake her up! Shake her up! Every stick a-bending!
Where is the trader of Stepney Town?
His gold's on the capstan, his blood's on his gown,
All for bully Rover Jack,
Reaching on the weather tack
Right across the Lowland Sea.

The words came clear to his ear, and just outside he could hear two men
pacing backwards and forwards upon the deck. And yet he was helpless,
staring down the mouth of the nine-pounder, unable to move an inch or to
utter so much as a groan. Again there came the burst of voices from the
deck of the barque.

So it's up and it's over to Stornoway Bay,
Pack it on! Crack it on! Try her with stunsails!
It's off on a bowline to Stornoway Bay,
Where the liquor is good and the lasses are gay,
Waiting for their bully Jack,
Watching for him sailing back,
Right across the Lowland Sea.

To the dying pirate the jovial words and rollicking tune made his own
fate seem the harsher, but there was no softening in those venomous blue
eyes. Copley Banks had brushed away the priming of the gun, and had
sprinkled fresh powder over the touch-hole. Then he had taken up the
candle and cut it to the length of about an inch. This he placed upon
the loose powder at the breach of the gun. Thin he scattered powder
thickly over the floor beneath, so that when the candle fell at the
recoil it must explode the huge pile in which the three drunkards were
wallowing.

"You've made others look death in the face, Sharkey," said he; "now it
has come to be your own turn. You and these swine here shall go
together!" He lit the candle-end as he spoke, and blew out the other
lights upon the table. Then he passed out with the dumb man, and locked
the cabin door upon the outer side. But before he closed it he took an
exultant look backwards, and received one last curse from those
unconquerable eyes. In the single dim circle of light that ivory-white
face, with t