Page:Curwood--The Courage of Captain Plum.djvu/267

 caught Marion's brother by the arm as a voice louder than the others came to them.

"Strang!"

"Yes—the—king!" affirmed Neil laying an expostulating hand on him. "Hush!"

"I would like to see—"

Even in these last hours of failure and defeat the fire of adventure flamed up in Nathaniel's blood. He felt his nerves leaping again to action, his arms grew tense with new ambition—almost he forgot that death had him cornered and was already preparing to strike him down. Another thought replaced all fear of this. A few feet beyond that log wall were gathered the men whose bloodthirsty deeds had written for them one of the reddest pages in history—men who had burned their souls out in the destruction of human lives, whose passions and loves and hatreds carried with them life and death; men who had bathed themselves in blood and lived in blood until the people of the mainland called them "the leeches."