Page:George Gibbs--Love of Monsieur.djvu/266

 was hushed, and in the brief second of desperation the sea noises about her sang loudly in her ears, which strained to catch every sound.

At last a single voice, slow, calm, dispassionate, began to speak; it was his. She emerged upon the half-deck in order that nothing of what was passing might escape her, and leaned upon the ladder, looking to where the daylight flickered down.

“Your humor is changed wondrously, mes amis. You ask many things, not the least of which is this Spaniard’s death. You, Yan Gratz, and you, Barthier, Troc, and Duquesnoy, you, Craik and Goetz, stand aside. I grant nothing—nothing—where I see the gleam of a weapon naked. Sheathe your cutlasses and stand aside. Then, maybe, we shall see.”

There was an ominous movement of scraping feet, a clatter of weapons, and then a hoarse turmoil, a very bedlam of sounds, a wild scratching and scuffling upon the deck, and hoarse, dreadful cries, savage and fierce, like the bark of hungry dogs, yet, with its ringing accompaniment of clanging steel, infinitely more terrible. 254