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268 on her, she swung round and waited for them to come up with her.

Tregenna's boat was now the nearer of the two. In the moonlight the lieutenant saw a face, coarse, evil, with eyes aflame, peering over the side of the smuggler's craft from under one of the knitted caps the most of them wore: it was that of Ben the Blast. The next moment the rascal raised his right arm, and pointed a pistol at him.

The rest of the smugglers were all crouching, like Ben, round the sides of the boat. Suddenly there sprang up above their heads the slighter, more lithe figure, in open jacket and loose shirt-collar, which Tregenna had so much reason to remember. Even at that moment of excitement, the thought that this was a woman who stood exposed to his own fire and that of his men made Tregenna feel for a moment sick and faint. Before he had recovered from the effects of his recognition of Ann Price in the guise of "Jem Bax," he saw her strike a violent blow at Ben's right arm: and the upraised pistol dropped into the water.

Then there came a cry from the crew of the second cutter's boat; in the last few moments