Page:The Indian Drum (1917 original).pdf/378

360 I looked at him, Father,' Benjamin Corvet said to me, 'and I let him go—not knowing. He came back and looked at me once more, and went again to the stern; Stafford had been watching him as well as I, and he sprang away from me now and scrambled after him. The tug leaped suddenly; there was no longer any tow holding it back, for the hawser had parted; and I knew, Father, the reason was that Spearman had cut it!

I rang for the engine to be slowed, and I left the wheel and went aft; some struggle was going on at the stern of the tug; a flash came from there and the cracking of a shot. Suddenly all was light about me as, aware of the breaking of the hawser and alarmed by the shot, the searchlight of the Miwaka turned upon the tug. The cut end of the hawser was still upon the tug, and Spearman had been trying to clear this when Stafford attacked him; they fought, and Stafford struck Spearman down. He turned and cried out against me—accusing me of having ordered Spearman to cut the line. He held up the cut end toward Ramsdell on the Miwaka and cried out to him and showed by pointing that it had been cut. Blood was running from the hand with which he pointed, for he had been shot by Spearman; and now again and a second and a third time, from where he lay upon the deck, Spearman fired. The second of those shots killed the engineer who had rushed out where I was on the deck; the third shot went through Stafford's head. The Miwaka was drifting down upon the reef; her whistle sounded again and again the four long blasts. The fireman, who had followed the engineer up from below, fawned on me! I was safe for all of him, he said; I could trust Luke