Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/164

150 "You, Karl, Williams—are you coming out now, for me to flog you; or will you swing at New York?"

I could see their whole performance in shadow, as they heard the hail. One of them cocked a pistol, and the rest huddled more closely together.

"Very well," continued the skipper, ironically deliberate. "You've got a couple of planks between you and eternity. I'm going to fire through that galley."

He raised his rifle at the word, and let go straight at the corner of the light wood erection. A dull groan followed, and by the shadow on the deck I saw one man fall forward amongst the others, who held him up with their shoulders; but his blood ran in a thick stream out to the top of the hatchway, and then ran back as the ship heaved to the seas.

For the fifth time the skipper hailed them.

"There's one down amongst you," he said; "and that's the beginning of it; I'm going to blow that shanty to hell, and you with it." He raised his rifle, but as he did so one of them answered for the first time with his revolver, and the bullet sang above our heads. The skipper's shot was quick in reply; and the wood of the shanty flew in splinters as the bullet shivered it. A second man sprang to his feet with a