Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/303

Rh you could call the murders, and it remained but to divide the spoil.

"Lower away the launch, you John!" cried Black, "and take every shilling you can lay hands on. You hear me?—and hang up that skipper for a thin-skinned fool."

"By thunder, I'm yours all along," replied "Roaring John"; and then he sang out, "Hands for the launch!"

"You'd better go as cox," said Osbart to me, "you'll be amused"; and suggested it to Black, who turned upon me a look almost of hate.

"Yes, he shall go," he cried; "if we swing, he shall swing, the preaching lubber! Let him get aboard, or I'll kick him there."

I had loathing at the thought of it, but might as well have put a pistol to my head there and then as to have refused. They bundled me into the launch, and I sat shivering at the prospect of the terrors on the deck; but they would not leave me when they came alongside, and "Roaring John" himself drove me up the ladder which was put out amidships. Seven of us at last stood on the bridge, and were face to face with the captain of the Bellonic, and four of his officers.

I have said that I feared the terrors of that deck, but the reality surpassed the conception.

It was a very babel of sounds, of groans, of weeping. The ship's surgeon himself seemed