“I ain’t a hard man,” said Trent.  “That shall make no difference.  I’ll take you with the rest, only of course you get no fifteen pound.”

The impudence was so extreme and startling, that all breathed deep, and Goddedaal raised up his face and looked his superior sternly in the eye.

But Mac was more articulate.  “And you’re what ye call a British sayman, I suppose? the sorrow in your guts!” he cried.

“One more such word, and I clap you in irons!” said Trent, rising gleefully at the face of opposition.

“And where would I be the while you were doin’ ut?” asked Mac.  “After you and your rigging, too!  Ye ould puggy, ye haven’t the civility of a bug, and I’ll learn ye some.”

His voice did not even rise as he uttered the threat; no man present, Trent least of all, expected that which followed.  The Irishman’s hand rose suddenly from below the table, an open clasp-knife balanced on the palm; there was a movement swift as conjuring; Trent started half to his feet, turning a little as he rose so as to escape the table, and the movement was his bane.  The missile struck him in the jugular; he fell forward, and his blood flowed among the dishes on the cloth.

The suddenness of the attack and the catastrophe, the instant change from peace to war and from life to death, held all men spellbound.  Yet a moment they sat about the table staring open-mouthed upon the prostrate captain and the flowing blood.  The next, Goddedaal had leaped to his feet, caught up the stool on which he had been sitting, and swung it high in air, a man transfigured, roaring (as he stood) so that men’s ears were stunned with it.  There was no thought of battle in the Currency Lasses; none drew his weapon; all huddled helplessly from before the face of the baresark Scandinavian.  His first blow sent Mac to ground with a broken arm.  His second bashed out the brains of Hemstead.  He turned from one to another, menacing and trumpeting like a wounded elephant, exulting in his rage.  But there was no counsel, no light of reason, in that ecstasy of battle; and he shied from the pursuit of victory to hail fresh blows upon the supine Hemstead, so that the stool was shattered and the cabin rang with their violence.  The sight of that post-mortem cruelty recalled Carthew to the life of instinct, and his revolver was in hand and he had aimed and fired before he knew.  The ear-bursting sound of the report was accompanied by a yell of pain; the colossus paused, swayed, tottered, and fell headlong on the body of his victim.

In the instant silence that succeeded, the sound of feet pounding on the deck and in the companion leaped into hearing; and a face, that of the sailor Holdorsen, appeared below the bulkheads in the cabin doorway.  Carthew shattered it with a second shot, for he was a marksman.

“Pistols!” he cried, and charged at the companion, Wicks at his heels, Tommy and Amalu following.  They trod the body of Holdorsen underfoot, and flew up-stairs and forth into the dusky blaze of a sunset red as blood.  The numbers were still equal, but the Flying Scuds dreamed not of defence, and fled with one accord for the forecastle scuttle.  Brown was first in flight; he disappeared below unscathed; the Chinaman followed head-foremost with a ball in his side; and the others shinned into the rigging.