The two captors had their plans all arranged, and they were somewhat elaborate.  First of all they stove the heads of two of the great powder barrels, and they heaped the contents out upon the table and floor.  They piled it round and under the three drunken men, until each sprawled in a heap of it.  Then they carried Sharkey to the gun and they triced him sitting over the port-hole, with his body about a foot from the muzzle.  Wriggle as he would he could not move an inch either to the right or left, and the dumb man trussed him up with a sailor’s cunning, so that there was no chance that he should work free.

“Now, you bloody devil,” said Copley Banks, softly, “you must listen to what I have to say to you, for they are the last words that you will hear.  You are my man now, and I have bought you at a price, for I have given all that a man can give here below, and I have given my soul as well.

“To reach you I have had to sink to your level.  For two years I strove against it, hoping that some other way might come, but I learnt that there was no other.  I’ve robbed and I have murdered—­worse still, I have laughed and lived with you—­and all for the one end.  And now my time has come, and you will die as I would have you die, seeing the shadow creeping upon you and the devil waiting for you in the shadow.”

Sharkey could hear the hoarse voices of his rovers singing their chanty over the water.

    Where is the trader of Stepney Town? 
  Wake her up!  Shake her up!  Every stick a-bending! 
    Where is the trader of Stepney Town? 
    His gold’s on the capstan, his blood’s on his gown,
      All for bully Rover Jack,
      Reaching on the weather tack
    Right across the Lowland Sea.

The words came clear to his ear, and just outside he could hear two men pacing backwards and forwards upon the deck.  And yet he was helpless, staring down the mouth of the nine-pounder, unable to move an inch or to utter so much as a groan.  Again there came the burst of voices from the deck of the barque.

    So it’s up and it’s over to Stornoway Bay,
  Pack it on!  Crack it on!  Try her with stunsails! 
    It’s off on a bowline to Stornoway Bay,
    Where the liquor is good and the lasses are gay,
      Waiting for their bully Jack,
      Watching for him sailing back,
    Right across the Lowland Sea.

To the dying pirate the jovial words and rollicking tune made his own fate seem the harsher, but there was no softening in those venomous blue eyes.  Copley Banks had brushed away the priming of the gun, and had sprinkled fresh powder over the touch-hole.  Then he had taken up the candle and cut it to the length of about an inch.  This he placed upon the loose powder at the breach of the gun.  Thin he scattered powder thickly over the floor beneath, so that when the candle fell at the recoil it must explode the huge pile in which the three drunkards were wallowing.