This brought a cry of rage from Harris, and we heard him enter the scuttle, while Captain Riggs begged him not to go down.

“Stay up here, Mr. Harris, and let the murdering dogs stay there.  We’ll fix ’em fast enough when day comes.”

“Leggo me, cap’n!  I say I’ll break that spawn’s neck!  Let me down!”

“I can’t let you risk your life this way, Mr. Harris.  I can’t, I say.  Where will I have officers if ye get hurt down there?  Let ’em stop for now.”

“Leggo my arm!” shrieked Harris.  “Cap’n, if ye don’t leggo my arm I can’t say what I’ll do.  I never let no man talk to me like that!”

“But, Mr. Harris!  Ye know what it means!  Ye know I can’t work the ship!  Ye know what’s below and what they want!  Mr. Harris!  Mr. Harris!”

“Now, will ye let go?” demanded Harris, and then he crashed down the wooden ladder.  The forecastle was illumined by a flash, and Buckrow’s pistol boomed, and then a second flash on the other side of the forecastle showed me the face of the Rev. Luther Meeker at the entrance to the forecastle behind a pistol which had sent a second bullet at the mate.  And the Rev. Luther Meeker was the man who had been addressed as Thirkle, and who seemed to be in command of the others.

Something rolled into the smoke-laden hole and sprawled on the planks near me, and I could hear it gasping and choking.

“Leggo my coat, cap’n.  Leggo my coat!” said the form, and I knew it was Harris wounded to death.  In a minute he was still, and then the scuttle above rattled peremptorily.

“Mr. Harris!  Be ye hurt, Mr. Harris?  Oh, Mr. Harris!”

“We got him all right,” whispered Buckrow.  “That settles Mr. Matey, well and good.  Hey, Thirkle?”

“Good, clean job,” replied Thirkle.  “Good, clean job, Bucky, and smart as could be the way you drew him down.  See what you can do with the skipper now.”

“Anything wrong, Mr. Harris?” called the captain from the scuttle.  “Good Lord! ain’t I to have no officers?  What’s to become of my ship with such a crew aboard me?  Sally Ann!  Sally Ann!”

“Come on down, cap’n,” said a voice startlingly like Harris’s.  It was Meeker, or Thirkle, as his men called him, imitating the high-pitched nasal twang of the dead mate.

“That you, Harris?” cried Riggs hopefully.  “What’s the matter, Mr. Harris?”

“I hurt myself, cap’n.  Come on down,” pleaded Thirkle in a constrained voice like a man in pain.  “I done for Buckrow, but I hurt my ribs.  Why don’t ye come down?  I can’t navigate this way—­I’m hurt.”

“Who was my mate in the Jennie Lee?” demanded Riggs.  “Tell me that, Mr. Harris, and I’ll come down, and not before.”

“We’ll have to go up and get him,” whispered Thirkle.  “He’s too wise an old crab to be caught that way.  I’ll take the lead, Bucky, and Long Jim last, and we’ve got the ship.  We can let the fire-room chinks and the nigger go until morning.  We’ll take the bridge and keep the old tub going until day and then pick out a good place to drop her when we’ve got what we want.  Petrak’s got the wheel now, and we can do for the chinks, come day.  Blessed if I know what has become of Trenholm, but we’ll find him in time and attend to him proper.  Remember:  make for the bridge once we’ve got the skipper.  Quick now!”