“I’m with you to the end of the whole game—­I want to see it played out now, win or lose.”

“I knew you would.  I suppose I’ve been a bit of an old woman, Mr. Trenholm, but I never looked for the likes of what was aboard last night.  There I was, alone, you might say, blind as an owl on what was going on around me, and when things began to go bad they had you mixed in it so I took you for one of ’em.  They had me flat aback for a time there—­I didn’t know my own name from Sally Ann’s black cat.  It looked like the whole ship was against me, and, when I saw Harris go, I was clean out of soundings.”

I told him that he had realized the danger better than I did, and that I had not been hampered by the sense of responsibility or the possibility of disgrace.

“Oh, I lost my wits for a time there, and we can’t get away from it—­I was all fuddled, but I’ll show ye I’ve got more fight in me than ye look for, if ye’ll see me through with it.”

“All or nothing,” I said.  “We’ll give him a gamble for the whole pot now, and I think it’s time they got a run for their money.  In my way of thinking they have had it too easy.”

“That’s business,” said Riggs.  “Doggone my cats, but we’ll give ’em some lead to go with the gold or my name ain’t Riggs!  We’ll find out if this Devil’s Admiral, or Thirkle, or the Rev. Luther Meeker, or whatever he calls himself, is so bad as he makes out to be—­eh, Mr. Trenholm?”

We shook hands on the compact, lying there on the sizzling iron deck-plates that reflected the rays of the sun in shimmering heat-waves, making our exposed position intolerable after the thirst and smoke and hunger we had endured in the forecastle.

“Then that’s settled, Mr. Trenholm.  Now we’ll have to step careful until I look up what’s left of the weapons, and we can’t know what traps they’ve laid for us about here.  Come on, and keep close.”

We scrambled along the port side, taking care of our footing, for the rail-chains were stripped off the stanchions, and with the deck at an awkward angle there was danger of slipping into the water.  Captain Riggs led the way up the saloon-deck ladder and we entered the passage.

The captain and Rajah went to his cabin, the first door, and I ran aft to my stateroom, hoping to find my pistols.  The room was ransacked and my bag empty and the pistols gone.  Some of my garments were thrown into the passage, and I got a duck suit, a pair of deck-shoes, and a cap.

“Here are my guns,” said Riggs.  “Had ’em stowed down back of the chart-locker—­three of ’em—­and you’ll find a canister of ammunition for that big gun of yours in Mr. Harris’s room.  That gives us two guns apiece, and I guess we can give ’em some lively times if we come across their bows again.”

We belted on the weapons and hurried into the saloon, which we found a wreck.  There were bundles of tinned meat on the table and a litter of ropes and bits of canvas.  Bottles of mineral water had been hurled at the bulkheads and into the sideboard mirror.  Curtains were torn down, table-covers gone, and the pivot-chairs smashed and the fragments piled in a corner, partly burned.