“Have it your own way,” I told him.  “Maybe I am dead in the Kut Sang, along with Captain Riggs and the rest of them.  For that very reason you had better not bother with me.”

I kept my pistol resting in the hollow of a hemp-stalk, thinking it would be better not to let them know I had a weapon, for I knew they had no more relish for using their firearms than I did.  If I showed the gun to them they would then keep in cover, and could attack me from two sides.

If I could keep it a short-range fight, I had the advantage as long as I held the tree against them, and they would not hesitate to expose themselves to my fire.

“What ye doin’ of ’ere?” demanded Long Jim.  “Where’s the skipper and all the rest we left aboard?”

“That’s for you to find out,” I said.  “You wouldn’t shoot a helpless man, would you?”

“Not a bit of it,” he grinned.  “Come on out and ’ave a bit of a parley.”

He let his pistol drop, and he and Petrak exchanged glances which betrayed their glee at having me in their power, as they thought.

“Go away and let me alone,” I said, simulating fear of them.  “I don’t want to have anything to do with you.  Leave me alone.”

“Ye was a follerin’ of us,” said Long Jim.  “Where the bloomink ’ell ye been?  Ye seen Thirkle?”

“Where is Thirkle?”

“Where ye’ll never clap eyes on ’im, ye can be bloody well sure of that.  Cut round t’other side of ’im, Red, and we’ll settle ’is ’ash!”

Petrak started off to the left of him to circle and get behind me, and Long Jim began to draw near, cocking his pistol again and raising it and leering at me.

“Don’t ye turn about or move!” he said.  “Turn yer ’ead and yer a dead ’un!”

He was within five yards of me, and I saw him making a signal to Petrak, who was approaching me from behind.  I glanced back quickly and saw the little red-headed man stealing up on me with his knife on his hand.

I lifted the pistol, and saw Long Jim stop and open his mouth in surprise.  I fired at the triangle of his naked breast where the shirt was unbuttoned from the neck.  He curled over backward, as if broken in the middle, and fired his pistol straight up into the sky and then lay still.

CHAPTER XVI

THE GOLD AND THE PIRATES

Certain that Long Jim was dead, I turned on Petrak and presented my pistol at him.  The little fiend was surveying me blankly, taken aback at the sudden shot.  He stood within twenty paces of me, with his legs wide apart and his knees bent as if he were on the deck of a plunging vessel, dismay on his face and the blade he had intended for my back held limply before him.

I could see the butt of a big pistol hanging from his belt in a holster he had made from the top of an old shoe, but he made no motion to reach for it.  The fingers of his left hand were twitching, splayed out as if from fear, and his mouth was open showing his yellow teeth.