“Oh, I thought it was—­” she began.  Then she saw the revolver in my hand, and the fear leaped into her eyes again.  Aye, fear, and comprehension.  “That—­oh, Boy, what do you mean to do?”

I had been gaping, open-mouthed, too surprised to utter a sound.  But her swift recognition, and her words, brought me to myself.  Also, just then we heard Captain Swope’s voice.  He was in the saloon, calling out an order to the steward.  We listened with strained attention, both of us.  He told the steward to open the lazaret hatch, and be sharp about it.

I jerked my thumb over my shoulder, and nodded significantly to the lady.  “Don’t be afraid, ma’am,” I whispered.  “He isn’t going to hurt Newman.  He isn’t going to hurt anyone—­not any more.”  Oh, the dread that showed in her face when we heard Swope’s voice!

She brought her hands into view, when I spoke.  Something she had been holding behind her back dropped on the deck with a metallic clink, and she pressed her hands against her bosom.

“You—­you mean—­” she began.

I nodded again.  I really thought I was reassuring her, lifting a load of care from her heart.

“I’m going out there and get him.  Don’t be afraid, ma’am.  I won’t make a miss of it.  He isn’t going to hurt Newman, or you, or anyone, after I’ve finished.  And ma’am, please—­will you try and slip for’ard and tell the men not to mutiny.  They’ll listen to you, especially when you tell them the Old Man is dead.  They don’t want to mutiny, ma’am—­anyway, the squareheads don’t—­but they’re afraid not to.  If you tell them I’ve killed him, and appeal to them, the sailors will keep quiet, I know; and they’ll make the stiffs keep quiet, too.  It will save some lives, ma’am—­for the crowd is coming aft to-night, like the Old Man plans, and the tradesmen are in the roundhouse, with guns, waiting for them.”

There was anguish in her whispered reply.  “Coming aft?  No, no, they must not!  It would mean—­his death——­”

She stopped.  We listened.  We heard Swope again, out in the saloon.  He was damning Wong for a sluggard, and demanding a lighted lantern that instant or sooner, or “I’ll take a strip off your yellow hide, you heathen!”

“No, not Newman’s death,” I answered the lady.  I turned, and laid my hand upon the door knob.  My weapon was ready.  This was the moment I must act.

Before I could open the door, I felt the lady’s cool fingers upon my wrist.

“No, no, not that!  Not murder!” she exclaimed.  “Oh, Boy, you would not take life—­you would not do that!”

I turned and faced her, astonished.  Her eyes were but a few inches distant from mine, now, and to my amazement I read in their expression not approbation but startled horror.  And I could not mistake the meaning in her voice.  She disapproved of my killing Captain Swope.