“’Quick, Trenoweth! never mind me.  I’ve got the main artery torn to pieces and can’t last many more minutes—­but quick for the captain’s cabin and get the guns.  They’ll be down presently, as soon as they’ve finished up there.’

“Opening the door and telling Mrs. Concanen—­who although white as a sheet never lost her presence of mind for a moment—­to lock it after me, I stole along the passage, gained the captain’s cabin, found two guns, a small keg of powder (to get at which I had to smash in a locker with the butt-end of one of the guns), and some large shot, brought I suppose for shooting gulls.

“I found also a large packet of revolver cartridges, but no revolver; and it suddenly struck me that the shots already fired must have been from the captain’s revolver, taken probably from his dead body.  Yes, as I remembered the sound of the shots I was sure of it.  The mutineers had probably no other ammunition, and so far I was their master.

“Fearful that by smashing the locker I had made noise enough to be heard above the turmoil on deck, I returned swiftly and had just reached the door of Concanen’s cabin, when I heard a shout above, and a man whom I recognised by the voice as Johnston, the carpenter, came rushing down the steps crying, ‘Hide me, doctor, hide me!’ As Mrs. Concanen opened the door in answer to my call, another shot was fired, the man suddenly threw up his hands and we tumbled into the cabin together.  I turned as soon as I had locked and barricaded the door, and saw him lying on his face—­quite dead.  He had been shot in the back, just below the shoulder-blades.

“The doctor also was at his last gasp, and the floor literally swam with blood.  As we bent over him to catch his words he whispered, ‘It was Railton—­that—­I saw.  Good-bye, Alice,’ and fell back a corpse.  I carried the body to a corner of the cabin, took off my jacket and covered up his face, and turned to Mrs. Concanen.  She was dry-eyed, but dreadfully white.

“‘Give me the guns,’ she said quietly, ’and show me how to load them.’

“I was doing so when I heard footsteps coming slowly down the companion.  A moment after, two crashing blows were struck upon the door-panel and Colliver’s voice cried—­

“’Trenoweth, you dog, are you hiding there?  Give me up those papers and come out.’

“For answer I sent a charge of shot through the cabin door, and in an instant heard him scrambling back with all speed up the stairs.

“By this time it was about 3 a.m., and to add to the horrors of our plight the lamp suddenly went out and left us in utter darkness.  I drew Mrs. Concanen aside—­after strengthening the barricade about the door—­put her and the child in a corner where she would be safe if they attempted to fire through the skylight, and then sat down beside her to consider.

“If, as I suspected, the mutineers had only the revolver which they had taken from the captain, they had but one shot left, for I had already counted five, and it was not likely that Holding—­who always, as I knew, carried some weapon with him—­would have any loose cartridges upon him at a time when no one suspected the least danger.