“I picked your pocket of it,” said Ginnell, producing the weapon, “two minits back; you fired three shots over the heads of them chows and there’s three ca’tridges left in her.  I can hit a dollar at twinty long paces.  Move an inch either the one or other of you, and I’ll lay your brains on the table fornint you.”

They did not move, for they knew that he was in earnest.  They knew that if they moved he would begin to shoot, and if he began to shoot he would finish the job, leave their corpses on the floor, and sail off with the dollars and his Chinese crew in perfect safety.  There were no witnesses.

“Now,” said Ginnell, “what the pair of you have to do is this.  Misther Harman, you’ll go into that cabin behind you, climb on the upper bunk, stick your head through the port-hole and shout to the coolies down below there with the boat to come up.  It’ll take two men to get them dollars on deck and down to the wather side.  When you’ve done that, the pair of you will walk into the ould man’s cabin an’ say your prayers, thanking the saints you’ve got off so easy, whiles I puts the bolt on you till the dollars are away.  And remimber this, one word or kick from you and I shoot—­the Chinamen will never tell.”

“See here,” said Harman.

“One word!” shouted Ginnell, suddenly dropping the mask of urbanity and levelling the pistol.

It was as though the tiger-cat in his grimy soul had suddenly burst bonds and mastered him.  His finger pressed on the trigger and the next moment Harman’s brains, or what he had of them, might have been literally forenint him on the table, when suddenly, tremendous as the last trumpet, paralysing as the inrush of a body of armed men, booing and bellowing back from the cliffs in a hundred echoes came a voice—­the blast of a ship’s syren.

“Huroop, Hirrip, Hurop, Haar—­Haar—­Haar!”

Ginnell’s arm fell.  Harman, forgetting everything, turned, dashed into the cabin behind him, climbed on the upper bunk, and stuck his head through the port-hole.

Then he dashed back into the saloon.

“It’s the Port of Amsterdam,” cried Harman, “It’s the salvage ship, she’s there droppin’ her anchor; we’re done, we’re dished—­and we foolin’ like this and they crawlin’ up on us.”

“And you said she’d only do eight knots!” cried Blood.

Ginnell flung the revolver on the floor.  Every trace of the recent occurrence had vanished, and the three men thought no more of one another than a man thinks of petty matters in the face of dissolution.  Gunderman was outside, that was enough for them.

“Boys,” said Ginnell, “ain’t there no way out with them dollars?  S’pose we howk them ashore?”

“Cliffs two hundred foot high,” said Harman, “not a chanst.  We’re dished.”

Said Blood:  “There’s only one thing left.  We’ll walk the dollars down to the boat and row off with them.  Of course we’ll be stopped; still, there’s the chance that Gunderman may be drunk or something.  It’s one chance in a hundred billion—­it’s the only one.”