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As Lanyard gained the after rail of the promenade deck a man standing on the boat-deck at the head of the companion-ladder greeted him with pistol fire. He dodged back, untouched, and instantaneously devised a stratagem to cope with this untoward development.
"You bet I will," said Bobby with a smile that made him forget the awfulness of her language. Ten minutes later they were leaning over the rail on the deserted boat-deck, the wind full in their faces, watching the prow of the steamer gently rise and fall as she sailed straight into the golden heart of the sun.
Mac landed horse-picket, and for four hours he paced a length of the boat-deck up and down past fifty horses' heads, while the wind howled mournfully in the rigging and the ship swayed easily to the swell. Morning broke, with a dull sky, a dull sea and many miserable troopers.
We went up the ladder again to see what the pirates were about, for it was quite still in the hold, and silence seemed more ominous than a telltale clatter. Buckrow and Long Jim came up with a bulging sack slung in a rope. Thirkle gave them a hand up the ladder to the boat-deck, but he let them do the hard work.
"There you are, my dear!" said Uncle Chris indulgently, as though it were a toy he had made for her with his own hands. "New York!" They were standing on the boat-deck, leaning over the rail. Jill caught her breath. For the first time since disaster had come upon her she was conscious of a rising of her spirits.
But I was too late; the sound of the bursting bulkhead, coming on top of the previous alarms, was all that was needed to produce the panic I had all along been dreading, and in an instant the decks were alive with frantic people, all desperately fighting their way upward to the boat-deck, where pandemonium now raged supreme, and where pistols were popping freely, showing that Hoskins was by no means the only man in the ship who went armed.
Ten men, vigilant and keen-eyed, were watching all fruiters and tramps which sailed for the Caribbean. It came to the last boat. Haggerty, in each case, had not gone aboard by way of the passengers' gangplank; not he. He got aboard secretly and worked his way up from hold to boat-deck. His chance lay in Mason's curiosity.
There was dancing on the boat-deck, the Lydian measures of the Hawaiian love-songs, those passionate melodies in which Polynesian pearls have been strung on European filaments, filling the balmy air with quivering notes of desire, and causing dancers to hold closer their partners.
The ship had taken a heavy and steadily-increasing list to starboard; she was visibly settling in the water; and, to crown all, the crowd of miners who upon the first alarm had taken possession of the boat-deck were refusing to leave it, and a brisk struggle between them and the seamen was proceeding, though as yet no firearms were being used.
The men marched along in sulky silence, for their night's rest on the open boat-deck had been an uncomfortable one, and they wanted their breakfast. Constans had determined to make use of his old quarters in the "Flat-iron" building, on the south side of the Citadel Square, and his relief was great when the last man passed within the shelter of its walls.
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