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As she said, she was merely not sleepy, although there is no telling in what occult ways she may have received though not recognized Mr. Pike's anxiety. At the head of the stairs, passing along the tiny hall to go out the lee door of the chart-house, I glanced into the chart-room. On the couch, lying on his back, his head uncomfortably high, I thought, slept Captain West.
Christobal had entered the chart-house with the fixed intent of warning Boyle that he was going below for a moment to ask Miss Maxwell to come on deck, when a hurried step on the bridge companion caused the imminent words to be withheld. It was Courtenay, who had run up from the saloon to procure those fateful letters which had so nearly parted Elsie and himself.
The sea was not only perfectly smooth, but placid, as on the previous day: only it seemed far placider, and the sun brighter, and there was a levity in the breezes that frilled the sea in fugitive dark patches, like frissons of tickling; and I thought that the morning was a true marriage-morning, and remembered that it was a Sabbath; and sweet odours our wedding would not lack of peach and almond, though, looking eastward, I could see no faintest sign of any purple cloud, but only rags of chiffon under the sun; and it would be an eternal wedding, for one day in our sight would be as a thousand years, and our thousand years of bliss would be but one day, and in the evening of all that eternity death would come and sweetly lay its finger upon our languid lids, and we should die of weary bliss; and all manner of dancings and singings fandango and light galliard, corantoes and the solemn gavotte were a-tune in my heart that happy day; and running by the chart-house to the wheel, I saw under the table a great roll of old flags, and presently they were flying in a long curve of gala from the main; and the sea rumpled in a long tract of tumbling milk behind me; and I hasted homeward, to meet my heart.
"Do you intend to visit the Valley of the Golden Sands? If so, please take me. I am very poor." It was Courtenay who answered. "Are you alone?" he asked. "Mr. Boyle is in the chart-house." "I know; but is any one else up there?" "No." "Then we shall join you at once." Notwithstanding the serious demeanor of the men, Elsie was far from guessing what had happened. But she was soon enlightened.
The quartermaster knocked smartly, and came into the chart-house, and Captain Kettle's eyes snapped open from deep sleep to complete wakefulness. "There's some sort of vessel on fire, sir, to loo'ard, about five miles off." The shipmaster glanced up at the tell-tale compass above his head. "Officer of the watch has changed the course, I see. We're heading for it, eh?" "Yes, sir.
I do know that I heard the rush of feet of men from for'ard along the main deck. And I do know that I saw Mr. Pike take shelter behind the steel jiggermast. Also, as the second mate manoeuvred to port on top of Number Three hatch for his last shot, I know that I saw Mr. Pike duck around the corner of the chart-house to starboard and get away aft and below by way of the booby-hatch.
Margaret waved Wada in my direction as she ran to the wheel. As Mr. Pike passed the corner of the chart-house, simultaneously there was a report from amidships and the ping of a bullet against the steel wall. I saw the man who fired the shot. It was the cowboy, Steve Roberts.
Small wonder, in this tense passage of time, that I had forgotten the Samurai. Nor did I remember him until the chart-house door swung open and I caught him by the arm. He steadied and swayed beside me, while he watched that cruel picture of rock and snow and spouting surf. "A good full!" Mr. Pike snarled. "Or I'll eat your heart out. God damn you for the farmer's hound you are, Tom Spink!
But the Colt merely clicked. It was the last bullet in it that had fetched down Bill Quigley. And the poop was ours. Events still crowded so closely that I missed much. I saw the steward, belligerent and cautious, his long knife poised for a slash, emerge from the chart-house. Margaret followed him, and behind her came Wada, who carried my .22 Winchester automatic rifle.
Tazzuchi asked Captain Kettle for his opinion that night in the chart-house. "I'm to be guided by you, of course," he said, "but my idea is that we should go for the specie first thing, and let everything slide till that's snugly on board here. Birds gave £5,400 for the wreck, and there's £8,000 in cash down there in a room they built specially for it over the shaft-tunnel.
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