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I could not look right up and see, but I knew as well as could be that it was Jarette there leaning over the rail; and as I watched, the bag for bag it certainly was came lower and lower till it nearly touched the deck-planks, when it was swung gently to and fro till it would just touch the door.
Then there was a chorus badly sung, and I started, for away to the right where the cabin-light was, I heard a sound like an angry ejaculation or an oath muttered in the stillness of the dark night. "Jarette," I said softly. "Hurrah! He won't hear me climb the stay, and I can get on deck safely."
"It was not one of them," said Jarette, with a peculiar intonation in his voice. "I'm not afraid of that." "Strikes me," growled Bob, "if yer wants to know my 'pinion, as it must have been some one who was up aloft." I gave a jump. "Hah!" cried Jarette, "whoever it was you lads chased. I know: it was that monkey of a boy." Bob Hampton uttered a low chuckle. "Like enough," he said.
Bang! went Mr Brymer's revolver, fired over the heads of the men in Jarette's boat, and the Frenchman fell backward into the stern-sheets. I thought he was killed, and the men ceased rowing. But Jarette was up again directly. "Pull, you beasts!" he cried. "You jerked me off my feet. You, there," he roared to the men in the second boat, "round to the starboard side and board there. No "
"I was cut down, and could hardly understand anything in the darkness, till I seemed to wake and find myself on the saloon-floor, below the table where I must have crawled." I told him that Jarette was at the head of it all. "Ah, I always mistrusted that man, and the gang he gathered about him. Where is the rest of the crew then; I mean those they did not kill down in the forecastle?"
"Will you join us, big idiot?" said Jarette, and I drew in my breath as I wondered whether the two brave fellows would prove staunch, and if they did, whether Jarette would dare to carry out his threat. "No; course I won't, you ugly piratical frog-soup-eating Frenchy." "Hit him in the mouth," said Jarette.
Then all at once I looked up, for there were voices outside, and I knew it was Jarette the Frenchman saying something very earnestly to Walters. I did not hear what either of them said, for they spoke in a very low tone, and in French. But I caught just the last words which were uttered by Jarette, and they were these "Mais prenez-garde, mon ami. Prenez-garde."
But there was no answer, for our attention was taken up by a savage burst of rage from Jarette, who fired at us unmistakably this time, and a sharp cry came from one of the occupants of the boat. "I warned you," cried Jarette. "Now row for your lives." "Yes, in heaven's name, go," cried Mr Denning, "you are only adding to our agony." "No," cried Mr Frewen, "I will not give up.
Jarette was standing in the door-way in his oilskins, for I could hear the crackling sound they made as the noise from the deck and the hiss of the wind came plainer, and then too, drip, drip, in those moments I could hear the water falling from the coat on to the cabin-floor. It was all in so many moments.
That day passed by slowly and monotonously. We were visited from time to time by Jarette or one of his men, but always with a strong guard outside, in which I noted Blane and Dumlow, but they were not allowed to enter the cabin or hold any communication with us, for they had not originally been of the mutineer party, and Jarette evidently mistrusted them still.
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