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Harris wrenched the lantern from Riggs's hand and hurled it into the sea, and, as the briny spume closed over it, it went out with a spiteful, protesting hiss. "'Ere's w'ere we bloody well get the two of 'em," said Long Jim, who was within a dozen paces of me. "Give 'em the knives as they come along in the black, Bucky." "No knife-play for me with Harris he's got a gun," said Buckrow.
The cabin clock was stopped at twelve, and Captain Riggs's watch, which had hung over his bunk, was missing. We found two dead Chinese in the galley, bullet-splintered woodwork, dried blood, and empty shells and burned rice on the galley stove. The ship's carpenter had barricaded himself in his workshop, a little deck-house on the after-deck.
For all his cynical levity, for all his affected exaggeration, there was the ring of an unmistakable and even pitiable vanity in his voice, and a self-consciousness that suffused his broad cheeks and writhed his full mouth, but seemed to deepen the frown on Riggs's face. "You know the woman hates it, and would bolt if she could, even from you," said Riggs gloomily.
The little uplift of mood, coincident with the rifling of Riggs's person, had not worn over to this evening camp. What talk the outlaws indulged in was necessary and conducted in low tones. The place enjoined silence. Wilson performed for the girl very much the same service as he had the night before. Only he advised her not to starve herself; she must eat to keep up her strength.
Riggs turned ghastly as the big blue gun lined on him. He also yelled, but that yell was different from Anson's. "Run or dance!" cried the girl. The big gun boomed and leaped almost out of her hand. She took both hands, and called derisively as she fired again. The second bullet hit at Riggs's feet, scattering the dust and fragments of stone all over him.
"And then I went into Griffin's to hae my boots hobbed, and then I went to Riggs's batty-cake shop, and asked 'em for a penneth of the cheapest and nicest stales, that were all but blue-mouldy, but not quite. And whilst I was chawing 'em down I walked on and seed a clock with a face as big as a baking trendle " "But that's nothing to do with mistress!"
He had never talked to me so freely before and somehow he had let me come nearer to hun than I had ever hoped to be. His company had lifted me out of the slough a little and my mind was on a better footing as I neared the chalet. Riggs's shop was lighted an unusual thing at so late an hour.
He would sell you anchors and fathoms of chain and rope enough to hang you to the moon but his 'lights'were the great attraction of Riggs s. He had every kind of lantern that had ever swung on land or sea. After dark, when light was streaming out of its open door and broad window Riggs's looked like the side of an old lantern itself.
His room was next to mine, but further aft, with one or more doors between his and where the passage gave on the open after-deck, Captain Rigg's room was on the same side, but away forward, under the end of the bridge, close to the open ladder which led down to the fore-deck. In my bare feet I made no noise, and slowly made my way forward to see if there was a light in Captain Riggs's room.
"Harve Riggs, gunman from down Missouri way," continued the voice of incalculable intent, "reckon you've looked into a heap of gun-barrels in your day. Shore! Wal, look in this heah one!" Wilson deliberately leveled the gun on a line with Riggs's starting eyes. "Wasn't you heard to brag in Turner's saloon thet you could see lead comin' an' dodge it?
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