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Then, when I raised you there in the grass it come in my head to grab ye, and come in for my share of the gold, seeing Long Jim was done for." His friendly mood encouraged me, but, if I let him ramble on with his own affairs, I would not be able to convince him that Thirkle was plotting to slay him. So I began with him again. "Thirkle will kill the both of us.
Thirkle raised his bound hands as he said this, and there was tragedy in his grim old face, and pity for the two on whom he had apparently pronounced the death-sentence. But I could see in his shrewd eyes that he was acting a part he was laughing at them while pleading for liberty. Petrak began to whimper, and he looked at Buckrow appealingly. "Let him loose, Bucky," he begged.
But as Thirkle sat facing in my direction, and there was little chance of getting to Buckrow before Thirkle would see me and give the alarm, or Buckrow hear me coming, I knew the only thing to do was to kill or wound Buckrow, even though I had to shoot him in the back.
I saw the puffs of smoke from the pistols of the four pirates Petrak put his back to the wheel and fired over Thirkle's shoulder but the awful racket of the steam-pipes drowned the reports. Two of the Chinese fell at the first volley, and a third, evidently wounded, turned in his tracks and jumped over the rail. Another hacked viciously at Thirkle with a long knife, but he could not reach him.
I heard Petrak and Buckrow coming on, and we were soon at the end of the black hole. "This is a fine place, lads," said Thirkle. "It will keep in here as well as if buried in white, dry sand." "Maybe it will and maybe it won't," growled Buckrow. "I don't call no wet hole like this fine, and never did, and I'm minded to bury the rest of it outside."
"Oh, come along and stow the gab," called Buckrow from the head of the companion, but in suppressed tones. "Keep yer lip shut, the afterguards are on deck here and I don't know where Thirkle is. Slip along and give us a hand with a knife or a gun. Looks like we'll settle the business quick now."
Buckrow was at the port end of the bridge, with a glass to his eyes scanning the rim of the sea; but Meeker, or Thirkle, kept aloof from his men, and he might well have been an admiral on the bridge of his flagship the Devil's Admiral, indeed! "Take a look at them," I whispered to Riggs, and made way for him at the scuttle peephole. "Blast him!" raged Riggs as he saw the scene on the bridge.
Thirkle stood a minute and scanned the channel, muttering to himself. "Looks all clear, sir," said Petrak. "All clear, Reddy. Push on, lad; the boats are right ahead." "Here we are, sir, all snug," called Petrak, and I saw the indistinct pile in the shadow of the brush which marked the cache of boats. "No matches, Reddy. Mind ye don't make a flash or we'll have some craft on the prowl along here.
"I bear no arms; and both of ye have the bilge on me with all the knives and pistols in yer own hands." "That's all very fine for ye to say now, Thirkle; but what of when ye get in reach of a gun or a knife? What then?" "I'll bear ye no grudge," said Thirkle. "Never a word will I say, Bucky. That's done and gone, and we all have our little quarrels.
Next ye know he'll make his getaway, and then a nice mess we'll be in." "We don't intend to let Mr. Trenholm get away," said Thirkle. "I was just thinking, lads, that there are three of us, but counting Mr. Trenholm we make four, and we can rattle him down so he can lift and carry, but not much else."