There was a rush, a fierce shout, Black Mazzard was thrust aside, and the Commodore sprang past him to plant his foot upon the fallen officer's chest, while, the fight being over, the rest held their hands--the conquerors and conquered--to see what would be the captain's fate. "Now, Captain Armstrong," cried the buccaneer leader, "beg for your wretched life, you cowardly dog!" "Coward!" roared Humphrey, raising himself slightly on one hand, as with the other he swept the blood from his ensanguined face. "You cursed hound! you lie!" The buccaneer shrank back as if from some blow; his foot was withdrawn from the wounded officer's chest, he lowered the point of his sword, and stood gazing at his prostrate enemy wildly. "The captain shirks the job, lads," cried a coarse voice. "Here, let me come." It was Black Mazzard who spoke, and, drunken with rum and the spirit of the furious fight, he pressed forward, axe in hand. Humphrey raised himself a little higher, with his white teeth bared in fierce defiance as he prepared to meet the deathblow he saw about to fall. But at that moment the buccaneer caught his lieutenant's uplifted arm. "Enough!" he cried, fiercely; "no more blood. He is no coward. Bart-- Dinny, take this gentleman ashore." Humphrey Armstrong did not hear the words, for his defiant act exhausted his failing strength, and he fell back insensible to all that happened for many hours to come. CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. CAPTAIN HUMPHREY COMES TO. Captain Humphrey lay upon his back staring at his conscience. He was weak from loss of blood, weaker from fever; and he would have fared better if he had had proper medical treatment instead of the rough but kindly doctoring and nursing of Bart the surgeon, and Dinny the hospital nurse. This was after three weeks' doubtful journey, wherein Dinny said "the obstinate divil had tried all he knew to die." And it was so ungrateful, Dinny said, after the captain had saved his life, and that of all the prisoners who had not also been obstinate and died. Humphrey's conscience was a great stone god full twelve feet high--an object that looked like a mummy-case set on end, as far as shape was concerned, but carved all over in the most wonderful way, the grotesque and weird bas-reliefs almost destroying the face, hands, and feet of the figure, flowing over them as they were, so that at first sight he looked upon a great mass of sculpture, out of which by degrees the features appeared. The old artist who designed the idol had strange ideas of decorative effect. He had cut in the hard stone a fine contemplative face; but over it he had placed a gigantic headdress, whereon were stony plumes of feathers, wreaths, and strange symbols, while pendent in every possible direction about the body were writhing creatures and snakes, with variations of the human form, engaged in strange struggles, and amongst them human heads turned into bosses or decorations of the giant robe.