Kettle’s face lit up with the joy of battle. “Are you, by James!” he snapped. “We’ll see about that. I’d handle twice your number to my own cheek any day. I done it before, on a dashed sight uglier lot than you, and came out top side; and I’m going to do it again now. Mr. Onslow’s with me, too, this time, and we’ve got twenty bullets amongst us that’ll all go home in somebody’s ribs before any of you get at hand-grips with us. Now just play on that, you scum. There’s not a one of you got a pistol.” “Oh! haven’t we?” commented a nasal voice on the outskirts of the crowd, “I guess you’re out there, mister. I’m heeled for one.” _Crack!_ The man shrieked and fell in a limp heap on the deck. His weapon clattered down beside him. Kettle kept his smoking pistol-muzzle raised steady as an iron wrist could hold it. The others instinctively drew at first away from the fallen man; but one ordinary seaman, younger and more plucky than the rest, darted forward to regain the fallen revolver. As his fingers closed over it, his eyes instinctively sought the bridge. Onslow had his revolver sighted over the crook of an elbow; Kettle his at arm’s length. Both were covering him. “Fling that thing overboard, or you’ll be dead before you can wink!” The crew’s only revolver span through the air, and hit the water with a tinkling splash. “Now stand forward the two fools who have been your spokesmen.” The crowd stood like men petrified. “Quick, or I’ll make practise into the brown of you!” The quartermaster in the cardigan jacket stepped out of his own accord, undefiant now, and white. The German was hustled to his side. “Have you got a coin, quartermaster?” “No, sir.” “Have you—sausage?” “Yes, _herr_.” “Then spin it up, and do you, quartermaster, call to him. And mind you call right, because I’m going to shoot the loser, and perhaps you are the least useless of the two. Spin, confound you! Spin, sausage, or by James I’ll shoot you where you stand, and settle it that way!” The German put something between his dished palms and shook it violently; then clinched one hand, and thrust it out into the full blaze of the lamplight. The quartermaster cried “head.” The other unwrapped his grimy fingers with slow jerks, and showed. The coin was a halfpenny, Britannia uppermost. The quartermaster buttoned his cardigan jacket, and drew himself up to face the upper bridge. “Hold up your hand!” It shot up to the full length, fingers splayed out. Then _crack!_ and a bullet ripped through the middle of the palm. The fellow let out a short yelp of surprise, and clapped the wounded member tightly under his armpit. The men around him, utterly cowed, stood in frozen silence; and Captain Owen Kettle from the bridge waved slow patterns over them with a revolver muzzle. Then he crammed both weapons into his jacket pockets again, and gave orders—sharply, crisply, and with decision.