The man sprang to his feet, glowering like a fiend. What followed was completed before a watch could tick twice. For once the gift of speech did not desert him. The fatal words bounced glibly off his tongue, and Hank’s vengeful hands shot out. In an instant the pair were grappling together, and a gouging thumb did its horrid work. Then, tearing himself away, eyeless, the lesser man ran screaming blindly into the sideboard at the other side of the cabin. His friend pitched stiffly forward, and fell face downward amongst the dishes, lying there without so much as a quiver. He was stone dead. With the black-handled knife that had carved their baking of pork, Nutt had stabbed him from the shoulder down through his heart. “That saves my cartridges,” said Captain Kettle, and took his cocked revolver from where it lodged between his knee and the under side of the table. He passed swiftly out through the pantry door, and was just in time for what he expected. The negroes, alarmed by Nutt’s shrieks, were rushing from the mess-room to see what had gone wrong. He charged and drove them furiously back. They turned and ran before him, tumbling over one another in their scared haste; and then he took up his place in the doorway, threatening them with steady weapon and crisp, decisive tongue. “Quick,” he cried, “quick, you scum; unload yourselves. Pitch overboard your knives and razors and whatever you’ve got, or, by James, if a man of you stops to think, I’ll blow his brains through the port-hole.” The negroes obeyed him in sullen, frightened silence, and stood with elbows up facing him as he covered them. Kettle watched the three with steady eye; but his ear was cocked down the passage, drinking in every rustle which came from the place he had left. The shriekings of the eyeless man in the cabin had given way to groans; and then there came the sound of bumps and scratchings, as though he were blundering madly about to find something; and then the pattering of naked feet as he groped his way up the lead-covered steps of the companion. So intently did they follow this one man’s movements that it seemed to them as though all other sounds were hushed, even to the never-ceasing hum of the insects. With awe the listeners held their breath for what might come next. But they had not long to wait. From the deck above there burst out a wild tirade of hate and blasphemy, which ended in a shrieking cry of despair and a plunging splash; and once more the distant noises of the night closed in upon them. “Nutt,” said Captain Kettle, “is dead, and I’m almost sorry. I believe I could have liked that man. He’d grit in him, had Nutt, and he wouldn’t take cheek from a living soul. Your other boss also is dead; killed by Nutt. So you’re my niggers now, and will be till I’ve done with you.” “Whord you mean?” one of the captives asked, with a whine.