"Sit down directly you see the smoke of his rifle," counselled the blind man. "Hell!" muttered Bill, below his breath. "There's more sand in that gal than the whole o' Southsea beach." As for Broncho, his eyes sparkled in keen appreciation, and her nerve inspired a fresh life in his stroke. Gripping his oar, he lay back to it with such force as to near upset Jim off the thwart by his side. And now a strange duel began between Dago Charlie and Loyola, marooner and marooned; and as the bullets came sizzling over the whaleboat, a fire of comment and encouragement broke out amongst the castaways, their fatigue all forgotten in the excitement of the moment. If my reader has ever been under fire he will understand the feeling which fills one in such a position. It is a difficult one to describe. Indeed, the hum of a bullet overhead affects most men differently; but unto all who are not cowards is given a strange uplifting of the spirit, unexplainable in words, but one which sends the blood coursing through the veins with a speed and vigour which no other form of excitement is able to rival. The sensation of the gambler at the roulette table is mild compared to it; the fighter in the prize-ring has an inkling of it; the keen mountain climber thinks he has, but is mistaken: no, no one but he who has been face-to-face with flying bullets has experienced the mightiest thrill that one's senses can receive. I have seen men whose nerves were of such steadiness that they could walk up and down, smoking, under heavy fire; but even they, when watched closely, exhibited unmistakable signs that this thrill within gripped them. They were not smoking like a man does in his armchair by his home fireside. No; no slow meditative puffs here, but a quick indrawing and expelling of the smoke in rapid, ceaseless breaths, and there was a light in their eyes only to be seen in the firing-line. Such a light could now be seen in each pair of eyes owned by the occupants of the whaleboat; even the blind ones gleamed with it. Again the leading pursuer stopped to replace a wounded oarsman. "Good for you, mum," cried Bill delightedly. "You deserves a marksman's badge." "An' I puts down a bet on that," agreed Broncho. "That mutineer can't buck against you, missy. He finds you has an ace buried every time. I reckon the baleful effec's o' your cannonadin' puts a diff'rent tint on his views o' life." "He thought he was goin' to get us so easy, too," grinned Jim. "He notes now as how shore things don't exist. Providence, if in the mood, can beat four aces an' the joker," declared the cowboy. "Aye, an' a gal out-luck two boat-loads o' hell-scrapin's, easy as fallin' off a log," added Bill. But Loyola was not going to have it all her own way: a shot from the pursuer made a long tear in her white dress, and the next one drew blood from her left shoulder.