At this moment Captain Hagar gave a yell; he sprang back from the rail, and his eyes fell upon a rifle which had been laid on a bench by one of the clergymen. He seized it and raised it to his shoulder, but in an instant Captain Horn took hold of it, pointing it upward. "What are you going to do?" he said. "Captain, you don't mean to fire at them?" "Of course I mean it!" cried Captain Hagar. "We've got them in a bunch. We must follow them up and shoot them down like rats!" [Illustration: HE SEIZED IT AND RAISED IT TO HIS SHOULDER] "We'll get up steam and run them down!" shouted Burke. "We ought to sink them, one boat after another, the rascally pirates! They tried to sink us!" "No, no," said Captain Horn, taking the gun from Captain Hagar, "we can't do that. That's a little too cold-blooded. If they attack us, we'll fight them, but we can't take capital punishment into our own hands." Now the excited thoughts of Captain Hagar took another turn. "Lower a boat! Lower a boat!" he cried. "Let me be pulled to the _Dunkery_! Everything I own is on that ship, the pirates wouldn't let me take anything away. Lower a boat! I can get into my cabin." Shirley now stepped to the other side of Captain Hagar. "It's no use to think of that, Captain," he said. "It would be regular suicide to go on board that vessel. Those fellows were afraid to stay another minute. She'll go down before you know it. Look at her bows now!" Captain Hagar said no more, and the little company on the deck of the yacht stood pale and silent, gazing out over the water at the _Dunkery Beacon_. Willy Croup was crying, and there were tears in the eyes of Mrs. Cliff and Edna. In the heart of the latter was deep, deep pain, for she knew what her husband was feeling at that moment. She knew it had been the high aim of his sensitive and honorable soul that the gold for which he had labored so hard and dared so much should safely reach, in every case, those to whom it had been legally adjudged. If it should fail to reach them, where was the good of all that toil and suffering? He had in a measure taken upon himself the responsibility of the safe delivery of that treasure, and now here he was standing, and there was the treasure sinking before his eyes. As she stood close by him, Edna seized her husband's hand and pressed it. He returned the pressure, but no word was said.