“Don’t you fools know a man will swear to anything under torture?” demanded Hardrock furiously. “You’re going too far here. Cut this business out!” Marks was hastily flung aside. They all turned to stare at him. Connie Dunlevy, waving a bottle in his free hand, gave a weak, drunken laugh. “Glory be, he’s awake! Burn the boots off’m him, byes!” The four lurched over. Hardrock made one desperate effort to pierce through the liquor fumes to their fuddled brains. “Hold on, there, boys! You’ve got this thing all wrong. These men are whisky-runners, and they had captured me before you came along. I was getting away--” Jimmy Basset leaned over and struck him across the mouth, heavily. “Shut up wid you and your lies! Well we know it’s you that’s the whisky-runner, and behind all this deviltry. So it was them Greeks done the killin’, was it? Well, it was you behind it all, and it’s you we’ll have a bit o’ fun wid the night. Up wid him, lads! Up and shove him in!” Hardrock felt himself picked up. The next instant, with a wild yell, the four men shoved him at the fire, shoved his feet and legs into the heart of the blazing embers. He made one frantic, frightful effort, kicked himself out of the flames, rolled aside. The four gripped him and lifted him again, with a maudlin yell of glee. “All together, now!” howled Basset. “One, two--” CHAPTER X As the shot rang out, Jimmy Basset jumped into the air, then stood staring at his arm that dripped blood. A voice struck on the silence--a voice from the edge of the trees. “All right, boys--hands up all around! Sheriff Fulsom talking, and two guns to talk with. First man moves gets a bullet in the leg.” That crisp, businesslike voice bit into their drunken senses like acid. Hardrock lay where they dropped him. Sheriff Fulsom stepped forward into the circle of light, a pistol in each hand, and not one of the islanders moved, after reaching upward. “Cut loose that man Hardrock and do it durned quick. He’s a Deputy Sheriff of this county, if ye want to know who he is. Cut him loose, Willy John. Move sharp.” One of the men stooped and fumbled with Hardrock’s bonds. They were all struck silent and were held in a stupefaction of dismay and consternation by the appearance of Fulsom, whom they all knew. A sudden and terrible sanity crept upon them. “You boys are shoving a good thing too far,” continued Fulsom. “Hardrock and me got them murderers, and then they jumped us. Lucky I aint as soft in the head as I look to be, for a fact! Took me quite a spell to get ashore and come back here, at that. H’are ye, Hardrock?” “All right,” said the latter, getting to his feet. “You done some swift action gettin’ out of that fire, sure enough! Here, take a gun and stretch yourself. All right, boys, put your hands down. I’m doin’ the talking for a spell--remember that. What’s the matter with Hughie Dunlevy?”