It rang out as incisively as the report of a rifle, in a voice that seemed used to implicit obedience: "I'll shoot the next man up that stairway!" The rush came to halt for a brief second, and in that time the boys scrambled to their feet. They soon perceived the cause of the interruption. Not far from them, garbed in his shirt and trousers, just as he had rushed from his cabin on awaking, stood the man who had occupied the neighboring cabin to theirs. The flames illumined the grim compression of his lips beneath his gray mustache. His eyes were narrowed to a determined angle. In his hand he held a blue-steel navy revolver on which the glare of the conflagration played glisteningly. "Come on, boys!" roared the stoker who had threatened Herc with the spanner. "It's just a bluff!" [Illustration: "That's to show you I _mean business_!"] At his words, the spell that had fallen on the frightened crowd for a second seemed to be broken, and the rush recommenced. The boys, with horrified eyes, saw the giant stoker snatch up a woman with a child in her arms and hurl her brutally back into the crowd, where she disappeared, lost in the vortex of struggling humanity. "Crack!" There was a spit of vicious blue flame from the revolver, followed by a yell of pain from the giant stoker. The boys saw the spanner fall from his upraised hand and tumble with a clatter at his feet. His wrist, shot through by the gray-mustached man's unerring aim, hung limp at his side. Like frightened sheep suddenly checked in a stampede, the white-faced crowd came to a halt and faced about at the new peril. "That's to show you _I mean business_!" grated out the marksman, in a voice as cold as chilled steel. "Now let the women go first, and then the men may follow." Under that menacing weapon, of whose efficiency they had just received so convincing a proof, the men sullenly stood aside and passed up the half-dozen women or so who had not had an opportunity to take advantage of the boys' plucky stand. From the bridge above, the captain of the _Rhode Island_ hailed them. "Six boats are away! Let the rest come!" "Steady, steady!" came the sharp, commanding voice of the man with the pistol once more, as the score of men left began to scramble up the stairway. "One at a time! Take it easy!" Under his authoritative voice the rush changed like magic to an orderly retreat, and in a few minutes a seventh boat was loaded with frightened passengers and lowered onto the heaving sea. "Well, I guess we can go now, Herc," remarked Ned, turning to his companion.