I was using my arms with every word, and trying to make my meaning clear to the poor folks on the beach. So far they had been content to answer me with questions; but now, all at once, they ceased to signal, and a black object riding above the surf told me that they had risked all and were afloat, be the danger what it might. At the same moment a sharp cry from Dolly Venn turned my eyes to Czerny's yacht; and I saw his devils rowing their boats for the open water of the bay, and I knew that murder was in their minds, and that the hour had come when every veil was to be cast aside and their purpose declared against all humanity. "Clear the gun and stand by," was my order to the others; "we'll give them something to take home with them, and it sha'n't be pippins! Can you range them, Dolly, or must you wait? There's no time to lose, my lad, if honest lives are to be saved this day." He went to work without a word, charging his magazine and training the gun eastwards towards the advancing boats. If he did not fire at once, it was because he doubted his range; and here was his difficulty, that by sweeping round to the east and coming at the refugees upon a new course, Czerny's lot might yet cheat us and do the infernal work they intended. Indeed, the poor people in the longboat were just racing for their lives; and whether we could help them or whether they must perish time alone would show. Yard by yard, painfully, laboriously, they pushed towards the rock; yard by yard the devil's crew were bearing down upon them. And still Dolly kept his shot; the gun had nothing to say to them. No crueller sight you could plan or imagine. It was as though we were permitting poor driven people to be slaughtered before our very eyes. "Fire, Dolly, lad!" cried I, at last--"fire, for pity's sake! Will you see them die before our very eyes?" His fingers trembled upon the gun. He had all the heart to do it; but still he would not fire. "I can't," says he, half mad at his confession; "the gun won't do it--it's cruel, captain--cruel to see it--they're half a mile out of range. And the others dropping their oars. Look at that. A man's down, and another is trying to take his place----" It was true as I live. From some cause or other, I could only surmise, the longboat lay drifting with the tide and one of Czerny's boats, far ahead of its fellows, was almost atop of her. "They're done!" cries Peter Bligh, with an oath, "done entirely. God rest their souls. They'll never make the rock----" We believed it surely. The refugees were done; the pirates had unsheathed their knives for the butcher's work. I saw no human help could save them; and saying it a voice from the open door behind me gave the lie to Peter Bligh, and named a miracle. "'Tis the others that need your prayers, Mister Bligh--Czerny's lot are sinking sure----"