"One," cried he again, triumphantly--"and one from twelve leaves eleven. Ha, that's your bird, captain, and a big one!" [Illustration: Another man fell with a loud cry.] I had pulled my trigger, prompted by his example, and another man from the cliff above lifted his arms and fell with a loud cry. And this was the astonishing thing, that though we two were caged in a ravine like rats in a trap, and had shot two of the devils stone-dead, no answering shot was fired from above, no rifle levelled at us. "No arms," cries the captain, presently; "and most of them half drunk. We're going through this, Mister Begg, right through, I assure you!" Well, I began to believe it; nevertheless, there were men on the shore before us, halloaing madmen, with clasp-knives in their hands and murder in their faces. Clear in the moonlight you could see them; the still air sent up their horrid imprecations. Those men we must pass, I said, if we would reach the boat. And we passed them. It seems a miracle even when I write of it. Now, we had halted at the foot of the ravine and were just prepared to go headlong for the six, believing, it may be, that one at least of us must fall, when they fired a shot, not from the gun at the watch-tower gate, but from Czerny's own yacht away in the offing; and coming plump down upon the sand, not a cable's length from our own boat, a shell burst with a thunderous explosion, and scattering in fragments of steel, it scared the mutineers as no rifle could have done. Roaring out like stricken bulls, cursing their master in all tongues, they began to storm the cliff-side nimbly and to run for the shelter of the woods; but some fell and rolled backward to the sand, some turned on their own knives and lay dead at the gully's foot; while those who gained the summit stood all together, and wailing their doleful song they yelled defiance at Czerny's ship. But we--we made the boat; and falling half-dead in it, we thrust it from the beach and heard our comrades' voices again. CHAPTER XXIII THE END OF THE SIXTY HOURS _The same night. Off Ken's Island. Half-past twelve o'clock._