"Stand by, lads!" he roared. "Level at the cliff yonder, but let no man pull trigger! Wait till they fire again and mark the flash!"
Helpless in my bonds and crushed beneath Tressady's knee I heard a stir and rustle to right and left of me, the click of cocking triggers and thereafter--silence. And, marking the gleam of pistol and musket-barrel, I fell to an agony of dread, well knowing whence that merciful shot had come. For mayhap five minutes nought was to hear save the rustle of stealthy arm or leg and the sound of heavy breathing, until at length one spoke, loud-voiced: "What now, Captain? Us can't bide here all night."
"How many are we, Purdy?"
"Thirty and nine, Captain."
"Then do you take ten and scale the starboard cliff and you, Abner, with other ten take the cliff to larboard. I'll bide here wi' the rest and so we'll have 'em--"
"Them cliffs be perilous high, Cap'n!"
"My hook is more perilous, Tom Day! Off wi' you, ye dogs, or I'll show ye a liver yet and be--"
He stopped all at once as, faint at first yet most dreadful to hear, there rose a man's cry, chilling the flesh with horror, a cry that waxed and swelled louder and louder to a hideous screaming that shrilled upon the night and, sinking to an awful bubbling murmur, was gone.
Up sprang Tressady to stare away across Deliverance whence this dreadful cry had come, and I saw his hook tap-tapping at his great chin; then beyond these shining sands was the thunderous roar of a great gun, a furious rattle of small-arms that echoed and re-echoed near and far, and thereafter single shots in rapid succession. Hereupon rose shouts and cries of dismay: "Lord love us we'm beset! O Cap'n, we be took fore and aft. What shall us do, Cap'n? Yon was a gun. What o' the ship, Cap'n--what o' the ship?"
"Yonder--look yonder! Who comes?" cried Tressady, pointing towards Deliverance Beach with his glittering hook.
Twisting my head as I lay, I looked whither he pointed, and saw one that ran towards us, yet in mighty strange fashion, reeling in wide zig-zags like a drunken man; and sometimes he checked, only to come on again, and sometimes he fell, only to struggle up.
"By God--it's Abnegation!" cries Tressady. "'Tis my comrade Mings! Look to the prisoner, ye dogs--you Tom Purdy! I'm for Abnegation!" And off he went at a run. At his going was mighty talk and discussion what they should do, some men being for stealing away in the boats, others for taking to the woods, and all clean forgetting me where I lay. But suddenly they fell silent all for Abnegation was hailing feebly, and was come so nigh that we might see him, his face all bloody, his knees bending under him with weakness as he stumbled on. Suddenly, beholding Tressady, he stopped and hailed him in wild, gasping voice: "Roger--O Roger! The devil's aboard us, Roger--Penfeather's on us--Penfeather's took the ship--I'm all that's left alive! They killed Sol first--did ye--hear him die, Roger? O did ye hear--"