Martin Conisby

Heartened by these shouts and moreover seeing how feebly I clutched at the quarter-rail, the great negro uttered a shrill cry of triumph and leapt at me; but as he came I sprang to meet his rush and stooping swiftly, caught him below the knees and in that same moment, straining every nerve, every muscle and sinew to the uttermost, I rose up and hove him whirling over my shoulder.

I heard a scream, a scurry of feet, and then the thudding crash of his fall on the deck below and coming to the rail I leaned down and saw him lie, his mighty limbs hideously twisted and all about him men who peered and whispered. But suddenly they found their voices to rage against me, shaking their fists and brandishing their steel; a pistol flashed and roared and the bullet hummed by my ear, but standing above them I laughed as a madman might, jibing at them and daring them to come on how they would, since indeed death had no terrors for me now. And doubtless steel or shot would have ended me there and then but for the man Diccon who quelled their clamour and held them from me by voice and fist: "Arrest, ye fools--stand by!" he roared. "Yon man be the property o' Captain Jo--'tis Joanna's man and whoso harms him swings--"

"Aye, but he've murdered Pompey, ain't 'e?" demanded Job.

"Aye, aye--an' so 'e have, for sure!" cried a voice.

"Well an' good--murder's an 'anging matter, ain't it?"

"An' so it be, Job--up wi' him--hang him--hang him!"

"Well an' good!" cried Job again. "'Ang 'im we will, lads, all on us, every man's fist to the rope--she can't hang us all, d'ye see. You, Diccon, where be Belvedere; he shall be in it--"

"Safe fuddled wi' rum, surely. Lord, Job, you do be takin' uncommon risks for a hatful o' guineas--"

So they took me and, all unresisting, I was dragged amidships beneath the main yard where a noose was for my destruction; and though hanging had seemed a clean death by contrast with that I had so lately escaped at the obscene hands of this loathly blackamoor, yet none the less a sick trembling took me as I felt the rope about my neck, insomuch that I sank to my knees and closed my eyes.

Kneeling thus and nigh to fainting, I heard a sudden, quick patter of light-running feet, a gasping sigh and, glancing up, beheld Job before me, also upon his knees and staring down with wide and awful eyes at an ever-spreading stain that fouled the bosom of his shirt; and as he knelt thus, I saw above his stooping head the blue glitter of a long blade that lightly tapped his brawny neck.