"Sheer off, there!" roared Courtenay again. "Next time I shoot to

kill!"-With terror in their eyes, with blanched cheeks, they rushed to the

door and peeped out. Courtenay was not to be seen, but the officer of

the watch was swinging himself over the canvas shield of the bridge.

He disappeared. Joey, barking furiously, trotted into view and ran

back again. Creeping forward, they saw the stolid sailor within the

chart-house squint at the compass and give the wheel a slight turn.

That was reassuring. Yet another timorous pace, and through the

curving window they could discern Courtenay, holding a revolver in his

right hand, but behind his back.

Even in their alarm they realized that nothing very terrible would

happen now. But why had the shot been fired, and what had given that

tense ring to Courtenay's threat?

Venturing a little further, they gained the bridge. On the main deck,

a long way beneath, near an open hatch, a half-caste Chilean was lying

on his back. He had evidently been wounded. Blood was flowing from

his leg; it smeared the white deck. The officer who had climbed down

so speedily from the bridge was directing two other men how to lift

him. Close by, the chief officer, Mr. Boyle, was stanching a deep cut

on his chin with a handkerchief. At the same time he curtly ordered

off such deck hands and stewards as came running forward, attracted by

the disturbance.

The girls were gazing wide-eyed at this somewhat unnerving scene, when

Courtenay approached.

"Better go below," he said quietly. "I am sorry this trouble should

have happened, at the beginning of the voyage, too. I hope it will not

upset you. That rascally Chilean tried to knife Mr. Boyle, and those

other blackguards were ready to side with him. I had to shoot quick

and straight to show them I meant what I said."

"Is he dead?" asked Isobel, with a contemptuous coolness as to the fate

of the mutineer which Courtenay found admirable.

"Not a bit of it. Fired at his legs. Only a flesh wound, I fancy."

"Poor wretch!" murmured Elsie. "Was there no other way?"

"There is only one way of dealing with that sort of skunk," was the

gruff answer. The pity in her voice implied a condemnation of his act.

He resented it. He knew he had done rightly, and she knew that she had

given offence by her involuntary sympathy with the suffering Chilean,

who, with the passing of the paralyzing shock of the bullet, was

howling dolefully now as the sailors carried him towards the forecastle.




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