"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.