The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

said they were not all traitors.”

      “One of ’em’s got a busted head. Another one, a wild Irishman, had to be choked before he quit. Your mate’s thrown in with us. Your engineer was put out of business with a broken arm. The steward and the squareheads have been my men for two weeks or more. As to the other man you left aboard, Cheng was going to give him a chance, but I heard a shot or two fired; mebbe you did. I don’t much imagine you’ll see him again. I’ll send the cripples below for you to take care of.”

      He stamped out of the stateroom into the main cabin with Stevens, and up the companionway to the deck. Stevens lingered to give a look malicious and evil before he disappeared.

      “You’re hurt badly.” Kitty had come to Jim’s side. There was a break in her voice that acted upon him as an elixir.

      “I’m all right,” he managed to say, but the girl had touched his head and found blood. She went back into the stateroom and ripped at the sheets but they shredded under her hands. With a shrug of petulance she closed the door behind her and came out in a moment with some strips of sheer linen. This she bound about Jim’s head despite his protest.

      “The others will need it more than I do,” he said.

      “I don’t agree with you,” Kitty answered almost sharply. “We’ll attend to them as soon as they let us have them.”

      “Here they come now,” said Newton. The companionway opened and their wounded men were delivered to them, roughly and gruffly, Neilson and Vogt acting as two of the bearers. Sanders had a broken arm from manhandling. Walker was insensible, with a skull that seemed as if it might be fractured. Moore, too, was unconscious. He had put up a notable fight, it seemed. His clothes were torn to rags, his face a mass of contusions; his neck showed black bruises and his naked torso was smeared with blood. Jim was hard put to it to keep his hands off Neilson and Vogt, whose sullen pose was not proof against the steady look of disdain the two women bestowed upon them. Stevens lolled in the entrance, gun in hand.

      “You’ll get fed tonight,” he said. “Sorry you’ve lost your cook. Treat me right and I’ll reciprocate. The skipper’s by way of being a woman-hater. I’m not. You may see me later. He won’t have any women aboard ship. That’s where I differ from him, if they’re reasonably attractive. It would be a shame to leave you ladies on the island and tha’s what the skipper intends to do for his own protection. Think it over.”

      His eyes bulged and he pressed trigger as Jim leaped for him, stumbling backward up the ladder as he saw his shot had missed. Jim caught him by the ankle, but two of Swenson’s men had flung themselves upon him, for his own safety, since Stevens dared not fire again for fear of hitting them. Instead, Stevens scuttled up the companionway through the hatch and the two flung Jim to the floor where he lay panting. The rest left, and the companion hatch was closed. The evil face of Stevens looked down through the skylight. They heard him give orders to shoot on suspicion.

      “You make a move that looks phony,” he shouted down, “and we’ll finish you. Meantime, starve and be damned to you!”

      The shifting sunlight showed that soon they would be again in comparative darkness. The ports were undoubtedly crusted tight; leaves masked them. The only light would be what filtered down through the natural shaft and the skylight. Their schooner—if they could believe Swenson and the shots they had heard—was sunk. Wood was killed. Three, aside from Jim, were badly injured. Sanders and Walker needed medical treatment. Their chief jailer was a cruel beast; the main villain, Swenson, meant to leave them stranded on the island. He had gone to seek Kitty Whiting’s father. If he found him alive, Swenson and his men would indubitably possess the pearls. They were helpless, almost hopeless, prisoners. Jim went about with clenched teeth and a jutting jaw trying to do something for the injured men. It was stifling in the cabin and they had no water. To beg it from Stevens would only provoke mockery. Sanders’ arm had to be set. The Scot sat with his face chalky in the gloom, hanging on to himself.

      “They jumped us, you see,” he said huskily. “That dirty dog of a Neilson and Vogt. Cracked Walker with a blackjack or something and there were three on my back at once. I think Moore tackled half a dozen. They grabbed our arms so we couldn’t shoot. They were hiding back of the deckhouses. Tried to warn—you—but…” He closed his eyes and set his teeth into his lips.

      “Lie down,” ordered Jim, himself with a blinding headache. “We’ll fix you up. Newton, I want you.”

      They went exploring and found a cabin where the two bunks had decent mattresses that were not too badly molded. They took their undershirts and made them into bandages, then, with the aid of the broken pieces of the panel that Swenson had smashed, Jim managed a splint, feeling fairly sure that he had the ends of the broken upper arm in place. They put Sanders in the top bunk, carried Walker to the lower.

      Kitty and Lynda had vanished into the room that connected with Captain Avery’s. They came back to the main cabin triumphant.

      “It was stupid of me not to think of it before,” said Kitty. “The ship’s medicine chest! I knew where dad kept it, with the extra drugs. We broke the lock. There are bandages but they are pretty rotten. Some of the medicines, like iodine, have dried up but there is permanganate, and—” she hesitated—“some other things. We must cleanse that head-wound of Walker’s and do the best we can for poor Moore.”

      “Without water?”

      “I think I can get some water.”

      “Not from those brutes.”

      “I’ll trade it. For liquor. I’m not demented. There was always a supply in the lazarette locker back of the starboard cabin where I got the medicine.”

      “See here, Kitty, if you tell them there is any of that stuff aboard,” broke in Newton, “they’ll take it all. You know what that means with beasts like Stevens. We haven’t any weapons.”

      “I have,” said Kitty. “A woman’s weapons, and I am going to use them for the sake of our wounded men. I may find a way out for all of us. I want you and Jim to force the hasp on the locker. Lynda and I are not strong enough for that. But we have our wits about us.”

      “Lyman, you’re not going to let her get that stuff?”

      “I have more confidence in her weapons than you have, Newton,” said Jim. “We’re in a tight place and Miss Kitty realizes that as well as we do. Come along.”

      Newton went reluctantly with Lynda. Kitty, hanging behind, thanked Jim for his backing. “There is no necessity for the ‘Miss’,” she whispered. “I am calling you Jim. You’ll trust me in this? Not ask me how I intend to do it? Lynda knows and approves.”

      “Of course.” But Jim wondered. There was an almost tragic note to her talk. They broke the hasp and brought out a dozen bottles—one of brandy, three of whisky, the rest port and sherry.

      “If you are figuring on making them drunk—?” started Newton.

      “I am not,” the girl answered. “Leave me a torch please, and go into the main cabin with Jim. Lynda will stay here with me. We’ve got to open these. I don’t want to break them.”

      “Those chaps up there have got a nose for booze a mile off,” said Newton. “I could do with a slug myself.” Jim took his own knife and Newton’s and eased out the corks before they left. Soon the two women come out with some of the bottles.

      “I am to do the talking,” Kitty whispered, then called up through the skylight, “Mr. Stevens.”

      Immediately the leering face appeared.

      “Well. Seeing the light, little lady?”

      “Will you let us have some water—for the wounded men?”

      Stevens laughed.

      “I might. What will you trade for a pint of it—say in kisses.”

      Kitty put out a hand to grip Jim’s arm without looking at him. Instinctively she seemed