"Stop!" Kipping cried. "I'll yield! Stop--stop! Don't kill me!"
For a moment the negro hesitated. He seemed bewildered; his very passion
seemed to waver. Then I saw that Kipping, all the while holding the negro's
wrist with his left hand, was fumbling for his sheath-knife with his right.
With basest treachery he was about to knife his assailant at the very
instant when he himself was crying for quarter. My shout of warning was
lost in the general uproar; but the negro, though taken off his guard, had
himself perceived Kipping's intentions.
By a sudden jerk he shook Kipping's hand off his wrist and raised high his
sharp weapon.
From the shadow of the deck-house one of Kipping's own adherents sprang to
his rescue, but Davie Paine--blundering old Davie!--knocked him flat.
For an instant the cook's weapon shone bright in the glare of the torches.
Kipping snatched vainly at the black wrist above him, then jerked his knife
clean out of the sheath--but too late.
"Ah got you now, you pow'ful fighter, you! Ah got you now, you dirty scut!"
the cook yelled, and with one blow of his cleaver he split Kipping's skull
to the chin.
* * * * *
When at last we braced the yards and drew away from the shattered fragments
of the junk, which were drifting out to sea, we found that of the lawless
company that so confidently had expected to murder us all, only five living
men, one of whom was Captain Nathan Falk, were left aboard.
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