to the captain. That's the bloomin' ticket."
Pat to his suggestion came an unexpected and startling answer.
"Fortunately it won't be necessary to send the delegation, since your captain has come down to join you."
The voice was Bothwell's; so, too, were the ironic insolence, the sardonic smile, the air of contemptuous mastery that sat so lightly on him. He might be the greatest scoundrel unhanged—and that was a point upon which I had a decided opinion—but I shall never deny that there was in him the magnetic force which made him a leader of men.
Immediately I recognized defeat for my attempt to end the mutiny at a stroke. His very presence was an inspiration to persistence in evil. For though he had brought them nothing but disaster, the fellow had a way of impressing himself without appearing to care whether he did or not.
The careless contempt of his glance emphasized the difference between him and them. He was their master, though a fortnight before none of them had ever seen Bothwell. They feared and accepted his leadership, even while they distrusted him.
The men seemed visibly to stiffen. Instead of beseeching looks I got threatening ones. Three minutes before I had been dictator; now I was a prisoner, and if I could read signs one in a very serious situation.
"I'm waiting for the deputation," suggested Bothwell, his dark eye passing from one to another and resting on Higgins.
The unfortunate cook began to perspire.
"Just our wye of 'aving a little joke, captain," he protested in a whine.
"You didn't hear aright, Bothwell. A deputation to the captain was mentioned," I told him.
"And I'm captain of this end of the ship, or was at last accounts. Perhaps Mr. Sedgwick has been elected in my absence," he sneered.
"You bet he ain't," growled Gallagher.
"It's a position I should feel obliged to decline. No sinking ship for me, thank you. I've no notion of trying to be a twentieth century Captain Kidd. And, by the way, he was hanged, too, wasn't he, captain?"
"That's a prophecy, I take it. I'll guarantee one thing: You'll not live to see it fulfilled. You've come to the end of the passage, my friend."
"Indeed!"
"But before you pass out I've a word to say to you about that map."
His eye gave a signal. Before I could stir for resistance even if I had been so minded, George Fleming and Gallagher pinned my back to the table. Bothwell stepped forward and looked down at me.
A second time I glimpsed the Slav behind his veneer of civilization. Opaque and cruel eyes peered into mine through lids contracted to slits. Something in me stronger than fear looked back at him steadily.
His voice was so low that none, I think, except me caught the words. In his manner was an extraordinary bitterness.
"You're the rock I've split on from the first. You stole the map from me—and you tried to steal her. By God, I wipe the slate clean now!"
"I've only one thing to say to you. I'd like to see you strung up, you damned villain!" I replied.
"The last time I asked you for that map your friend from Arizona blundered in. He's not here now. I'm going to find out all you know. You think you can defy me. Before I've done with you I'll make you wish you'd never been born. There are easy deaths and hard ones. You shall take your choice."
With that fiend's eyes glittering into mine it was no easy thing to keep from weakening. I confess it, the blood along my spine was beginning to freeze. Fortunately I have a face well under control.
"You have a taste for dramatics, Captain Kidd." I raised my voice so that all might hear plainly. "You threaten to torture me. You forget that this is the year 1913. The inquisition is a memory. You are not in Russia now. American sailors—even mutineers—will draw the line at torture."
His face was hard as hammered iron.
"Don't flatter yourself, Mr. Sedgwick. I'm master here. When I give the word you will suffer."
I turned my head and my eyes fell upon Henry Fleming. He had turned white, shaken to the heart. Beyond him was Neidlinger, and the man was moistening his gray lips with his tongue. The fat cockney looked troubled. Plainly they had no stomach for the horrible work that lay before them if I proved resolute.
To fight for treasure was one thing, and I suppose that even in this they had been led to believe that a mere show of force would be sufficient; to lend their aid to torture an officer of the ship was quite another and a more sinister affair.
The Slav in Bothwell had failed to understand the Anglo-Saxon blood with which he was dealing.
I faced the man with a dry laugh.
"We'll see. Begin, you coward!"
Pinned down to the table as I was, he struck me in the face for that.
"You lose no time in proving my words true," I jeered.
An odd mixture is man. Faith, one might have thought Bothwell impervious to shame, but at my words the fellow flushed. He could not quite forget that he had once been a gentleman.
In the way of business he could torture me, wipe me from his path without a second thought, but on the surface he must live up to the artificial code his training had imposed upon him.
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Sedgwick. Were there time I would give you satisfaction for that blow in the customary manner. But time presses. I shall have to ask you instead to accept my apologies. I have the devil of a temper."
"So I judge."
"It flares like powder. But I must not waste your time in explanations." From his vest pocket he drew three little cubes of iron. "You still have time, Mr, Sedgwick. The map!"
I flushed to the roots of my hair.
"Never, you Russian devil!"
He selected the hand pinned down by Fleming, perhaps because he was not sure that he could trust Gallagher. Between my fingers close to the roots he slipped the cubes. His fingers fastened over mine and drew the ends of them together slowly, steadily.
An excruciating pain shot through me. I set my teeth to keep from screaming and closed my eyes to hide the anguish in them.
"You are at liberty to change your mind—and your answer, Mr. Sedgwick," he announced suavely.
"You devil from hell!"
Again I suffered that jagged bolt of pain. It seemed as if my fingers were being rent asunder at the roots. I could not concentrate my attention on anything but the physical agony, yet it seems to me now that Gallagher was muttering a protest across the table.
Bothwell released my hand. I saw a flash of subtle triumph light his eyes.
"A wilful man must have his way, Mr. Sedgwick," he nodded to me, then whispered in the ear of George Fleming, who at once left the room.
They pulled me up from the table and seated
