Smartly there, all of you!”

It was so quickly and neatly done that we were taken by storm before we
knew that we were attacked. The passage was full of rushing sailors. I
slipped out of the clutch of one and ran for my gun, but it was only to
crash down on to the stone floor an instant later with two of them
holding on to me. They were so deft and quick that my hands were lashed
together even while I struggled, and I was dragged into the settle
corner, unhurt but very sore in spirit at the cunning with which our
defences had been forced and the ease with which we had been overcome. They had not even troubled to bind my uncle, but he had been pushed into
his chair, and the guns had been taken away. He sat with a very white
face, his homely figure and absurd row of curls looking curiously out of
place among the wild figures who surrounded him. There were six of them, all evidently sailors. One I recognized as the
man with the earrings whom I had already met upon the road that evening. They were all fine, weather-bronzed bewhiskered fellows. In the midst of
them, leaning against the table, was the freckled man who had passed me
on the moor. The great black cloak which poor Enoch had taken out with
him was still hanging from his shoulders. He was of a very different
type from the others—crafty, cruel, dangerous, with sly, thoughtful eyes
which gloated over my uncle. They suddenly turned themselves upon me and
I never knew how one’s skin can creep at a man’s glance before. “Who are you?” he asked. “Speak out, or we’ll find a way to make you.”

“I am Mr. Stephen Maple’s nephew, come to visit him.”

“You are, are you? Well, I wish you joy of your uncle and of your visit
too. Quick’s the word, lads, for we must be aboard before morning. What
shall we do with the old ’un?”

“Trice him up Yankee fashion and give him six dozen,” said one of the
seamen. “D’you hear, you cursed Cockney thief? We’ll beat the life out of you if
you don’t give back what you’ve stolen. Where are they? I know you never
parted with them.”

My uncle pursed up his lips and shook his head, with a face in which his
fear and his obstinacy contended. “Won’t tell, won’t you? We’ll see about that! Get him ready, Jim!”

One of the seamen seized my uncle, and pulled his coat and shirt over
his shoulders. He sat lumped in his chair, his body all creased into
white rolls which shivered with cold and with terror. “Up with him to those hooks.”

There were rows of them along the walls where the smoked meat used to be
hung. The seamen tied my uncle by the wrists to two of these. Then one
of them undid his leather belt. “The buckle end, Jim,” said the captain. “Give him the buckle.”

“You cowards,” I cried; “to beat an old man!”

“We’ll beat a young one next,” said he, with a malevolent glance at my
corner. “Now, Jim, cut a wad out of him!”

“Give him one more chance!” cried one of the seamen. “Aye, aye,” growled one or two others. “Give the swab a chance!”

“If you turn soft, you may give them up for ever,” said the captain. “One thing or the other! You must lash it out of him; or you may give up
what you took such pains to win and what would make you gentlemen for
life—every man of you. There’s nothing else for it. Which shall it be?”

“Let him have it,” they cried, savagely. “Then stand clear!” The buckle of the man’s belt whined savagely as he
whirled it over his shoulder. But my uncle cried out before the blow fell. “I can’t stand it!” he cried. “Let me down!”

“Where are they, then?”

“I’ll show you if you’ll let me down.”

They cast off the handkerchiefs and he pulled his coat over his fat,
round shoulders. The seamen stood round him, the most intense curiosity
and excitement upon their swarthy faces. “No gammon!” cried the man with the freckles. “We’ll kill you joint by
joint if you try to fool us. Now then! Where are they?”

“In my bedroom.”

“Where is that?”

“The room above.”

“Whereabouts?”

“In the corner of the oak ark by the bed.”

The seamen all rushed to the stair, but the captain called them back. “We don’t leave this cunning old fox behind us. Ha, your face drops at
that, does it? By the Lord, I believe you are trying to slip your
anchor. Here, lads, make him fast and take him along!”

With a confused trampling of feet they rushed up the stairs, dragging my
uncle in the midst of them. For an instant I was alone. My hands were
tied but not my feet. If I could find my way across the moor I might
rouse the police and intercept these rascals before they could reach the
sea. For a moment I hesitated as to whether I should leave my uncle
alone in such a plight. But I should be of more service to him—or, at
the worst, to his property—if I went than if I stayed. I rushed to the
hall door, and as I reached it I heard a yell above my head, a
shattering, splintering noise, and then amid a chorus of shouts a huge
weight fell with a horrible thud at my very feet. Never while I live
will that squelching thud pass out of my ears. And there, just in front
of me, in the lane of light cast by the open door, lay my unhappy uncle,
his bald head twisted on to one shoulder, like the wrung neck of a
chicken. It needed but a glance to see that his spine was broken and
that he was dead. The gang of seamen had rushed downstairs so quickly that they were
clustered at the door and crowding all round me almost as soon as I had
realized what had occurred. “It’s no doing of ours, mate,” said one of them to me. “He hove himself
through the window, and that’s the truth. Don’t you put it down to us.”

“He thought he could get to windward of us if once he was out in the
dark, you see,” said another. “But he came head foremost and broke his
bloomin’ neck.”

“And a blessed good job too!” cried the chief, with a savage oath. “I’d
have done it for him if he hadn’t took the lead. Don’t make any mistake,
my lads, this is murder, and we’re all in it, together. There’s only one
way out of it, and that is to hang together, unless, as the saying goes,
you mean to hang apart. There’s only one witness——”

He looked at me with his malicious little eyes, and I saw that he had
something that gleamed—either a knife or a revolver—in the breast of his
pea-jacket. Two of the men slipped between us. “Stow that, Captain Elias,” said one of them. “If this old man met his
end it is through no fault of ours. The worst we ever meant him was to
take some of the skin off his back. But as to this young fellow, we have
no quarrel with him——”

“You fool, you may have no quarrel with him, but he has his quarrel with
you. He’ll swear your life away if you don’t silence his tongue. It’s
his life or ours, and don’t you make any mistake.”

“Aye, aye, the skipper has the longest head of any of us. Better do what
he tells you,” cried another. But my champion, who was the fellow with the earrings, covered me with
his own broad chest and swore roundly that no one should lay a finger on
me.