FIRST BLOOD FOR CLEGGETT
As his feet struck the top of the rubbish heap in the hold of the vessel, Cleggett stumbled and staggered forward.But he did not let go of his revolver.
Perhaps he would not have fallen, but the Pomeranian, which had leaped into the hold after him, yelping like a terrier at a rat hunt, ran between his legs and tripped him.
"Damn the dog!" cried Cleggett, going down.
But the fall probably saved his life, for as he spoke two pistol shots rang out simultaneously from the forward part of the hold.The bullets passed over his head.Raising himself on his elbow, Cleggett fired rapidly three times, aiming at the place where a spurt of flame had come from.
A cry answered him, and he knew that at least one of his bullets had taken effect.He rose to his feet and plunged forward, firing again, and at the same instant another bullet grazed his temple.
The next few seconds were a wild confusion of yelping dog, shouts, curses, shots that roared like the explosion of big guns in that pent-up and restricted place, stinking powder, and streaks of fire that laced themselves across the darkness.But only a single pistol replied to Cleggett's now and he was confident that one of the men was out of the fight.
But the other man, blindly or with intention, was stumbling nearer as he fired.A bullet creased Cleggett's shoulder; it was fired so close to him that he felt the heat of the exploding powder; and in the sudden glow of light he got a swift and vivid glimpse of a white face framed in long black hair, and of flashing white teeth beneath a lifted lip that twitched.Theface was almost within touching distance; as it vanished Cleggett heard the sharp, whistling intake of the fellow's breath--and then a click that told him the other's last cartridge was gone.Cleggett clubbed his pistol and leaped forward, striking at the place where the gleaming teeth had been.His blow missed; he spun around with the force of it.As he steadied himself to shoot again he heard a rush behind him and knew that his men had come to his assistance.
"Collar him!" he cried."Don't shoot, or--"But he did not finish that sentence.A thousand lights danced before his eyes, Niagara roared in his ears for an instant, and he knew no more.His adversary had laid him out with the butt of a pistol.
Cleggett was not that inconsiderable sort of a man who is killed in any trivial skirmish: There was a moment at the bridge of Arcole when Napoleon, wounded and flung into a ditch, appeared to be lost.But when Nature, often so stupid, really does take stock and become aware that she has created an eagle she does not permit that eagle to be killed before its wings are fledged.Napoleon was picked out of the ditch.Cleggett was only stunned.
Both were saved for larger triumphs.The association of names is not accidental.These two men were, in some respects, not dissimilar, although Bonaparte lacked Cleggett's breeding.
When Cleggett regained consciousness he was on deck; George, Kuroki and Cap'n Abernethy stood about him in a little semicircle of anxiety; Lady Agatha was applying a cold compress to the bump upon his head.(He made nothing of his other scratches.) As for Elmer, who had not stirred from his seat on the oblong box, he moodily regarded, not Cleggett, but a slight young fellow with long black hair, who lay motionless upon the deck.
Cleggett struggled to his feet."Is he dead?" he asked, pointing to the figure of his recent assailant.Cap'n Abernethy, for the first time since Cleggett had known him, gave a direct answer to a question.
"Mighty nigh it," he said, staring down at the young man.Then headded:"Kind o' innocent lookin' young fellow, at that." "But the other one?Was he killed?" asked Cleggett.
"The other?" George inquired."But there was no other.When we got down there you and this boy--" And George described the struggle that had taken place after Cleggett had lost consciousness.The whole affair, as far as it concerned Cleggett, had been a matter of seconds rather than minutes; it was begun and over like a hundred yard dash on the cinder track.When George and Kuroki and Cap'n Abernethy had tumbled into the hold they had been afraid to shoot for fear of hitting Cleggett; they had reached him, guided by his voice, just as he went down under his assailant's pistol.They had not subdued the youth until he had suffered severely from George's dagger.Later they learned that one of Cleggett's bullets had also found him.Cleggett listened to the end, and then he said:
"But there WERE two men in the hold.And one of them, dead or wounded, must still be down there.Carry this fellow into the forecastle--we'll look at him later.Then bring some lanterns.We are going down into that hold again."With their pistols in their right hands and lanterns in their left they descended, Cleggett first.It was not impossible that the other intruder might be lying, wounded, but revived enough by now to work a pistol, behind one of the rubbish heaps.
But no shots greeted them.The hold of the Jasper B.was not divided into compartments of any sort.If it had ever had them, they had been torn away.Below deck, except for the rubbish heap and the steps for the masts, she was empty as a soup tureen.The pile of debris was the highest toward the waist of the vessel.There it formed a treacherous hill of junk; this hill sloped downward towards the bow and towards the stern; in both the fore and after parts, under the forecastle and the cabin, there were comparatively clear spaces.
The four men forced their way back towards the stern and then came slowly forward in a line that extended across the vessel, exploring withtheir lanterns every inch of the precarious footing, and overturning and looking behind, under, and into every box, cask, or jumble of planking that might possibly offer a place of concealment.They found no one.And, until they reached a clearer place, well forward, on the starboard side of the ship, they found no trace of anyone.
