I had to shoot quick
and straight to show them I meant what I said."
"Is he dead?" asked Isobel, with a contemptuous coolness as to the fate
of the mutineer which Courtenay found admirable.
"Not a bit of it. Fired at his legs. Only a flesh wound, I fancy."
"Poor wretch!" murmured Elsie. "Was there no other way?"
"There is only one way of dealing with that sort of skunk," was the
gruff answer. The pity in her voice implied a condemnation of his act.
He resented it. He knew he had done rightly, and she knew that she had
given offence by her involuntary sympathy with the suffering Chilean,
who, with the passing of the paralyzing shock of the bullet, was
howling dolefully now as the sailors carried him towards the forecastle.
The man's groans tortured her. Her eyes filled with tears. Joey,
yelping with frenzy, leaped up to invite her to lift him above the
canvas screen so that he might see what was going on. But Elsie could
only reach blindly for the rail of the companion-way, and Isobel, after
a smiling word of farewell to Courtenay, followed her.
So it came to pass that neither Stevenson nor the moon had power to
draw the captain of the _Kansas_ to the promenade deck that night.
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