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Show ; UlLi riJU ML 2 , 2 Si ! 5 Or, The Adventures o? J J An Eton Boy... I m J I I i V JAMES G RfiINT, j J vise and tiu-n he leveled his pistol at the head of Ned Carlton. For ;t moment the latter stood irresolute, irres-olute, aii'l ihea. s. i-i'ig the biack muzzle muz-zle of the I'-volwi- within a foot of his le ad. he muttered a de. -y malediction, maledic-tion, siairp -d his f;ot with rage on the deck, and said: "Mr. "Rodney, hear a hand with me to launch this murdered man this poor fel low overboard !" "Obey!" thundered Antonio. Like one in a dream I bent over the dead man. on whose pale face, glazed eyes and relaxed jaw the bright moonlight moon-light was shining, and in my excitement ex-citement and bewilderment I nearly slipped and fell into the pool of blood which flowed from his death wound. I had never touched a corpse before, and an irrepressible shudder ran through all my veins. But, that emotion emo-tion once over, I could have handled a dozen with perhaps indifference; and there are few who, after touching the dead, have not experienced this change of feeling. Ned Carlton, with a sound like a sob in his honest breast a sob of mingled rage and commiseration raised the yet warm body; I took the feet, and through one of the quarter-boards, which was open, we launched it into the great deep, and as the brig flew on, rolling before the early morning wind, there remained no trace of poor Will White, but his blood, a dark pool upon the deck, and the crew stood staring at it and at each other with blank irresolution, horror and dismay expressed in all their faces. Empty-handed and defenseless as we all were, each was afraid to speak or act, lest he might be the next victim vic-tim whom the merciless Cubano would shoot down. With a growl of defiance Antonio now turned away, and, brandishing the revolver in token of the obedience he meant to exact, he descended slowly slow-ly into the cabin, where we soon heard him smashing open the lockers, and busy with the case-bottles in the steward's stew-ard's locker, or Billy the cabin boy's pantry. His departure seemed a relief to all, but in half a minute after he was gone below little Billy, or "Boy Bill," as he was usually termed, whose sleeping sleep-ing place was the steerage, rushed up the cabin stair in his shirt and ran among us, sobbing with fear and dismay. dis-may. CHAPTER XX. Conference of the Crew. Some time elapsed before the poor boy became sufficiently coherent to be understood, but it would seem that on hearing the first cry, which had alarmed me, he sprang out of his berth, which was at the foot of the companionway, and on looking into the cabin, he saw by the night light which swung in the skylight, the Cubano, armed with a bloody knife, rush from the captain's state-room into that of the mate, which was opposite. op-posite. Another choking cry acquainted him that Antonio had stabbed Hislop in his sleep; and fearing that his own turn would come next, he had crept into an empty cask which lay below the companion-ladder, and remained there, trembling with dread, until he took an opportunity of rushing on deck and joining us. This terrible revelation added to our dismay. We were now in a desperate predica- i '. 1A 1' : . i X. '' 'oir iuued J ! "Hullo:" sail Tom r..,:u!;r,'trn.. sul- 1 dftiiy lookii:- :,! ft, ;i ike topsails ' dapped and si, r. .-.ed : "she's yawning; or steering v.iel; w!.ut is that Span- , hud about?" "But where is he?" added Carlton, as we now misi-ed Antonio from the wheel; "Antonio, where are you?" "Gone overboard, I hope," exclaimed the second mare, with something more 1 that need not be repeated, as he rushed : to the wheel, and. ai'icr making it re- j volve a few times rapidly, hi' filled , the sails and steadied the brig. This was done just in lime, for the Kugenie had a press of canvas on her, and. had she been taken aback, the consequences conse-quences might have been serious. "Look about for the skulking lubber," lub-ber," saiil Lambourne, in great wrath, "and souse him well with a slush-bucket; slush-bucket; another moment and the craft would have been broached to!" "He must have crept behind the longboat and got into the forecastle," suggested Carlton. 'I'll bring him up with a round turn for playing this trick," grumbled Lambourne. Lam-bourne. "Hush," said I, as a strange sound fell upon my ear. "What is it?" asked the others, listening. lis-tening. "A cry did you not hear it?" "No nonsense!" said they, together. "It was a cry that came from somewhere." some-where." "I did hear something," said Will White; 'but it was a sheave creaking In a block aloft, I think." "No, no," said I, pausing by the capstan, as a terrible foreboding seized me; "it came from the cabin." "There is no one there but the Captain, Cap-tain, Hislop, and the boy Bill, who sleeps in the steerage, and they are all three sound enough by this time," said Lambourne. "But the sound was from the cabin," cab-in," I persisted, hastening aft. At that moment another cry, loud and piteous a cry that sank into a hoarse moan, echoed through the brig, "piercing the night's dull ear," and ringing higli above the welter of the sea alongside, the bubble at the stem and stern, or the hum of the wind through the taut rigging. We all rushed aft to the companion, and at that instant Antonio sprang up the cabin stair. By the clear splendor of the tropical moonlight we could see that his usually swarthy visage was pale as death, while his black eyes blazed like two burning coals. Pie grasped his unsheathed knife, the blade of which, as well as his hands and clothes, were covered with blood! My heart grew sick with vague apprehension, ap-prehension, and my first thought was for a weapon; but none was near. "What have you been about, you rascally picaroon and why did you leave the wheel?" shouted Lambourne, becoming greatly excited; "the masts might have gone by the board what devil's work have you been after below?" be-low?" Then the dark Spanish Creole grinned, as the blood dripped from his hands on the white and moonlit deck. "Knock him down with a handspike, Carlton," added Lambourne, who could not leave the wheel; "knock him down the shark-faced swab!" On hearing this, Antonio drew from his breast a revolver pistol, one of a pair which we knew always hung loaded in Weston's cabin, and fired straight at the head of Carlton who dodged the shot, which killed the seaman sea-man named Will White, who stood behind be-hind him. The ball pierced the brain of the poor fellow, who bounded convulsively convulsive-ly nearly three feet from the deck: he fell heavily on his face and never moved again, for he was dead dead as a stone. In its suddenness this terrible deed paralyzed us with horror, not unmixed with fear, as we were all unarmed and completely in the power of this Spanish Span-ish demon, the report of whose pistol brought all the startled crew tumbling over each other out of the forecastle. "Aha, maldita! Santos y Angeles!" said the Spaniard, waving the pistol, the muzzle of which yet snicked, toward to-ward us in a half circle, as a warning j for all to stand back; "did you think j to run your rigs upon me? I am An-I An-I tonio el Cubano. and don't value you ! all a rope's-end or a rotten castauo, as you shall find. I am now the captain cap-tain of this ship, and shall force you all to obey me, or else" here he swore one of those sonorous and blasphemous blasphem-ous oaths which run so glibly from a Spanish tongue "I will shoot you all in succession, till I am the last man left on board: and when I am tired of the ship I can burn or scuttle her. Do you understand all this?" Dead silence followed this strange address, ihe half of which was scarce- ly understood by our men. as it was I said in Spanish. I "Basta!" (avast) I see that you do j understand." he resumed: "and now 1 begin by obedience. Throw this car-I car-I rion this bestia muerta overboard." j But perceiving how we all shrank back ; "Overboard with him!" he ad. led. brutally kicking the inanimate body ; of poor Will White: "or demonio. I shall send the first who disobeys me ! to keep him company." I He grasped me by the hand his ! bateful clutch was firm as a smith's ment, without a captain or mate to navigate the brig, and at the mercy of a well-armed desperado, to whom homicide hom-icide was a pastime; thus, all who had handled him so severely on the night we crossed the line began to feel no small degree of alarm for their own safety, being certain that more blood would be shed the moment he came on deck. All dressed themselves with the utmost ut-most expedition, and it was resolved to hold a council of war. Lambotirns was still at the wheel; and to he prepared pre-pared for any emergency, he resolved to reduce the canvas on the brig. So the royals were taken down, all studding-sails taken in. and the topsails ; were handed; all this was done as j quietly as possible-, lest any sound I might arouse the fiend who seemed ! now to possess the Eugenie, i Lambourne ventured to peep down the skylight, when he saw Antonio drinking brandy from a case bottle, without troubling himself with a glass. Then the Spaniard proceeded to attire himself in the best clothes of Captain Weston; he forced open ; several lockfast places, and took from them money and jewelry, which he j concealed about his person. What his ultimate object could be in performing perform-ing these acts of plunder on the open sea. we could neither conceive nor divine, but on chancing to glance tra-: tra-: ward, he caught a glimpse of Tom's j eyes peering down. There was an explosion, a crashing j of glass and a ball from a revolver, j fired upward, grazed Tom's left ear and pierced the rim of his sou'-wester as a hint that our Cubano had uo in- i tention of being overlooked in his cp- ; erations below. We heard him close the cabin door with a bang, and after locking it, throw himself on the Moor behind it, ; with the intern ion of steeping, proba- j bly. but with the full resolution that no one should enter without disturb-i |