Hey, shoot him! Stop
him!"
But it was too late. Relying upon the manacles, the quartermaster had
taken his hands for a moment off Craddock's arm. In that instant he had
flung off the carpenter, and, amid a spatter of pistol bullets, had
sprung the bulwarks and was swimming for his life. He had been hit and
hit again, but it takes many pistols to kill a resolute and powerful man
who has his mind set upon doing something before he dies. He was a
strong swimmer, and, in spite of the red trail which he left in the
water behind him, he was rapidly increasing his distance from the
pirate. "Give me a musket!" cried Sharkey, with a savage oath.
He was a famous shot, and his iron nerves never failed him in an
emergency. The dark head appearing on the crest of a roller, and then
swooping down on the other side, was already half-way to the sloop.
Sharkey dwelt long upon his aim before he fired. With the crack of the
gun the swimmer reared himself up in the water, waved his hands in a
gesture of warning, and roared out in a voice which rang over the bay.
Then, as the sloop swung round her head-sails, and the pirate fired an
impotent broadside, Stephen Craddock, smiling grimly in his death agony,
sank slowly down to that golden couch which glimmered far beneath him.
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