The crew was divided against itself; and Isaac Chantz, the Jew, his wounded shoulder with a hunch to it, seemed to lead the revolt against the gangsters. His wound was enough to convict him in any court, and well he knew it. Beside him, and at his shoulders, clustered the Maltese Cockney, Andy Fay, Arthur Deacon, Frank Fitzgibbon, Richard Giller, and John Hackey.
In another group, still allegiant to the gangsters, were men such as Shorty, Sorensen, Lars Jacobsen, and Larry. Charles Davis was prominently in the gangster group. A fourth group was composed of Sundry Buyers, Nancy, and Tony the Greek. This group was distinctly neutral. And, finally, unaffiliated, quite by himself, stood Mulligan Jacobs--listening, I fancy, to far echoes of ancient wrongs, and feeling, I doubt not, the bite of the iron-hot hooks in his brain.
"What are you going to do with us, sir?" Isaac Chantz demanded of me, in defiance to the gangsters, who were expected to do the talking.
Bert Rhine lurched angrily toward the sound of the Jew's voice.
Chantz's partisans drew closer to him.
"Jail you," I answered from above. "And it shall go as hard with all of you as I can make it hard.""Maybe you will an' maybe you won't," the Jew retorted.
"Shut up, Chantz!" Bert Rhine commanded.
"And you'll get yours, you wop," Chantz snarled, "if I have to do it myself."I am afraid that I am not so successfully the man of action that Ihave been priding myself on being; for, so curious and interested was I in observing the moving drama beneath me that for the moment Ifailed to glimpse the tragedy into which it was culminating.
"Bombini!" Bert Rhine said.
His voice was imperative. It was the order of a master to the dog at heel. Bombini responded. He drew his knife and started to advance upon the Jew. But a deep rumbling, animal-like in its SOUND and menace, arose in the throats of those about the Jew.
Bombini hesitated and glanced back across his shoulder at the leader, whose face he could not see for bandages and who he knew could not see.
"'Tis a good deed--do it, Bombini," Charles Davis encouraged.
"Shut your face, Davis!" came out from Bert Rhine's bandages.
Kid Twist drew a revolver, shoved the muzzle of it first into Bombini's side, then covered the men about the Jew.
Really, I felt a momentary twinge of pity for the Italian. He was caught between the mill-stones, "Bombini, stick that Jew," Bert Rhine commanded.
The Italian advanced a step, and, shoulder to shoulder, on either side, Kid Twist and Nosey Murphy advanced with him.
"I cannot see him," Bert Rhine went on; "but by God I will see him!"And so speaking, with one single, virile movement he tore away the bandages. The toll of pain he must have paid is beyond measurement.
I saw the horror of his face, but the description of it is beyond the limits of any English I possess. I was aware that Margaret, at my shoulder, gasped and shuddered.
"Bombini!--stick him," the gangster repeated. "And stick any man that raises a yap. Murphy! See that Bombini does his work."Murphy's knife was out and at the bravo's back. Kid Twist covered the Jew's group with his revolver. And the three advanced.
It was at this moment that I suddenly recollected myself and passed from dream to action.
"Bombini!" I said sharply.
He paused and looked up.
"Stand where you are," I ordered, "till I do some talking.--Chantz!
Make no mistake. Rhine is boss for'ard. You take his orders . . .
until we get into Valparaiso; then you'll take your chances along with him in jail. In the meantime, what Rhine says goes. Get that, and get it straight. I am behind Rhine until the police come on board.--Bombini! do whatever Rhine tells you. I'll shoot the man who tries to stop you.--Deacon! Stand away from Chantz. Go over to the fife-rail."All hands knew the stream of lead my automatic rifle could throw, and Arthur Deacon knew it. He hesitated barely a moment, then obeyed.
"Fitzgibbon!--Giller!--Hackey!" I called in turn, and was obeyed.
"Fay!" I called twice, ere the response came.
