I was about to follow them when the following words arrested my steps.
The half-breed, overpowered by numbers, had been knocked down, and at this moment Martin Holt, in gratitude to the man who saved his life, was rushing to his aid, but Hearne called out to him,—
"Leave the fellow alone, and come with us!"
Martin Holt hesitated.
"Yes, leave him alone, I say; leave Dirk Peters, the assassin of your brother, alone."
"The assassin of my brother!"
"Your brother, killed on board the Grampus—"
"Killed! by Dirk Peters?"
"Yes! Killed and eaten—eaten—eaten!" repeated Hearne, who pronounced the hateful words with a kind of howl.
And then, at a sign from Hearne, two of his comrades seized Martin Holt and dragged him into the boat. Hearne was instantly followed by all those whom he had induced to join in this criminal deed.
At that moment Dirk Peters rose from the ground, and sprang upon one of the Falklands men as he was in the act of stepping on the platform of the boat, lifted him up bodily, hurled him round his head and dashed his brains out against a rock.
In an instant the half-breed fell, shot in the shoulder by a bullet from Hearne's pistol, and the boat was pushed off.
Then Captain Len Guy and West came out of the cavern—the whole scene had passed in less than a minute—and ran down to the point, which they reached together with the boatswain, Hardy, Francis, and Stern.
