"Suppose you got it?" parleyed the master of the _Bertha Hamilton_.

"It wouldn't do you any good. The schooner is landlocked and can't get away."

"Even so it'll do us as much good as it will you," countered Ditty.

"We've got the longboat an' we can easily make one of the islands near by where we can find a ship to take us to the States."

"And suppose I have the treasure and refuse to give it to you?" pursued the captain.

"Then we'll take it!" threatened Ditty, his one eye glowing with malevolence. "We'll take it if we have to kill every last one of you to git it!

"Hey! Barker! Olsen! The rest of you bullies!" he added, raising his voice, "you know blamed well the after-guard won't do nothin' for you fellers but let you git shot. You better come with us.

"We're nearly two to one, anyway, an' you've got no chance," he added to Captain Hamilton.

"We haven't, eh?" exploded the captain, his pent-up rage finding vent.

"Do your worst, you black-hearted hound! And if you're not behind that tree in one minute, may G.o.d have mercy on your soul!"

CHAPTER x.x.xI

A DARING VENTURE

With an expression of baffled rage convulsing his features, Ditty turned and made for shelter. Once safely there, he hurled back the wildest threats and imprecations. So vile they were that Ruth shuddered and put her hands to her ears.

"I said I'd kill you all!" the mate shouted. "I'll take that back.

I'll kill all but one!"

The threat was easily understood. Captain Hamilton's face went white, and he glanced hastily at Ruth. But he only said:

"Keep down out of sight, men. They know where we are, but we don't know where they are. They may try to rush us, but I don't think they will at first. Aim carefully and shoot at anything that offers a fair target, but don't waste the ammunition."

He had hardly finished speaking before there came a volley, and the bullets pattered against the rocks. They came from several directions.

Ditty had arranged his men in the form of a semicircle. They had ample cover, and the only chance for the besieged lay in the chance that one of the enemy should protrude his head or shoulder too far from behind his tree.

Many times in the next hour the fusilade was repeated. It was plain that the mutineers were armed only with pistols.

"Probably Ditty laid in a stock before he left New York," the captain muttered to Tyke. "Automatics, too."

"His ammunition won't last long if he keeps wasting it this way,"

replied Tyke. "An' an automatic ain't always a sure shot."

Just then a cry from Olsen showed that the mutineers' cartridges had not been wholly wasted. A bullet had caught the Swede in the shoulder.

He dropped, groaning.

Ruth was by his side in an instant. She bound up his wound as best she could, and, putting a coat beneath his head, made him as comfortable as possible.

"One knocked out," muttered the captain. "I wonder who'll be the---- Ah! Good boy, Allen!" he cried delightedly.

One of the enemy had thrown up his hands and, with a yell, had crashed heavily to the ground. He lay there without motion.

"Leaned his head out a little too far," remarked Drew composedly.

"That was the c.o.c.kney, Bingo."

"An' a dirty rat," Tyke said grimly. "That evens up the score."

"Not exactly," replied Drew. "We'll have to pot two of them to every one they get, to keep the score straight. And they'll be more careful now about exposing themselves."

He was right; for in the short moments of daylight that remained they lessened no further the number of their foes. Nor did any bullet find its billet in the body of any of the besieged. But one ball knocked a splinter from a rock and drove it against the knuckles of Binney's right hand, making it difficult for him to use his rifle.

Now darkness fell, and the enemy seemed to have withdrawn.

"The real fight will come to-morrow," prophesied Captain Hamilton.

"This was only a skirmish to feel us out."

"Do you think they'll try to do anything to-night?" asked Drew thoughtfully.

"I don't believe so," was the reply; "but we'll post sentinels, and if they come they won't take us by surprise."

"As a matter of fact," the captain went on, "I wish they would adopt rushing tactics. Then they'd be out in the open and we could get a good crack at them. As it is, we're concentrated and they're scattered, and their bullets have a better chance than ours of finding a mark. These sniping methods are all in their favor, if Ditty has sense enough to stick to them."

"They've gained already by this afternoon's work," pondered Tyke.

"When they started in we were seventeen to 'leven. Now, as far as we know, they're sixteen to our nine, for neither Olsen nor Binney's what you might call able-bodied. The odds are getting bigger against us."

"All the ammunition we have spent has accounted for only one man,"

added the captain. "Their cover has served 'em well. And our ammunition is short. I figure out that we haven't much more than thirty cartridges apiece left for the rifles. That won't last us long."

"Why not dash out and charge them?" suggested Drew.

"We will when our cartridges get low," agreed the captain. "But I'm hoping they'll charge us first in the morning. We could drop a bunch of 'em before they closed in on us, and then we'd have a better chance in hand-to-hand fighting."

After dark the captain posted three men some distance within the forest, with the promise that they should be relieved at midnight and with strict injunctions to keep a vigilant watch and report to him at once should anything seem suspicious.

Rogers was delegated to make his way down to the beach, where it was supposed the mutineers would encamp for the night, to see if he could gain any information as to their plan of attack on the morrow.

To Ruth this whole situation was a most terrifying one; but n.o.body displayed more bravery than she.

She had attended to the two wounded men skilfully. She had been obliged to arrange a tourniquet on Olsen's shoulder, or the man would have bled to death; and she had done this as well as a more practised nurse. The wound was a clean one, the bullet having bored right through the shoulder.

Binney's wound was merely painful, and he could not use his rifle effectively. But he could handle an automatic with his left hand.

The departure of the mutineers and the coming of night released their minds and hearts from anxiety to a certain degree. Night fowls in the forest shouted their raucous notes back and forth, and there were some squealings and gruntings at the edge of the jungle that betrayed the presence of certain small animals that might add to their bill of fare could they but capture them.

"We'll forage for grub to-morrow," said Captain Hamilton. "It's too dark to-night to tell what you were catching, even if you went after those creatures. Ruth says she doesn't want agouti because they're too much like rats; but maybe there are creatures like polecats here--and they'd be a whole lot worse."

A daring idea came into Drew's mind, but he did not mention it to Tyke or the captain because he felt sure that they would not approve. He acknowledged to himself that it was a forlorn hope, but he knew, too, that forlorn hopes often won by their very audacity.

He knew that the moon rose late that night, and as darkness was essential to the execution of his plan, he rose shortly and said: