Holding his automatic ready for instant action, Kenneth's father drew back the bolts and prepared to unlock the door. The lads, with their impromptu weapons ready to project a stream of oxygen-destroying liquid upon the mutineers, awaited the opening of the door, while gasping under the steadily increasing volume of chloroform fumes.
The key turned in the lock. Mr. Heatherington tried the door. It was secured on the outside. Hitherto all the efforts of the occupants of the cabin had been directed to keep the mutineers out; now they were striving to get out themselves—to fight to the last in the pure salt-laden air rather than perish like dogs in a lethal-chamber.
"Heave—both of you," gasped Mr. Heatherington.
Peter put down his Pyrene apparatus, grasped the gun-metal door-handle and pulled his hardest. The door refused to budge. He turned his head to see what Kenneth was doing, and found his chum sitting on the floor with his fingers clutching his throat.
Placing the muzzle of his automatic against the upper panel of the door, Mr. Heatherington fired five times in rapid succession. The improvised bullets perforated the woodwork, but failed to penetrate a sheet of steel which the mutineers had used to secure the door.
The weapon dropped from its owner's hand. Mr. Heatherington, overcome by the fumes, made a frantic leap in a vain attempt to find pure air overhead. Then he collapsed, still fighting for breath, across the body of his son.
Peter only partly realized what was happening. The whole horrible business seemed quite impersonal as far as he was concerned; he might have been watching a film on the screen. His senses were failing, yet at the present moment he was feeling little or no inconvenience.
Then, as the suffocating sensation assailed him, he was seized with a rebellious, resentful feeling. He made a desperate attempt to force the unyielding door and hurl himself upon the miscreants without—hammered with his bare fists upon the panels—sank into utter oblivion.
"All of them are unconscious, Capitán," reported one of the mutineers, who had been a close observer of all that was taking place in the reeking cabin. Unknown to any of the occupants, Lopez had several days previously bored a hole in the partition between Mr. Heatherington's cabin and the one adjoining, and could thus hear and see all that was transpiring.
Pedro Mendoza, erstwhile Chief Officer and now elected captain of the mutineers, thereupon gave orders for the door to be opened. Deftly half a dozen screws which had held the steel plate in position, were removed, and the door swung open with the gentle roll of the ship.
Waiting only till the suffocating fumes had wafted away, half a dozen Spaniards entered the cabin and unceremoniously dragged the senseless bodies of the unsuccessful defenders into the alley-way and thence to the waist.
"Overboard with the dog at once," ordered Lopez, giving the apparently inanimate form of Captain Gregory a vindictive kick.
Two of the mutineers grasped the skipper by the ankles and were about to carry out the officer's orders, when Mendoza intervened.
"He will be more useful alive than dead, Lopez," he said. "Let him lie till he recovers."
"But——" expostulated Lopez.
"Obey!" thundered Mendoza, and his subordinate, cursing the new captain under his breath, had no option but to do what he was told.
The unconscious Englishmen were then subjected to a thorough pilfering of their personal effects. Mr. Heatherington's automatic fell to the lot of Capitán Mendoza, who was already in possession of the missing packet of ammunition. Even the smallest article was removed from their pockets. A gold hunter—a presentation to Mr. Heatherington from the Trinity Brethren—was annexed by Lopez. The silver wristlet watches worn by Peter and Kenneth were appropriated by the bos'un and the carpenter. Captain Gregory's timepiece went to the late Second Officer, Miguel Fe, who was now promoted to Chief in place of Mendoza on the latter's assumption of the rank of captain of the mutineers. Other articles of lesser value were distributed amongst the crew.
The disposal of the spoil was still in progress, when Kenneth showed signs of returning consciousness.
Reluctantly the men suspended their engrossing task of disposing of the loot. They were as yet unused to the new conditions. By becoming mutineers they imagined that they had acquired absolute liberty of individual action; they had yet to learn that in no state of society does such a condition exist. In throwing off the yoke of Captain Gregory they were about to place their necks under that of Pedro Mendoza. If Gregory had figuratively chastised them with rods (more than once he had literally chased them with a rope's end), Mendoza was about to keep them under strict discipline by more effective means than chastising with scorpions.
"Lash up the prisoners, hand and foot!" commanded the mutineer captain. "Hasten, or some of you will feel sorry for yourselves."
"There is plenty of time," protested one of the hands. "I, for one, am going to take my share of plunder below, before I start work."
Before any of the objector's comrades could support his protests, Mendoza acted with a promptitude that indicated that he had a streak of northern blood in his veins.
Whipping out the automatic he had taken from Mr. Heatherington, he took three steps in the direction of the objector, and without a word coolly and deliberately blew out the man's brains.
"Now, amigo, you may argue as much as you like," he remarked, addressing the corpse. "You others, get to work at once; secure the prisoners."
The men obeyed with the utmost haste—fear—not enthusiasm driving them on. In a very short space of time Mr. Heatherington and the two lads were trussed up hand and foot, while Captain Gregory was secured by the ankles only.
"What are we to do with this, Señor Capitán?" inquired an elderly seaman pointing to the corpse of the shot mutineer.
"Let it stop where it is," replied Mendoza. "Now, all hands on the duty watch will proceed with the routine under Chief Officer Miguel Fe. Those in the watch below go for'ard. Señor Lopez, you know the new course—to the bridge and keep a sharp look-out for vessels."
The hands, having learnt their lesson, hurried off either to "stand their tricks" or to stand easy and discuss matters in the fo'c'sle.
Lopez ascended the bridge, fuming with rage at Mendoza for having ordered him out of sight and hearing of the prisoners. Already he distrusted his new skipper. He felt certain that Mendoza had deliberately got the others, including himself, out of the way in order to come to terms with the Englishmen or, what was more likely, to attempt to terrorize them into agreeing to his proposals. This was precisely what Mendoza intended doing.
Lighting a cigar, Mendoza leant against the poop ladder, and waited for the prisoners to recover from the effects of the chloroform. Waiting, an idea occurred to him. He went for'ard to the foot of the bridge ladder and called to Lopez to come down.
"A word in your ear, Lopez," he began condescendingly, when the recently promoted Second Officer descended from his elevated post. "Come aft, where we shall neither be seen nor overheard."
The two men walked aft in silence.
"You know how obstinate this Englishman and the two youths are," began the Captain. "Threats do not seem to intimidate them. We must resort to other methods if we are to wrest the much-desired secret from them. They must be lured into revealing the actual locality of the pearling grounds. You could not do it. They hate you like poison, Lopez. That is why I sent you away. Now I am going to express sympathy with them, swear that I was compelled against my will to join you in taking possession of the ship, and so on. Properly managed we ought to discover the secret and then, amigo, we can hold the Englishmen to ransom. The man can pay: he must be made to do so."