[Dead Man’s Rock by Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch]@TWC D-Link bookDead Man’s Rock CHAPTER X 25/39
Quick as thought, I pulled them inside, locked the cabin door, and began to examine their wounds.
The girl was quite dead, being shot through the breast, while Concanen was bleeding terribly from a wound just below the shoulder: the bullet must have grazed his upper arm, tearing open the flesh and cutting an artery, passed on and struck the nurse, who was just behind.
Mrs.Concanen was kneeling beside him and vainly endeavouring to staunch the flow of blood. "Oddly enough, the attack, from whatever quarter it came, was not followed up; but I heard two more shots fired on deck, and then a loud crashing and stamping in the fore part of the vessel, and judged that the mutineers were battening and barricading the forecastle. I unlocked the door and was going out to explore the situation, when the doctor spoke in a weak voice-- "'Quick, Trenoweth! never mind me.
I've got the main artery torn to pieces and can't last many more minutes--but quick for the captain's cabin and get the guns.
They'll be down presently, as soon as they've finished up there.' "Opening the door and telling Mrs.Concanen--who although white as a sheet never lost her presence of mind for a moment--to lock it after me, I stole along the passage, gained the captain's cabin, found two guns, a small keg of powder (to get at which I had to smash in a locker with the butt-end of one of the guns), and some large shot, brought I suppose for shooting gulls. "I found also a large packet of revolver cartridges, but no revolver; and it suddenly struck me that the shots already fired must have been from the captain's revolver, taken probably from his dead body. Yes, as I remembered the sound of the shots I was sure of it. The mutineers had probably no other ammunition, and so far I was their master. "Fearful that by smashing the locker I had made noise enough to be heard above the turmoil on deck, I returned swiftly and had just reached the door of Concanen's cabin, when I heard a shout above, and a man whom I recognised by the voice as Johnston, the carpenter, came rushing down the steps crying, 'Hide me, doctor, hide me!' As Mrs. Concanen opened the door in answer to my call, another shot was fired, the man suddenly threw up his hands and we tumbled into the cabin together.
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