THE BEASTS OF TARZAN
ing influence of her rifle, she ordered them upon deck with the intention of again imprisoning them in the forecastle; but at length she permitted herself to be influenced by their promises of loyalty and the arguments which they put forth that they could be of service to her, and permitted them to remain above.
For a few minutes the Kincaid drifted rapidly with the current, and then, with a grinding jar, she stopped in mid-stream. The ship had run upon a low-lying bar that splits the channel about a quarter of a mile from the sea.
For a moment she hung there, and then, swinging round until her bow pointed toward the shore, she broke adrift once more.
At the same instant, just as Jane Clayton was congratulating herself that the ship was once more free, there fell upon her ears from a point up the river about where the Kincaid had been anchored the rattle of musketry and a woman's scream—shrill, piercing, fear-laden.
The sailors heard the shots with certain conviction that they announced the coming of their employer, and as they had no relish for the plan that would consign them to the deck of a drifting derelict, they whispered together a hurried plan to
[ 254 ]
