I had forgot to say that, as he ran, the Captain had drawn his sword.
In the confusion which followed on the discovery of BLUENOSE, I could
not rightly tell how each thing fell out; indeed, from where I lay,
with the men crowding together in front of me, to see at all was no
easy matter. But this I saw clearly. The Captain stood in the corner,
his blade raised to strike. BLUENOSE never stirred, but his breath
came and went, and his eyelids blinked strangely, like the flutter of
a sere leaf against the wall. There came a roar of voices, and, in the
tumult, the Captain's sword flashed quickly, and fell. Then, with a
broken cry like a sheep's bleat, the great seamed face fell separate
from the body, and a fountain of blood rose into the air from the
severed neck, and splashed heavily upon the sanded floor of the
parlour.
"Man, man!" cried the Doctor, angrily, "what have ye done? Ye've kilt
BLUENOSE, and with him goes our chance of the treasure. But, maybe,
it's not yet too late."
So saying, he plucked the head from the floor and clapped it again
upon its shoulders. Then, drawing a long stick of sealing-wax from
his pocket, he held it well before the Captain's ruddy face. The wax
splattered and melted. The Doctor applied it to the cut with deft
fingers, and with a strange condescension of manner in one so proud.
My heart beat like a bird's, both quick and little; and on a sudden
BLUENOSE raised his dripping hands, and in a quavering kind of voice
piped out--
"Fifteen two and a pair make four."
But we had heard too much, and the next moment we were speeding with
terror at our backs across the desert moorland.