The vanguard of Russians leaped for his legs, but he drew himself up and worked toward the crow’s-nest with beating heart. He reached the Jacob’s ladder and went out instead of going through the lubber’s hole. Here he turned and stared downward; the deck seemed far away; a whizzing belaying pin missed his head by many feet. He chuckled and touched his face with his hand. Blood was there from some unnoticed wound.
Whiskered faces showed through the gloom, and Stirling chuckled for a second time and climbed swiftly to the crow’s-nest. Dropping inside, he pressed his chin to the edge of the nest and glanced toward the rocky wall which loomed over the ship. Other Russians were descending the trail that led to the shelving beach, and he watched a score more who were swimming through the dark waters of the harbour.
Suddenly all the fight went out of him, as water leaves a sponge. The odds were far too great—Marr and the seaman and the girl comprised the afterguard. They were well armed, but the invaders were in such number as to indicate the exodus of an army. They either had worked northward by land from Vladivostok, or, concluded Stirling, they had taken ships and been wrecked on the coast. This was a possibility, considering the remote locality of the Gulf of Anadir.
A call lifted upward from the dark side; Stirling turned away from the harbour view and looked downward. A revolutionist stood by the square outline of the after hatch, and he raised his arms.
Five Russians were climbing the starboard shrouds, each with a knife in hand. Each glared down at the man on the after hatch and then resumed climbing.
Stirling leaned farther out, steadied his revolver, sighted it in the half light, and blazed the night with a cone of leaping fire. He fired for a second time. One Russian let go his knife, spun on the ratlines, and dropped like a plummet to the deck below. The others hurried from their exposed position and crouched under the Jacob’s ladder where a jack offered some shelter. Stirling waited for an open sight at these two.
The man near the hatch shouted an order. The two invaders grasped lines and slid to the deck. They landed clumsily and staggered for the gloom of the whaleboats. Stirling replaced his revolver in his pocket and sank back into the crow’s-nest. The attack had steadied his nerves, and he felt secure for some time to come.