“All hell's broken loose below,” said the young Scotchman. “Chief's down there. I tried to get to him, but--God, they're all over the place--fighting one another.”
“Who are, MacKail?” Doane hurriedly drew on trousers and coat, and thrust his feet into his slippers.
“The viceroy's soldiers. Revolutionary stuff.”
Doane got his automatic pistol from a drawer in the desk; quickly filled an extra clip with cartridges; went forward. The Scotchman had already gone aft.
The engine was still running, the steamer moving steadily up the moonlit river. The uproar below decks sounded muffled, far-away. It might have been nothing more than a little night excitement in a village along the shore. The shooting continued. Men were shouting. There were more shrill screams; and then splashes overside. As he hurried forward, staring over the rail, Doane caught a passing glimpse of a face down there in the foam and a white arm. The white men were stumbling drowsily out of their cabins; he saw one of the customs men, in pajamas, and Tex Connor. They hurled questions at him but he brushed them aside.
Captain Benjamin stood over the cringing pilot with a revolver.
“Engine room don't answer!” he shouted coolly enough. “And we can't get to it. Take MacKail and try to get through. I'll make this rat keep her in the channel.”
Doane ran back. More of the men were out, talking excitedly together. He paused to say: “Get any weapons you have, every man of you, and see that none but women get up to this deck! Keep the men down!”
MacKail stood at the head of the port after stairway, outside the rear cabins, a big Australian beside him.
“They're just naturally carving one another up,” observed the Australian.
“Come,” said Doane, and went down the steps.
The noise and confusion were great down here. Women were crowding out of the lower cabins, sobbing hysterically, tearing their hair and beating their breasts, crowding forward and aft along the deckway or climbing awkwardly over the rail and slipping off into the river.
Doane shouted a reassuring word in their own tongue; pointed to the steps; finally drew one girl forcibly back from the rail and started her up. Others followed, screaming all the way. Still others clung to the white men.