The three players sprang to their feet, and one of them sent a loud cry ringing into the darkness before he sprawled senseless, with his head laid open by the butt-end of Ferrier's pistol. In this unlooked-for onslaught, that had come upon them as suddenly as the swoop of a squall in a treacherous sea, they struck blindly about, stumbling into the arms of the swarming, unrecognized figures that had poured in on their security out of the peaceful night. James had kicked over the lantern, and the cards lay scattered about under foot, white spots in the dimness. The bank of cloud was thinning a little round the moon, and the angles of the objects on deck began to be more clearly blocked out. One of the three, who had contrived to wrench himself from his assailant's hold, sprang away and raced towards the after-part of the ship, where, with the carelessness of security, he had left his musket. Three successive shots was the signal for help from the _Venture_ in case of emergency, and he made a gallant effort to get free to send this sign of distress across the strait. But he was headed back and overpowered before he could carry out his intention. One of his companions was lying as if dead on the deck, and the other, who had been cajoled to silence by the suggestive caress of a pistol at the back of his ear, was having his arms bound behind him with his own belt.
Not a shot had been fired. Except for that one cry from the man who lay so still at their feet, no sound but the scuffling and cursing on the barque disturbed the quiet. Ferrier's men hustled their prisoners below into the cabin, where they were gagged and secured and left under the charge of a couple of soldiers. No roving citizen troubled the neighbourhood at this hour, for the fly-by-nights of Montrose looked farther inland for their entertainment, and the fisher-folk, who were the principal dwellers in the poor houses skirting the quays, slept sound, and recked little of who might be quarrelling out of doors so long as they lay warm within them. The barque was some way up-stream from the general throng of shipping--apart, and, as Hall had thought, the more safe for that, for his calculations had taken no count of an enemy who might come from anywhere but the town. He had never dreamed of the silent band which had been yielded up by the misty stretches of the Basin.