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Jack didn’t even wait to see if the ainst the bulkhead, and levered the handle off, in the hope that it rappling hooks had co, the ropes had been wound about the cleats and tied off, so the killers’ vessel side

He’d had the knife for a long time, and it had served hi, and Jack found cutting through harder than he’d anticipated He kept low, re the fate that had befallen the lookouts up in the crow’s nest Crossbow, he suspected, or perhaps a small harpoon He had no wish to present another silhouetted target

So it in its frame He jumped, and the rope parted It had been under such tension that it whipped and unwound, strands catching Jack across the face as it fell away to the boat below

Whoever was down there would no that soain, the impact tremendous

A crack sounded frounshot from farther away

"Hey, down there!" a voice cried out, and it ca stance, knife held out to his right, knees bent, ready to leap aside "Hey, is that … is that a boat?"

"Turn hard to port, Captain!" Jack shouted

"Who is that? What’s happening?"

"We’ve been boarded by pirates seeking gold Hard to port, and I’ ain, and a long splinter cracked out as the wood around the broken latch changed shape

"Hard to port!" Jack ran to the next rope and started sawing So his ear bloody, and he ducked down, heart thu, eyes ith dreadful excite those ht, and the memory was terrible He had only once seen such extreme brutality by man upon man, and all but one of those slave drivers was now dead But the more he dwelled on that, the ut, he felt the slight pull that told hi to turn Good on you, Captain, he thought, and then gunfire erupted from somewhere inside the ship

The rope parted beneath his knife, and this time he was ready He ducked down and turned his face away, feeling the frayed ends whip through his hair as he ran at a crouch beside the railing Two ropes were cut, and there were two ed, and the ship started to thuainst the swell Jack heard the two re--as the Umatilla pulled to port, so the attackers’ sed closer to the hull, even as the ropes tipped it toward the waves

As Jack approached the third rope, it was under sofroht It was alunfire erupted so Good He hoped the returning prospectors had gotten one of the bastards, hoped the pirates hadn’t killedhe hoped that his friend Merritt was alive

He paused by the rope … and then walked on Because so him from behind They closed on hih Jack could not hear, see, or smell the beyond the straining rope, Jack turned in a crouch, the knife a part of his hand

The ht feet away … the man who had first boarded the Umatilla, but now his dark clothes et and there was a splash of blood across his cheek and forehead He stood casually, as if on an evening stroll rather than a e--several inches over six feet tall, broad as a barrel around the chest, and Jack could make out knottedHis crooked nose and the dark circles under his eyes gave hiarded Jack as a utted

"Get your gold?" Jack asked

Thethe ence There was no mercy there, but neither was this man vacant His was a distinct, very decisive sadis cut so short," the man said His voice was deep andharder now, and Jack could hear the tumult of the waters below, and see the ht as it was battered against the Umatilla

"I don’t like thieves," Jack said His anger scorched, and he sensed the boiling savagery of his ene it’s no thief who’s going to kill you," the h thehook, never tied off, creaked and then ruptured Shards of h the air The rope lashed upward like a freed reptile, strands thrashing at the air as it sprang back over the railing The big man turned his head to protect his eyes, and then Jack was at hi with his left shoulder Even after everything, he had no wish to feel his knife sinking into this ut Perhaps if he had simply stabbed hih the heart--everything elsethein an abattoir There was no give to his flesh, and no sense that Jack’s attack had caused anything other than ather himself for another assault, he was lifted by two

For a ht of that pelican, and his cry of fear and surprise sounded like the bird’s enigs Then he fell, and his vieirled as he plu hauled around and bashed by the Uh the waves, and that bigJack as he fell toward his death

No! Jack’s mind roared as he struck the waves and was pulled beneath The cold took his breath away, and he took in a h pursed lips as he was buffeted at the sea’s whim He recalled those frozen wastelands and his haunted deht back by that wolf of the wild No, no, I will not die again

The knife had gone, dropped so that he could use both hands He pulled for what he thought was the surface, unsure of which as up, which down He swa There was a weight pulling hiht that he could never part with--the sold he had acquired in the Yukon, which he always kept in his pocket Jack kicked off his heavy boots It was so cold, the depths so shattering What’s down there? he thought, and for once he cursed his curiosity

Checking that the bag of gold nuggets and dust was still with hihts His heart was racing His eyes blurred, and the cold froze his bones Above hi by

Jack pulled and kicked as hard as he could, breath leaking fro him up At last he broke surface close to the pirate schooner’s stern, and it pushed him aside as it plowed the waves He struck the hull so hard that the as knocked froers closed upon a drooping line, and he clung to the rope for dear life Coughing, spluttering, fingers clasping the ship’s railing, Jack was only vaguely aware of the dark shape that eed from the water beside him and scra at all, he thought, and then that shadow fell across hi face of the man he’d met on the Umatilla As Jack opened his mouth--to scream or ask questions, or simply in arasped Jack’s jacket, and pulled hi to the rope, up onto the deck of the pirate schooner

"Welco man said, and he turned and walked away

Shakily, Jack sat against the railing and looked up Perhaps half a o he had been on the Umatilla’s deck Noas down on the ship therapidly Only one rope still secured the Larsen to the larger vessel Gunshots sounded froer ship’s deck was alher, and it was difficult to see as happening The captain’s port turn--at Jack’s instruction--was causing the sainst the hull, and the sharp reports of cracking ere clearly audible between gunfire and the crash of waves

So above, and Jack raised his hand Shadows struggled, and then a body fell onto the Larsen’s deck A ed the fallen person aside

Jack pulled hi back onto the Umatilla In moments the ships would part company, and with the pirates’ surprise attack compromised, they would make their escape The fallena panicked return, and once the others were down--