With that the villain squeezed my windpipe still tighter, and quite unable either to struggle or speak, I was giving myself up for lost, when his hold suddenly relaxed, and groaning deeply, he sank beside me on the deck.  Freed from his weight, I staggered to my feet to find that I owed my life to Angela, who had used her dagger to such purpose that Kidd was like never to speak again.

“Ramon!  Ramon!  Haste, or that man will kill him,” she cried, all in a tremble, and pale with horror at the thought of her own boldness.

Yawl’s onslaught was so sudden that the boy had been unable to draw his machete, and after a desperate bout of tugging and straining, the sailor had got the upper-hand and was now kneeling on Ramon’s chest, and feeling for his knife.  Though sorely bruised with my fall, and still gasping for breath, I ran to the rescue, and gripping Yawl by the shoulders, bore him backward on the deck.  Another moment, and we had him at our mercy; I held down his head, while Ramon, astride on his body, pinioned his arms.

“Now, look here, Yawl!” I said.  “You have tried to commit murder and deserve to die; your comrade and accomplice is dead, but I will spare your life on conditions.  You must promise to obey my orders as if I were your captain, and you under articles of war, and help me to work the sloop to Callao, or some other port on the mainland.  In return, I promise not to bring any charge against you when we get there.”

“All right, sir!  Kidd was my master, and I obeyed him; now you are my master and I will obey you.”

I quite believed that the old salt was speaking sincerely.  He had been so completely under Kidd’s influence as to have no will of his own.

“Good! but there is something else.  I must have those diamonds he stole from my house at Alta Vista.  Where are they?”

“Stitched inside his jersey, under the arm-hole.”

I went to Kidd’s body, cut open his jersey, and found the diamonds in two small canvas bags.  They were among the largest I had and (as I subsequently found) worth fifty thousand pounds.  After we had thrown the body overboard, I ordered Yawl to put the sloop on the starboard tack, and myself taking the helm changed the course to due north.  Then I asked him who he and Kidd were, whence they came, and why they had so shamefully deceived me as to the course we were steering.

On this Yawl answered in a dry, matter-of-fact manner, as if it were all in the way of business, that Kidd had been captain and he boatswain and carpenter of a “free-trader,” known as the Sky Scraper, Sulky Sail, and by several other aliases; that the captain and crew fell out over a division of plunder, of which Kidd wanted the lion’s share, the upshot being that he and Yawl, who had taken sides with him, were shoved into the dinghy and sent adrift.  In these circumstances they naturally made for the nearest land, which proved to be Quipai, and deeming