"Marie," Madame cried again, "_es tu morte_?"
It was the silliest of enquiries, yet it penetrated the dulled ear of the sorely bruised girl.
"_Oui, Madame_," groaned Marie. "_Je suis morte, morte, absolument._"
"So that's all right," cried Madame, much relieved. The maid had risen to a lofty eminence in the opinion of the mistress, when she, inspired by her brave French blood, had sprung upon the back of the murder-filled savage. She had staked her life, and come nigh to losing her stake, to gain time for the mistress whom she had no great reason to love.
"I am pinned down and cannot move," explained Madame. "Try to open the door and then scream as loudly as you can."
"Where is the terrible Lord?" muttered Marie, still not wholly conscious. "I woke with his face against mine. He pricked my breast with his sharp steel."
"Tell me later," cried Madame. "He is dead. Open the door and scream."
The heap moved slowly, and Marie somehow got the door open. Then she howled.
A steward ran up and thrust in his gaping head.
"Call the Captain," ordered Madame sharply.
Summoned by an urgent message, of which he could make no sense, Ching leaped down from his bridge and a moment later stepped over Marie's body into Madame's cabin.
Madame, lying with Willie stretched across her, his feet and hands drooping to the deck on either side, raised her right hand, and beckoned to the Skipper with her pistol muzzle.
"See, I have killed him. It happened very quickly."
Before the slow-witted Skipper could take in this astonishing situation, Alexander Ewing burst through the ring of sailors which had clustered about the door. A rumour had flown through the ship that Madame Gilbert was dead. Alexander burst into her cabin, white and shaking, for he loved her.
The air still reeked with the acrid taste of burnt cordite, and for a moment Alexander could see no more of Madame than a glorious mass of copper tresses on the white pillow beyond Willie's shoulder. He groaned "Is she dead? Is our Madame really dead?"
"Not much," came the voice which he loved. "If you will lift off the body of this unhappy, foolish boy, you will find me very much alive, Sandy dear."
They raised with gentle hands the limp body of the Twenty-Eighth Baron of Topsham, who never now would enter upon his hereditary dignities; they lifted the body, and laid it on the floor. There was no sign about him of a weapon, and both men looked enquiringly at Madame. She pointed between her bed and the wall, and Ewing leaning over picked up the trench dagger.