"Sink us, then, and be hanged to you!"  I yelled back in reply.  Then in my exasperation I whipped a pistol out of my belt, and levelling it at him, pulled the trigger.  But he did not mean to be shot if he could help it,--preferring, I suppose, to take the risk of being hanged later on,--and the moment that he saw what I would be at he sprang off his perch so hurriedly that he fell headlong to the deck, while our lads sent up a howl of savage derision.