Chapter II

Five years passed. Times had changed with me. I had long since left my humble quarters at Miss Buffum's and now had two rooms in an uptown apartment-house. My field of work, too, had become enlarged. I had ceased to write for the Sunday papers and was employed on special articles for the magazines. This had widened my acquaintance with men and with life. Heretofore I had known the dark alleys and slums, the inside of station-houses, bringing me in contact with the police and with some of the detectives, among them Alcorn of the Central Office, a man who had sought me out of his own accord. Many of these trusted me and from them I gathered much of my material. Now I explored other fields. With the backing of the editor I often claimed seats at the opening of important conventions--not so much political as social and scientific; so, too, at many of the public dinners given to our own and distinguished foreign guests, would a seat be reserved for me, my object being the study of men when they were off their guard--reading their minds, finding out the man behind the mask, a habit I had never yet thrown off. Most men have some mental fad--this was mine. Sometimes my articles found an echo in a note written to me by the guests themselves; this would fill me with joy. Often I was criticised for the absurdity of my views.

On this occasion a great banquet was to be given to Prince Polinski, a nephew of the Czar and possible heir to the throne. The press had been filled with the detail of his daily life--of the dinners, teas and functions given by society in his honor; of his reception by the mayor, of his audience at the White House; of the men who guarded his person; of his "opinions," "impressions" and "views" on this, that and the other thing, but so far no one had dissected the man himself.

What our editor wanted was a minute analysis of the mind of a young Russian studied at close range. The occasion of the banquet was selected because I could then examine him at my leisure. The results were to be used by the editor in an article of his own, my memoranda being only so much padding.

When I entered and took up a position near the door where I could look him over, Delmonico's largest reception-room was crowded with guests: bankers, railroad presidents, politicians, officers of the army and navy, judges, doctors, and the usual collection of white shirt-fronts that fill the seats at a public dinner of this kind. The Prince was in the uniform of an officer of the Imperial Navy. He was heavily built and tall, with a swarthy face enlivened by a pointed mustache. The Russian Ambassador at his side was in full dress and wore a number of decorations: these two needed no pointing out. Some of the others were less distinguishable-among them a heavily-built man in evening-dress, with a full beard and mustache which covered his face almost to his eyes--soft and bushy as the hair on a Spitz dog and as black. With a leather apron and a broad-axe he would have passed at a masquerade for an executioner of the olden time. Despite this big beard, there was a certain bearing about the man--a certain elegance both of manner and gesture--talking with his hands, accentuating his sentences with outstretched fingers, lifting his shoulders in a shrug (I saw all this from across the room where I stood)--that showed clearly not only his high position, but his breeding. What position he held under the Prince I was, of course, unaware, but it must have been very close, for the big Russian kept him constantly at the royal side. I noted, too, that the Prince was careful to introduce him to many who were brought up to shake his hand.

When the procession was formed to march into the dining-hall, Polinski came first on the arm of the mayor; then followed a group of dignitaries, including the Ambassadors, the black-bearded man walking by the side of the Prince, who would now and then turn and address him.

My seat was against the wall opposite the dais, and knowing that I should have scant opportunity to study the Prince's face from where I sat, I edged my way along the side of the corridor, the crowd making progress difficult for him, but easy for me, as I crept close to the wall. When I reached the door opening into the banquet hall I took up a position just inside the jamb, so that I could get a full view of the Prince as he passed.

At this instant I became aware that a pair of broad shoulders were touching mine. Turning quickly, I found myself looking into the face of the bearded Russian. His eyes were fastened on mine, an inquiring, rather surprised look on his face, as if he was wondering at the bad manners of a man who would thrust himself ahead of a royal personage. For an instant the features were calm and impassive, then as he continued to look at me there flashed out of his eyes a search-light glance that shot straight through me.

It was Bing!

Bearded like a Cossack; more heavily built, solemn, dignified, elegant in carriage and demeanor, with not a trace of jollity about him--but Bing all the same! I could have sworn to it!

The flash burned for an instant; the eyes behind the canvas dodged back, then with a graceful wave of the hand he turned to the Ambassador who was now abreast of him and said in a voice so low that I caught the words but not the full tone:

"Isn't it a charming sight, your Excellency? There is nothing like the hospitality of these wonderful Americans." And the two passed into the brilliantly-lighted hall.

I made my way to my seat and sat thinking it over. That he had recognized me was without question; that he had ignored me was equally true--why, I could not tell.

For years I had made him one of my heroes. He had stood for cheerfulness, for contentment with one's lot, for consideration for another--and always a weaker brother. When his abrupt departure had been criticised by my fellow-boarders, I had stemmed the tide against him, dilating on his love for his children, on his loneliness away from them; on his simplicity, his common-sense, his desire to help even a young fellow like me who had no claim upon him. In return he had seen fit to treat me with contempt--I who would have been so proud to tell him how his advice had helped me and what progress I had made by following it.

The incident took such hold upon me that I found myself dissecting his mentality instead of that of the Great Personage in the public eye. As I analyzed my feelings I found that he had hurt my heart more than my pride. I would have been so glad to shake his hand--so glad to rejoice with him over his changed conditions--once the occupant of a front room in a cheap boarding-house, supporting himself by filling space in the columns of an encyclopaedia, and now the bosom friend of Princes and Ambassadors!

Then a doubt arose in my mind. WAS it Bing? Had I not made a mistake? How could a smooth-shaven Dane with blond hair transform himself into a swarthy Russian with the beard of a Cossack? There was, it is true, no change in the eyes or in the round head--in the whiteness and width of the forehead, or the breadth of the shoulders. All these I went over one by one as I watched him every now and then lean across the table and speak to some of the distinguished guests that surrounded him. The thing which puzzled me was his grave, sedate demeanor, dignified, almost austere at times. A man, I thought, might grow a beard and dye it, but how could he grow a different set of manners, how smother his jollity, how wipe out his spontaneous buoyancy?

No, it was not Bing! It was only my stupid self. I was always ready to find the mysterious and unnatural. I turned to the guest next me.

"Do you know who that man is on the dais," I asked; "the one all black and white, with the big beard?"

"Yes, one of the Prince's suite; some jaw-breaking name with an '-usski' on the end of it. He brought him with him; looks like a bull pup chewing a muff, doesn't he?"

I smiled at the comparison, but I was still in doubt.

When the banquet broke up I hurried out ahead of the others and posted myself at the top of the staircase leading down to the side door of the street. The Prince's carriage--an ordinary cab--was ordered to this door to escape the crowd and to avoid any delay. This I learned from my old friend Alcorn of the Central Office, who was in charge of the detectives at the dinner, and who in answer to my request said:

"Certainly I'll let you through. Come alone, and don't speak to me as you go by. I'll say you're one of us. The crowd thinks he's going out by the other door, and you can get pretty close to him."

The Prince came first, wrapped in furs--the black-bearded Russian at his side in overcoat, silk hat and white gloves. The Ambassador and the others had bidden them good-night at the top of the staircase.

Under Alcorn's direction I had placed myself just inside the street door where I could slip out behind the Prince and his black-bearded companion. As a last resort I determined to walk straight up to him and say: "You haven't forgotten me, Mr. Bing, have you?" If I had changed so as to need proof of my identity Alcorn would furnish it. Whatever his answer, his voice would solve my mystery.

He walked down the stairs with an easy, swinging movement, keeping a little behind the Prince; waited until Alcorn had opened the street door and with a nod of thanks followed Polinski out into the night. Once outside I shrank back into the shadow of the doorway and held my breath to catch his first spoken word--to the coachman--to the Prince--to any one who came in his way.

At this moment a man in a slouch hat and poorly dressed, a light cane under his arm, evidently a tramp, hurried across the street to hold the cab door. I edged nearer, straining my ears.

The Prince bent his head and stooped to enter the cab. The tramp leaned forward, shot up his right arm; there came a flash of steel, and the next instant the tramp lay writhing on the sidewalk, one hand twisted under his back, the other held in the viselike grip of the black-bearded man. Alcorn rushed past me, threw himself on the prostrate tramp, slipped a pair of handcuffs over his wrists, dragged him to his feet, and with one hand on his throat backed him into the shadow of the side door.

The Prince smiled and stepped into his carriage. The black-bearded man dusted his white gloves one on the other, gave an order in a low tone to the coachman, took his place beside his companion and the two drove off.

I stood out in the rain and tried to pull myself together. The rapidity of the attack; the poise and strength of the black-bearded Russian; the quickness with which Alcorn had risen to the occasion; the absence of all outcry or noise of any kind--no one but ourselves witnessing the occurrence--had taken my breath away. That an attack had been made on the life of the Prince, and that it had been frustrated by his friend, was evident. It was also evident that accosting a Prince on the sidewalk at night without previous acquaintance was a dangerous experiment. When I recovered my wits both Alcorn and the would-be assassin had disappeared. So had the cab.

Only two morning journals had an account of the affair; one dismissed it with a fling at the police for not protecting our guests from annoyance, and the other stated that a drunken tramp had demanded the price of a night's lodging from the Prince as he was leaving Delmonico's, and that a member of the Prince's suite had held the fellow until a policeman came along and took him to the station-house. Not a word of the murderous lunge, the flash of steel, the viselike grip of the black-bearded man or the click of the handcuffs.

That night I found Alcorn.

"Did that fellow try to stab the Prince?" I asked.

"Yes."

"With a knife?"

"No, a sword cane."

"The papers didn't say so."

"No, I didn't intend they should. Wouldn't have been pleasant reading for his folks in St. Petersburg. Besides, we haven't rounded up his gang yet."

"The Prince didn't seem to lose his nerve?" I asked.

"No, he isn't built that way."

"You know him, then?"

"Yes--been with him every day since he arrived."

"Who is the black-bearded man with him?"

"He is his intimate friend, Count Lovusski. Been all over the world together."

"Is Lovusski his ONLY name?" This seemed to be my chance.

Alcorn turned quickly and looked into my face.

"On the dead quiet, is it?"

"Yes, Alcorn, you can trust me."

"No--he's got half a dozen of 'em. In Paris in '70 he was Baron Germunde with estates in Hungary. Lived like a fighting-cock; knew everybody at the Palace and everybody knew him--stayed there all through the Franco-Prussian War. In London in '75 he was plain Mr. Loring, trying to raise money for a mine somewhere in Portugal--knew nobody but stockbrokers and bank presidents. In New York five years ago he was Mr. Norvic Bing, and worked on some kind of a dictionary; lived in a boarding-house on Union Square."

I could not conceal my delight.

"I knew I was right!" I cried, laying my hand on his arm. "I lived with him there a whole winter."

"Yes, he told me so. That's why I am telling you the rest of it." Alcorn was smiling, a curious expression lighting his face.

"And how came he to be such a friend of the Prince's?" I asked.

"He isn't his friend--isn't anybody's friend. He's a special agent of the Russian Secret Service."

CAPTAIN JOE AND THE SUSIE ANN

Wide of beam, stout of mast, short-bowspritted, her boom clewed up to clear her deck load of rough stone; drawing ten feet aft and nine feet for'ard; a twelve-horse hoisting engine and boiler in her forecastle; at the tiller a wabbly-jointed, halibut-shaped, moon-faced (partially eclipsed, owing to a fringe of dark whiskers), sleepy-eyed skipper named Baxter,--such was the sloop Susie Ann, and her outfit and her commander, as she lay alongside the dock in New London Harbor, ready to discharge her cargo at the site of Shark Ledge Lighthouse, eight miles seaward.

On the dock itself, over a wharf post sprawled her owner, old Abram Marrows, a thin, long, badly put together man, awkward as a stepladder and as rickety, who, after trying everything from farming to selling a patent churn, had at last become a shipowner, the Susie Ann, comprising his entire fleet. Marrows had come to see her off; this being the sloop's first trip for the season.

Lying outside the Susie Ann--her lines fast to an off-shore spile, was the construction tug of the lighthouse gang, the deck strewn with diving gear, water casks and the like,--all needed in the furthering of the work at the ledge. On the tug's forward deck, hat off and jacket swinging loose, stood Captain Joe Bell in charge of the submarine work at the site, glorious old Captain Joe, with the body of a capstan, legs stiff as wharf posts, arms and hands tough as cant hooks and heart twice as big as all of them put together.

Each and every piece of stone,--some of them weighed seven tons,--stowed aboard the Susie Ann, was, when she arrived alongside the foundation of the lighthouse, to be lowered over her side and sent down to Captain Joe to place in thirty feet of water. This fact made him particular both as to the kind of vessel engaged and the ability of the skipper. Bad seamanship might not only endanger the security of the work but his own life as well,--a diver not being as quick as a crab or blackfish in getting from under a seven-ton stone dropped from tripdogs at the signal to "lower away."

Captain Joe's inspection of the Susie Ann's skipper was anything but satisfactory, judging from the way he opened his battery of protest.

"Baxter ain't fittin', I tell ye, Abram Marrows," he exploded. "He ain't fittin' and never will be. Baxter don't know most nothin'. Set him to grubbin' clams, Abram, but don't let him fool 'round the Ledge. He'll git the sloop ashore, I tell ye, or drop a stone and hurt somebody. Go and git a MAN som'ers and put him in charge,--not a half-baked--" here he lowered his muzzle and fired point-blank at the object of his wrath,--"Yes, and I'll say it to your face, Captain Baxter. You take my advice and lay off for this v'yage,--it ain't no picnic out to the Ledge. You ain't seen it since we got the stone 'bove high water. Reg'lar mill tail! You go ashore, I tell ye,--or ye'll lose the sloop."

Many of the men ranged along the top of the cabin of the tug, or perched on its rail, wondered at the vehemence of the captain's attack, "Moon-faced Baxter," as he was called, having a fair reputation as a seaman. They knew, too, that Captain Joe was aware of the condition of Marrows's affairs, for it had been common talk that the bank had loaned Abram several hundred dollars with the sloop as security on the captain's own personal inspection. Some of them had even been present when Mrs. Marrows,--a faded old woman with bleached eyes and a pursed-up mouth, her shawl hooding her head and pinned close under her chin with her thumb and forefinger,--had begged Captain Joe to try the Susie Ann for a few loads until Abram could "ketch up," and had heard his promise to help her.

But they made no protest. Such outbursts on the captain's part were but the escaping steam from the overcharged boiler of his indignation. Underneath lay the firebox of his heart, chock full of red-hot coals glowing with sympathy for every soul who needed his help. If his safety valve let go once in a while it was to escape from greater danger.

His long range ammunition exhausted, Captain Joe turned on his heel and walked aft to where his diving gear was piled, venting his indignation at every step. This time the outburst was directed to me,--(it was my weekly inspection at the Ledge).

"Can't jam nothin' into his head, sir. Stubbornest mule 'round this harbor. Warn't for that wife o' his Abe Marrows would a-been high and dry long ago. Every time he gits something purty good he goes and fools it away;--sold his farm and bought that sloop; then he clapped a plaster on it in the bank to start a cook shop. But the wife's all right;--only last week she come to me lookin' like she'd bu'st out cryin',--sayin' the sloop was all they had, and I promised her then I'd use the Susie, but she never said nothin' 'bout Baxter being in charge, or I'd stopped him 'fore he loaded her. Well, there ain't no tellin' what nat'ral born fools like Abe Marrows'll do, but it's something ornery and criss-cross if Abe Marrows does it. That woman's worked her fingers off for him, but he'll git her in the poor-house yit,--see if he don't."

Marrows had heard every word of Captain Joe's outburst, but he made no answer except to lift his thin elbows and spread his fingers in a deprecatory way, as if in protest. Baxter maintained a dogged silence;--the least said in answer the better. Captain Joe Bell was not a man either to contradict or oppose;--better let him blow it all out. Both owner and skipper determined to take the risk. The Susie Ann had been laid up all winter awaiting the opening of the spring work, and the successful carrying out of the present venture was Marrows's only escape from financial ruin, and Baxter's only chance of getting his back wages. There was an unpaid bill, too, for caulking, then a year old, lying in Abram's bureau drawer, together with an account at Mike Lavin's machine shop for a new set of grate bars, now almost worn out. Worse than all the bank's lien on the sloop was due in a few weeks. What money the sloop earned, therefore, must be earned quickly.

And then again, Abram ruminated, Shark Ledge wasn't the worst place on the coast,--despite Captain Joe's warning,--especially on this particular morning, when a light wind was blowing off shore. Plenty of other sloops had delivered stone over their rails to the divers below. Marrows remembered that he had been out to the Ledge himself when the Screamer came up into the wind and crawled slowly up until her forefoot was within a biscuit toss of the stone pile.

What Marrows forgot was that Captain Bob Brandt of Cape Ann had then held the spokes of the Screamer's wheel,--a man who knew every twist and turn of the treacherous tide.

So Baxter shook out the sloop's jib and mainsail and started on his journey eight miles seaward, with orders to make fast on arrival to the spar buoy which lay within a few hundred yards of the Ledge, and there wait until the tide turned, when she could drop into position to unload. The tug with all of us on board would follow when we had taken on fresh water and coal.

On the run out Captain Joe watched the sloop until she had made her first tack, then he turned to his work and again busied himself in overhauling his diving dress; tightening the set-screws in his copper collar, re-cording his breastplate and putting new leather thongs in his leaden shoes. There was some stone on the sloop's deck which was needed to complete a level down among the black fish and torn cod,--twenty-two feet down,--where the sea kelp streamed up in long blades above the top of his helmet and the rock crabs scurried out of his way. If Baxter didn't make a "tarnel fool of himself and git into one o' them swirl-holes," he intended to get these stones into place before night.

He knew these "holes," as he did every other swirl around the ledge and what they could do and what they couldn't. They were his swirls, really,--for he had placed every individual fragment of the obstructions that caused them with his own hands, in thirty feet of water.

Some three years before the site had been marked by a spindle bearing an iron cage and fastened to a huge boulder known as Shark Ledge Rock, and covered at low water. The unloading of various sloops and schooners under his orders had enlarged this submerged rock to a miniature island, its ragged crest thrust above the sea. This obstruction to the will of the wind and tide, and the ever-present six-mile current, caused by the narrowing of Long Island Sound in its onrush to the sea, acted as a fallen log that blocks a mountain stream, or a boulder that plugs a torrent. That which for centuries had been a steady "set" every six hours east and west, had now become a "back-and-in suck" fringed by a series of swirling undercurrents dealing death and destruction to the ignorant and unwary.

Not been long since a schooner loaded with concrete had been saved from destruction by the merest chance, and later on a big scow caught in the swirl had parted her buoy lines and would have landed high and dry on the stone pile had not Captain Joe run a hawser to her, twisted its bight around the drum of his engine and warped her off just in time to save her bones from sea worms.

As the tug approached, the Ledge, looming up on the dim horizon line, looked like a huge whale spouting derricks, a barnacle of a shanty clinging to its back. Soon there rose into relief the little knot of men gathered about one of the whale's fins--our landing stage,--and then, as we came alongside, the welcome curl of the smoke, telling of fried pork and saleratus biscuit.

Captain Joe's orders now came thick and fast.

"Hurry dinner, Nichols,"--this to the shanty cook, who was leaning out of the galley window,--"And here,--three or four o' ye, git this divin' stuff ashore, and then all hands to dinner. The wind's ag'in Baxter,--he won't git here for an hour. Startin' on one o' them long legs o' his'n now,"--and the captain's eye rested on the sloop beating up Fisher's Island way.

"And, Billy,--'fore ye go ashore, jump into the yawl and take a look at that snatch block on the spar buoy,--that clam digger may want it 'fore night."

This spar buoy lay a few hundred yards off the Whale's Snout. Loaded vessels were moored to this quill bob, held in place by a five-ton sinker, until they were ready to drop into the eddy and there discharge their stone.

Dinner over the men fell to work, each to his job. The derrick gang was set to shifting a boom on to the larger derrick, the concrete mixers picked up their shovels, and I went to work on the pay-roll of the week. This I always figured up in the little dry-goods box of a room opening out of the galley in the end of our board shanty, its window looking toward Montauk.

As I leaned my arms on the sill for a glimpse of the wide expanse of blue and silver, the cotton rag that served as a curtain flapped in my face. I pushed it aside and craned my neck north and south. The curtain had acted as a weather vane,--the wind had hauled to the east.

The sky, too, had dulled. Little lumpy clouds showed near the horizon line, and, sailing above these, hung a dirt spot of vapor, while aloft glowed some prismatic sundogs, shimmering like opals. Etched against the distance, with a tether line fastened to the spar buoy, lay the Susie Ann. She had that moment arrived and had made fast. Her sails were furled, her boom swinging loose and ready, the smoke from her hoister curling from the end of her smoke pipe thrust up out of the forward hatch.

Then I looked closer in.

Below me, on the concrete platform, rested our big air pump, and beside it stood Captain Joe. He had slipped into his diving dress and was at the moment adjusting the breastplates of lead, weighing twenty-five pounds each, to his chest and back. His leaden shoes were already on his feet. With the exception of his copper helmet, the signal line around his wrist, and the life line about his waist, he was ready to go under water.

Pretty soon he would don his helmet, and, with a last word to Jimmy, his tender, would tuck his chin whisker inside the round opening, wait until the face plate was screwed on, and then, with a cheerful nod behind the glass, denoting that his air was coming all right, would step down his rude ladder into the sea,--down,--down,--down to his place among the crabs and the seaweed.

Suddenly my ears became conscious of a conversation carried on in a low tone around the corner of the shanty.

"Old Moon-face'll have to git up and git in a minute," said a derrick man to a shoveller,--born sailors, these,--"there'll be a red-hot time 'round here 'fore night."

"Well, there ain't no wind."

"Ain't no wind,--ain't there? See that bobble waltzin' in?"

I looked seaward, and my eyes rested on a ragged line of silver edging the horizon toward Montauk.

"Does look soapy, don't it?" answered the shoveller. "Wonder if Cap'n Joe sees it."

Cap'n Joe had seen it--fifteen minutes ahead of anybody else,--had been watching it to the exclusion of any other object. He knew the sea,--knew every move of the merciless, cunning beast; had watched it many a time, lying in wait for its chance to tear and strangle. More than once had he held on to the rigging when, with a lash of its tail, it had swept a deck clean, or had stuck to the pumps for days while it sucked through opening seams the life-blood of his helpless craft. The game here would be to lift its victim on the back of a smooth under-roller and with mighty effort hurl it like a battering ram against the shore rocks, shattering its timbers into drift wood.

"Billy," said Captain Joe to the shoveller, "go down to the edge of the stone pile and holler to the sloop to cast off and make for home. Hurry, now! And, Jimmy,"--this to his pump tender,--"unhook this breastplate,--there won't be no divin', today. I've been mistrustin' the wind would haul ever since I got up this mornin'."

The shoveller sprang from the platform and began clambering over the slippery, slimy rocks like a crab, his red shirt marked with the white "X" of his suspenders in relief against the blue water. When he reached the outermost edge of the stone pile, where the ten-ton blocks lay, he made a megaphone of his fingers and repeated the captain's orders to the Susie Ann.

Baxter listened with his hands cupped to his ears.

"Who says so?" came back the reply.

"Cap'n Joe."

"What fur?"

"Goin' to blow,--don't ye see it?"

Baxter stepped gingerly along the sloop's rail. Obeying the order meant twenty-four hour's delay in making sure of his wages,--perhaps a week, spring weather being uncertain. He didn't "see no blow." Besides, if there was one coming, it wasn't his sloop or his stone. When he reached the foot of the bowsprit Moon-face sent this answer over the water:

"Let her blow and be d--! This sloop's chartered to deliver this stone. We've got steam up and the stuff's goin' over outside. Get your divers ready. I ain't shovin' no baby carriage and don't you forgit it. I'm comin' on! Cast off that buoy line, you,"--this to one of his men.

Captain Joe continued stripping off his leaden breastplate. He had heard his order repeated and knew that it had been given correctly,--Baxter's subsequent proceedings did not interest him. If he had anything to say in answer it was of no moment to him. His word was law on the Ledge; first, because the men daily trusted their lives to his guidance, and, second, because they all loved him with a love hard for a landsman to understand, especially today, when the boss and the gang never, by any possibility, pull together.

"Baxter says he's comin' on, sir," said Billy, when he reached the captain's side, the grin on his sunburnt face widening until its two ends hooked over his ears. Billy had heard nothing so funny for weeks.

"Comin' on?"

"That's what he hollered. Wants you to git ready to take his stuff, sir."

I was out of the shanty now. I came in two jumps. With that squall rushing from the eastward and the tide making flood, any man who would leave the protection of the spar buoy for the purpose of unloading was fit for a lunatic asylum.

Captain Joe had straightened up and was screening his eyes with his hand when I reached his side, his gaze rivetted on the loosened sloop, which had now hauled in her tether line and was drifting clear of the buoy. The captain was still incredulous.

"No, he ain't comin'," he said to me. "He's all right,--he'll port his helm in a minute,--but he'd better send up his jib"--and he swept his eye around,--"and that quick, too."

At this instant the sloop wavered and lurched heavily. The outer edge of the insuck had caught her bow.

Men's minds work quickly in times of great danger,--minds like Captain Joe's. In a flash he had taken in the fast-approaching roller, froth-capped by the sudden squall; the surging vessel and the scared face of Baxter, who, having realized his mistake was now clutching wildly at the tiller and shouting orders to his men, none of which could be carried out. Captain Joe knew what would happen,--what had happened before, and what would happen again with fools like Baxter,--now,--in a minute,--before he could reach the edge of the stone pile, hampered as he was in a rubber suit that bound his arms and tied his great legs together. And he understood too the sea's game, and that the only way to outwit it would be to use the beast's own tactics. When it gathered itself for the thrust and started in to hurl the doomed vessel the full length of its mighty arms, the sloop's only safety lay in widening the space. A cushion of backwater would then receive the sloop's forefoot in place of the snarling teeth of low crunching rocks.

He had kicked off both shoes by this time and was shouting out directions to Baxter, who was slowly and surely being sucked into the swirl:--

"Up with your jib! No,--NO! Let that mainsail alone! UP! Do ye want to git her on the stone pile, you? Port your helm! PORT! O GOD!--Look at him!!"

Captain Joe had slid from the platform now and was flopping his great body over the slimy, slippery rocks like a seal, falling into water holes every other step, crawling out on his belly, rolling from one slanting stone to another, shouting to his men, every time he had the breath:--

"Man that yawl and run a line as quick as God'll let ye--out to the buoy! Do ye hear? Pull that fall off the drum of the h'ister and git the end of a line on it! She'll be on top of us in a minute and the mast out of her! QUICK!"

Jimmy sprang for a coil of rope; Billy and the others threw themselves after him; while half a dozen men working around the small eddy in the lee of the diminutive island caught up the oars and made a dash for the yawl.

All this time the sloop, under the uplift of the first big Montauk roller,--the skirmish line of the attack,--surged, bow on, to destruction. Baxter, although shaking with fear, had sense enough left to keep her nose pointed to the stone pile. The mast might come out of her, but that was better than being gashed amidships and sunk in thirty feet of water.

Captain Joe, his rubber suit wet and glistening as a shiny porpoise, his hair matted to his head, had now reached the outermost rock opposite the doomed craft, and stood near enough to catch every expression that crossed Baxter's face, who, white as chalk, was holding the tiller with all his strength, cap off, his blousy hair flying in the increasing gale, his mouth tight shut. Go ashore she must. It would be every man for himself then. No help would come,--no help COULD come. Captain Joe and his men would run for shelter as soon as the blow fell, and leave them to their fate. Men like Baxter are built to think this way.

All these minutes--seconds, really,--Captain Joe stood bending forward, watching where the sloop would strike, his hands outstretched in the attitude of a ball-player awaiting a ball. If her nose should hit the sharp, square edges of one of the ten-ton blocks, God help her! She would split wide open like a melon. If by any chance her forefoot should be thrust into one of the many gaps between the enrockment blocks,--spaces from two to three feet wide,--and her bow timbers thus take the shock, there was a living chance to save her.

A cry from Baxter, who had dropped the tiller and was scrambling over the stone-covered deck to the bowsprit, reached the captain's ears, but he never altered his position. What he was to do must be done surely. Baxter didn't count,--wasn't in the back of his head. There were plenty of willing hands to pick up Baxter and his men.

Then a thing happened which, if I had not seen it, I would never have believed possible. The water cushion of the outsuck helped,--so did the huge roller which, in its blind rage, had underestimated the distance between its lift and the wide-open jaws of the rock,--as a maddened bull often underestimates the length of its thrust, its horns falling short of the matador.

Whatever the cause, Captain Joe watched his chance, sprang to the outermost rock, and, bracing his great snubbing posts of legs against its edge, reversed his body, caught the wavering sloop on his broad shoulders, close under her bowsprit chains, and pushed back with all his might.

Then began a struggle between the strength of the man and the lunge of the sea. With every succeeding onslaught, and before the savage roller could fully lift the staggering craft to hurl her to destruction, Captain Joe, with the help of the outsuck, would shove her back from the waiting rocks. This was repeated again and again,--the men in the rescuing yawl meanwhile bending every muscle to carry out the captain's commands.

Sometimes his head was free enough to shout his orders, and sometimes both man and bow were smothered in suds.

"Keep that fall clear!" would come his order "Stand ready to catch the yawl! Shut that--" here a souse would stop his breath,--"shut that furnace door! Do ye want the steam out of the b'iler?"--etc., etc.

That the slightest misstep on the slimy rocks on which his feet were braced meant sending him under the sloop's bow where he would be caught between her forefoot and the rocks and ground into pulp concerned him as little as did the fact that Baxter and his men had crawled along the bowsprit over his head and had dropped to the island without wetting their shoes. That his diving suit was full of water and he soaking wet to the skin, made not the slightest difference to him--no more than it would to a Newfoundland dog saving a child. His thoughts were on other things,--on the rescuing yawl speeding toward the spar buoy, on the stout hands and knowing ones who were pulling for all they were worth to that anchor of safety;--on two of his own men who, seeing Baxter's cowardly desertion, had sprung like cats at the bowsprit of the sloop in one of her dives, and were then on the stern ready to pay out a line to the yawl when she reached the goal. No,--he'd hold on "till hell froze over."

A hawser now ripped itself clear from out the crest of a roller. This meant that the two cats, despite the increasing gale and thrash of the onrushing sea had succeeded in paying out a stern line to the men in the yawl, who had slipped it through the snatch block fastened in the buoy. It meant, too, that this line had been connected with the line they had brought with them from the island, its far end being around the drum of our hoister.

A shrill cry now came from one of the crew in the yawl alongside the spar buoy, followed instantly by the clear, ringing order, "GO AHEAD!"

Now a burst of feathery steam plumed skyward, and then the slow "chuggity-chug" of our drum cogs rose in the air. The stern line straightened until it was as rigid as a bar of iron, sagged for an instant under the slump of the staggering sloop, straightened again, and remained rigid. The sloop, held by the stern line, crept slowly back to safety.

Captain Joe looked over his shoulder, noted the widening distance, and leaped back to the inshore rocks.

Late that afternoon, when the tug, with Captain Joe and me on board, reached the tug's moorings in New London harbor, the dock was crowded with anxious faces,--Abram Marrows and his wife among them. It had been an anxious day along the shore road. The squall, which had blown for half an hour and had then slunk away toward Little Gull, grumbling as it went, had sent everything that could seek shelter bowling into New London Harbor under close reefs. It had also started Marrows and his wife on a run to the dock, where they had stood for hours straining their eyes seaward, each incoming vessel, as she swooped past the dock into the inner basin, adding to their anxiety.

"Wouldn't give a keg o' sp'ilt fish for her. Ain't a livin' chance o' savin' her," had bellowed the captain of a fishing smack, as he swept by, within biscuit-toss of the dock, his boom submerged, the water curling over the rail.

"She went slap ag'in them chunks o' cut stone!" shouted the mate of a tug through the window of a pilot house.

"Got her off with her bow split open, but they can't keep her free! Sunk by now, I guess," had yelled one of the crew of a dory making for the shipyard.

As each bulletin was shouted back over the water in answer to the anxious inquiries of Marrows, the wife would clasp her fingers the tighter. She made no moan or outburst. Abram would blame her and say it was her fault,--everything was her fault that went wrong.

When the tug had made fast to a wharf spile Captain Joe cleared the stringpiece, and walked straight to Marrows. He was still soaking wet underneath his clothes, only his outer garments being dry,--a condition which never affected him in the least, "salt water bein' healthy," he would say.

"What did I tell ye, Abram Marrows?" he exploded, in a voice that could be heard to the turnpike. "Didn't I say Baxter warn't fittin', and that he ought ter be grubbin' clams? Go and dig a hole some'er's and cover him up head and ears,--and dig it quick, too, and I'll lend ye a shovel."

"Well, but, Captain Joe,"--protested Marrows.

"Don't you 'well' me. Well, nothin'. You're bad as him. Go and dig a hole and BOTH on ye git in it!"--and he pushed through the crowd on his way to his house, I close at his heels.

The wife, who but that moment had heard the glad news of the rescue from the lips of a deck hand, now hurried after the captain and laid her hand on his arm. Her eyes were red from weeping; strands of gray hair strayed over her forehead and cheeks; her lips were tightly drawn; the anxiety of the last few hours had left its mark.

"Don't go, Captain Joe, till I kin speak to ye," she pleaded, in a trembling voice,--speaking through fingers pressed close to her lips.

"No,--I don't want to hear nothin'. She's all right, I tell ye,--tighter 'n a drum and not a drop of water in her. Got some of my men aboard and we'll unload her to-morrow. You go home, old woman; you needn't worry."

"Yes, but you must listen,--PLEASE listen."

She had followed him up the dock and the two stood apart from the crowd.

"Well, what is it?"

"I want to thank ye,--and I want--"

"No, you don't want to thank nothin'. She's all right, I tell ye."

She had tight hold of his arm now and was looking up into his face, all her gratitude in her eyes.

"But I do,--I must,--please listen. You've helped us so. It's all we have. If we'd lost the sloop I'd 'a' give up."

The captain's rough, hard hand went out and caught the woman's thin fingers. A peculiar cadence came into his voice.

"All ye have? Do you think I don't know it? That's why I was under her bowsprit."

"AGAINST ORDERS"

"Here comes Captain Bogart--we'll ask him," said the talkative man.

His listeners were grouped about one of the small tables in the smoking-room of the Moldavia, five days out. The question was when the master of a vessel should leave his ship. In the incident discussed every man had gone ashore--even the life-saving crew had given her up: the master had stuck to his post.

The captain listened gravely.

"Yes--if there's one chance in a thousand of saving her. Regulations are pretty plain; can't forget 'em unless you want to," and he walked on.

That night at dinner I received a message to come to the captain's cabin. He had some coffee that an old Brazilian had sent him. His steward hailed from Rio, and knew how to grind and boil it.

Over the making the talk veered to the inquiry in the smoking-room.

"When ought a commander to abandon his ship, Captain?" I asked.

"When his passengers need him. Passengers first, ship next, are the orders. They're clear and exact--can't mistake 'em."

"You speak as if you had had some experience." A leaf from out the note-book of a live man doing live things is as refreshing as a bucket of cool water from a deep well.

"Experience! Been forty years at sea."

"Some of them pretty exciting, I suppose."

"Yes. Half a dozen of 'em."

He emptied his cup, rose from his seat, and pushing back his chair, began pacing the floor, stepping into the connecting chart-room, bending for an instant over the map, and stepping back again, peering through the small window a-grime with the spray of a north-easter.

My question, I could see, had either revived some unpleasant memory or the anxiety due to the sudden shift of wind--it had been blowing south-west all day--had made him restless.

As my eyes followed his movements I began to realize the enormous size of the man. Walking the deck, head up, body erect, his broad shoulders pulled back, his round, solid girth tightly confined in his simple uniform, he looked the brawny, dominant, forceful commander that he was--big among the biggest passengers. Here, pacing the small cabin, his head almost touching the ceiling, his great frame filled the small narrow room as an elephant would fill a boudoir. Everything seemed too small for him--the table, even the chair which he had now regained, the tiny egg-shell cup which he was still grasping.

Looking closer--his head in full profile against the glow of the electric light--I caught the straight line of the ruddy, seamed neck--a bull's neck in strength, a Greek athlete's in refinement of line--sweeping up into the close-cropped, iron-gray hair. Then came the round of the head; the massive forehead, strong, straight nose; thin, compressed lips, moulded thin and kept compressed by a life of determined effort; square-cut chin and the iron jaw that held the lips and chin in place.

When he rose to his feet again I had another surprise. To my astonishment he was not a Colossus at all--not in pounds and inches. On the contrary, he was but little above the average size. What had impressed me had not been his bulk, but his reserve force. Tigers stretched out in cages produce this effect; so do powerful machines that dig, crunch, or pound--dormant until their life-steam sets them going.

The gale increased in violence. We got now the lift of the steamer's bow, staggering under tons of water, and the whir of the screw in mid-air. The captain glanced at the barometer, drew his body to its full height, reached for his storm-coat, slipped it on, and was about to swing back the door opening on the deck, when the chirp of a canary rang through the room. At the sound he turned quickly and walked back to where the cage hung.

"Ho, little man!" he cried in the same tone of voice in which he would have addressed a child; "woke you up, did we? Sorry, old fellow; tuck your head down again and take another nap."

The bird stretched out its bill, fluttered its wings, pecked at the captain's outstretched finger, and burst into song.

"Yours, captain?" I had not noticed the bird before.

"Yes; had him for years."

Instantly the absurdity of the companionship broke upon me. What possible comfort, I thought, could a man like the captain take in so tiny a creature? It was the lion and the mouse over again--the eagle and the tom-tit--the bear and the rabbit. He must have noticed my surprise and amusement, for he added with a smile:

"Must have something. Gets pretty lonesome sometimes when you have no wife nor children, and there are none anywheres for me." He had withdrawn his fingers now, and was buttoning his coat close about his broad chest, his eyes still on the bird that was splitting its little throat in a burst of song.

"But he's so small," I laughed. "I should think you'd have a dog--seems nearer your size."

I once saw a man struck by a spent bullet. I remember the sudden pallor, the half gasp, and the expression of pain that followed. Then the man uttered a cry. The same expression crossed the captain's face, but there was no gasp and no cry; only a straightening of the lips and a tightening-up of the iron jaw. Then, without a word of any kind in answer, he caught up his cap, swung back the door, and with the wind full on his chest, breasted his way to the bridge.

When the door swung open a moment later it closed on the first officer--a square, thick-set, round-headed man, with mild blue eyes set in a face framed by a half-circle of reddish-brown whiskers, the face tanned by twenty-five years of sea service, fifteen of them with Captain Bogart.

"Getting soapy," he said; "wind haulin' to the east'ard. Goin' to have a nasty night." As he spoke he stripped off his tarpaulins, hung them to a hook in the chart-room, and wiping the salt grime from his face with his coat cuff, took the captain's empty seat at the table.

I knew by the captain's silent departure that I had made a break of some kind, but I could not locate it. Perhaps the first officer might explain.

"Captain lost his wife, didn't he?" I asked, moving my chair to make room.

"No--never had one." He leaned forward and filled one of the empty cups. "Why did you think so?"

"Well, more from the tone of his voice than anything else. Some trouble about it, wasn't there?"

"There was. His sweetheart was burned to death ten years ago--lamp got upset." These men are direct in their speech. It comes from their life-long habit of giving short, crisp, meaning orders. He had reached for the sugar now, and was dropping the lumps slowly into his cup.

"That explains it, then," I answered. "We were talking about the bird over there, and he said a man must have something to love, being without wife or children, and then I told him a big man like himself, I should think, would rather have a dog--"

The first officer put down his cup, jerked his body around, and said, his blue eyes looking into mine:

"You didn't say that, did you?"

I nodded my head.

"Mighty sorry. Don't any of us talk to him of his dog. What did he say?"

"Nothing. Turned a little pale, got up, and went out."

"Too bad! You didn't know, of course--wish I'd posted you."

"Then he DID have a dog?"

"Yes, belonged to that poor girl."

"What became of him?"

The first officer leaned over the table and rested his elbows on the cloth, his chin in the palms of his hands. For some time he did not speak. Outside I could hear the thrash of the sea and the slosh of spent waves coursing through the deck gutters.

"You want to hear about that dog, do you?" he asked, straightening up. "Well, I can tell you if any man can, but you're to keep mum about it to the captain."

Again I nodded.

He fumbled in his outside pocket, drew forth a short pipe, rapped out the dead ashes, refilled it slowly from a pouch on the table, lighted it, and settled himself in his chair.

"I'll begin at the beginning, for then you'll understand how I came to be mixed up in it. I saw that dog when he first came aboard, and I want to say right here that the sight of him raised a lump in my throat big as your fist, for he was just the mate of the one I owned when I used to look after my father's sheep on the hills where we lived. Then, again, I took to him because he wasn't the kind of a pet I'd ever seen at sea before--we'd had monkeys and parrots and a bobtail cat, but never a dog--not a real, human dog.

"He was one of those brown-and-white combed-out collies we have up in my country, with a long, pointed nose that could smell a mile and eyes like your mother's--they were so soft and tender. One of those dogs that when he put his cold nose alongside your cheek and snuffed around your whiskers you loved him--you couldn't help it--and you knew he loved you. As for the captain--the dog was never three feet from his heels. Night or day, it was just the same--up on the bridge, followin' him with his eyes every time he turned, or stretched out beside his berth when he was asleep. Hard to understand how such a man can love a dog until you saw that one. Then, again, this dog had another hold upon the captain, for the girl had loved him just the same way.

"And he had the best nose in a fog--seemed as if he could sniff things as they went by or came on dead ahead. After a while the captain would send him out with the bow-watch in thick weather, and there he'd crouch, his nose restin' on the rail, his eyes peerin' ahead. Once he got on to a brigantine comin' bow on minutes before the lookout could see her--smelt her, the men said, just as he used to smell the sheep lost on the hillside at home. It was thick as mud--one of those pasty fogs that choke you like hot steam. We had three men in the cro'nest and two for'ard hangin' over her bow-rail. The dog began to grow restless. Then his ears went up and his tail straightened out, and he began to growl as if he had seen another dog. The captain was listenin' from the bridge, and he suspected somethin' was wrong and rang 'Slow down!' just in time to save us from smashing bow on into that brigantine. Another time he rose on his hind legs and 'let out' a yelp that peeled everybody's eyes. Then the slippery, barnacle-covered bottom of a water-logged derelict went scootin' by a few yards off our starboard quarter. After that the men got to dependin' on him--'Ought to have a first mate's pay,' I used to tell the captain, at which he would laugh and pat the dog on the head.

"One morning about eight bells, some two hundred miles off Rio--we were 'board the Zampa, one of our South American line, with eighteen first-class passengers, half of 'em women, and ten or twelve emigrants--when word came to the bridge that a fire had started in the cargo. We had a lot of light freight on board and some explosives which were to be used in the mines in the mountains off the coast, so fire was the last thing we wanted. Bayard--did I tell you the dog's name was Bayard?--that's what the girl called him--was on the bridge with Captain Bogart. I was asleep in my bunk. First thing I knew I felt the dog's cold nose in my face, and the next thing I was on the dead run for the after-hatch. I've had it big and ugly a good many times in my life; was washed upon a pile of rocks once stickin' up about a cable's length off our coast, and hung to the cracks until I dropped into a lifeboat; and another time I was picked up for dead off Natal and rolled on a barrel till I came to. But that racket aboard the Zampa was the worst yet.

"When I jumped in among the men the smoke was creepin' out between the lids of the hatch. We ripped that off and began diggin' up the cargo--crates of chairs, rolls of mattin', some spruce scantling--runnin' the nozzle of the hose down as far as we could get it. There were no water-tight compartments which we could have flooded in those days as there are now, or we could have smothered it first off. What we had to do was to fight it inch by inch. I knew where the explosives were, and so did the captain and purser, but the crew didn't--didn't even know they were aboard, and I was glad they didn't. We had picked most of 'em up at Rio--or they'd made a rush maybe for the boats, and then we'd had to shoot one or two of 'em to teach the others manners. In addition to every foot of hose we had 'board I started a line of buckets and then rushed a gang below to cut through the bulkhead to see if we could get at the stuff better.

"The men fell to with a will. Fire ain't so bad when you take hold of it in time, and as long as there is plenty of steam pressure--and there was--you can almost always get on top of it, unless something turns up you don't count on.

"That's what happened here. I was standin' on the coamings of the hatch at the time, peerin' down into the smoke and steam, thinking the fire was nearly out, directing the men what to h'ist out and what to leave, when first thing I knew there came a dull, heavy thump, as if we'd struck a rock amidships, and up puffed a cloud of smoke and sparks that keeled me over on my back and nearly blinded me.

"I knew then that the fire had just begun to take hold; that thump might have been a cask of rum or it might have been a box of nitro-glycerine. Whatever it was, there was no time to waste in stoppin' the blaze before it reached the rest of the cargo.

"Captain Bogart had felt the shock and now came runnin' down the deck with the dog at his heels. He knew I'd take care of the fire and he hadn't left the bridge, but the way she shook and heaved under the explosion was another thing.

"By this time the passengers were huddled together on the upper deck, frightened to death, as they always are, the women the coolest in the crowd. All except two little old women, sisters, who lived out of Rio and who had been with us before. Fire was one of the things that scared them to death, and they certainly were scared. They hung to the rail, their arms around each other--the two together didn't weigh a hundred and fifty pounds; always reminded me of two shiverin' little monkeys, these two old women, although maybe it ain't nice for me to say it--and looked down over the rail into the sea, and said they never could go down the ladder, and did all the things badly scared women do, short of pitching themselves overboard, which sometimes occurs. The captain stopped and talked to 'em--told 'em there was no danger--his ears open all the time for another let-go, and the dog nosed round and put out his paw as if to make good what the captain had promised.

"The water was goin' in now pretty lively--all the pumps at work--the light stuff bein' heaved overboard as fast as it came out. By dark we'd got the fire under so that we had steam where before we'd had smoke and flame. The passengers had quieted down and some of 'em had gone back to their staterooms to get their things together, and everything was going quiet and peaceable--this was about nine o'clock--when there came another half-smothered explosion and the stokers began crawlin' up like rats. Then the chief engineer stumbled out--no hat nor coat, his head all blood where a flying bolt had gashed him. Some of her bilge plates was loose, he said, and the water half up to the fire-boxes. Next a column of flame came pouring out of her companionway, which crisped up four of our boats and drove everybody for'ard. We knew then it was all up with us.

"The captain now sent every man to the boats--those that would float--and we began to get the passengers and crew together--about sixty, all told. That's pretty nasty business at any time. They're like a flock of sheep, huddlin' together, some wantin' to stay and some crazy to go; or they are shiverin' with fright and ready to knife each other--anything to get ahead or back or wherever they think it is safest. This time most of 'em had got on to the explosives; they knew something was up, either with the boilers or the cargo, and every one of them expected to be blown up any minute.

"I stood by the rail, of course, and had told off the men I could trust, puttin' 'em in two lines to let 'em through one at a time, women first, then the old men, and so on--same old story; you've seen it, no doubt--and had got four boats overboard and filled--the sea was pretty calm--and three of 'em away and out of range of fallin' pieces if she did take a notion to let go suddenly, when the dog sprang out of the door at the top of the stairs leading down to the main deck, barkin' like mad, runnin' up to the captain, who stood just behind me, pullin' at his trousers, and runnin' back again. Then a yell came from the boat below that one of the old women was missing: it was her sister. One half-crazy man said she'd jumped overboard--he was crowdin' up to the rail and didn't want to stop for anything--and another said she had gone off in the first boat, which I knew was a lie.

"'Have you sent them both down?' asked Captain Bogart.

"'No, sir; only one,' I said--and I hadn't.

"Just then a steward stepped up with a bundle of clothing in his hand.

"'I tried to get her out, but she'd locked herself in the stateroom, sir. It was all afire when I come up.'

"It took about two seconds for Captain Bogart to jump clear of the crowd, run half the length of the deck and plunge through the door leadin' to the main deck, the dog boundin' after him.

"I've been through a good many anxious minutes in my life, but those were the worst I'd had up to date. He and I had been pretty close ever since I went to sea. He's ten years older than I am, but he gave me my first chance. Yes; that kind of thing takes the heart out of you, and they were both in it. Hadn't been for the dog we wouldn't have missed her, maybe, although the captain was keeping tally of the passengers and crew.

"Three minutes, they said it was--more like three hours to me--I held the crowd back, wondering how long I ought to wait if he didn't come up, knowing my duty was to stay where I was, when the dog sprang out of the door, half his hair singed off him, barkin' and jumpin' as if he had been let out for a romp; and then came the captain staggerin' along, his face scorched, his coat half burned off him, the woman in his arms in a dead faint and pretty nigh smothered. The old fool had locked herself in her stateroom--he had to break down the door to get at her--cryin' she'd rather die there than be separated from her sister.

"We made room for the two--the half-crazy man fallin' back--and the captain lowered her himself into the boat alongside her sister, and then he sent me down the ladder behind her to catch the others when they came down and see that everything was ready to cast off.

"I could see the captain now from my position in the boat, up against the sky--he was the last man on the ship--holding the dog close to him. Once I thought he was going to bring him down in his arms, he held him so tight.

"Next time I looked he was coming down the ladder slowly, one foot at a time, the dog looking down at him, his big, human eyes peering into the captain's face, his long, pointed nose thrust out, his ears bent forward. If he could have spoken--and he looked as if he was speaking--he would be telling him how glad he felt at savin' the old woman, and how happy he was that they'd all three got clear. My own collie used to talk to me like that--had a kind of low whine when he'd get that way; tell me about his sheep stuck in the snow, and the way the--"

The first officer stopped, cleared his throat, shook the ashes from his pipe and laid it on the table. After a while he went on. His words came slower now, as if they hurt him.

"When the captain got half-way down the ladder I saw him stand still for a moment and look straight tip into the dog's eyes. Then I heard him say:

"'Down, Bayard! Stay where you are.'

"The dog crouched and lay with his paws on the edge of the rail. That's what he'd done all his life--just obeyed orders without question. Again I saw the captain stop. This time he slipped his hand into his side-pocket, half drew out his revolver, put it back again, and kept on his way down the ladder to the boat.

"Then the captain's order rang out:

"'Get ready to shove off!'

"Hardly had the words left his lips when there came another dull, muffled roar, and a sheet of flame licked the whole length of the deck. Then she fell over on her beam.

"'My God!' I cried; 'left that dog to die!'"

For a moment the first officer did not answer. Then he raised his eyes to mine and said in a voice full of emotion:

"Yes; there was nothin' else to do. It's against orders to take animals into life-boats. They take room and must be fed, and we hadn't a foot of space or an ounce of grub and water to spare, and we had two hundred miles to go. I begged the captain. 'I'll give Bayard my place,' I said. I knew he was right; but I couldn't help it. 'Let me go back and get him.' I know now it would have been foolish; but I'd have done it all the same. So would you, maybe, if you'd known that dog and seen his trusting eyes lookin' out of his scorched face and remembered what he'd just done.

"The captain never looked at me when he answered. He couldn't; his eyes were too full.

"'Your place is where you are, sir,' he said, short and crisp. 'Shove off, men.'

"He will never get over it. That dog stood for the girl he'd lost, somehow. That's the captain's bell. I'm wanted on the bridge. Good-night."

Again the cabin door swung free, letting in a blast of raw ice-house air, the kind that chills you to the bone. The gale had increased. Through the opening I could hear the combers sweeping the bow and the down-swash of the overflow striking the deck below.

With the outside roar came the captain, his tarpaulins glistening with spray, his cap pulled tight down to his ears, his storm-beaten face ruddy with the dash and cut of the wind. He looked like a sea Titan that had stepped aboard from the crest of a wave.

If he saw me--I was stretched out on the sofa by this time--he gave no sign. Opening his tarpaulins and thrashing the water from his cap, he walked straight to the cage, peered in, and said softly:

"Ah, my little man! Asleep, are you? I just came down to take a look at the chart and see how you were getting on. We're having some weather on the bridge."

MUGGLES'S SUPREME MOMENT