you in this fight."

"Who's that dead man on the deck?" he asked. "How come you down here?"

"That's Harris. Thirkle and Buckrow killed him."

"Thirkle! There's no Thirkle aboard here. Thirkle! Why, that's--"

"Thirkle," I said, "is the Rev. Luther Meeker. He is the head of the
whole gang."

"Then poor Harris was right," he moaned, feeling for a chest and sitting
down upon it. "Harris was right." I could hear despair in his voice--he
was master no longer, but a broken, dispirited old man.

"Cheer up, captain; we'll beat them yet," I said as cheerily as I could.

"We're lost," he moaned. "Light the slush-lamp,--they won't bother us
now."

"But let's get on deck and give them a fight," I said. "It won't do any
good to stay down here--"

The board at the scuttle rattled, and we listened. I stooped and groped
for the belaying-pin.

"They got below," growled Buckrow. After a minute he slammed the
scuttle-board shut, and we heard a heavy, thumping sound and the
clanking of a chain.

"We're lost!" moaned Riggs. "They are making the scuttle fast with
rail-chains. All hands lost, and the Lord have mercy on us! Light the
slush-lamp, Mr. Trenholm--we're dead men!"

"What is their game?" I asked, in doubt as to the meaning of what he said
about the rail-chains, although I was dismayed by the ominous sounds at
the scuttle and knew that we must be prisoners in the forecastle.

"There is no escape from here," said Riggs. "They hold the ship now, and
they'll scuttle her before day comes."

I struck a match and lit the swinging slush-lamp, which made a dismal,
smoking flame and added to the heat and the multitude of smells which
made the forecastle a hole of torture. But the light was comforting,
and Rajah crept to his master's side and clung to his arm, the boy's
mouth open and his eyes full of questions.

"So they got poor Harris," said Riggs, still sitting on the chest and
gazing at the body of the mate. "I told him not to come down, but he
would have his way. I thought I could get down here and find one of his
pistols."

"They are gone," I told him. "I made a search for them, and was about to
get out of here when I heard Rajah coming down. It is lucky I didn't
kill the boy--or that he didn't kill me. But that's all done and over,
captain, and we ought to begin to plan for our escape. Is there no way
out of here?"

He put his pallid face in his hands and shook his head, and it was then
that I realized his age a