ut, by comparison with
the danger that is approaching, they seem merely to crawl. You long to
shout a warning to them, do anything to urge them on. They reach the
door of the banquet hall, and then they are quick to act, and with good
reason.

"What durned son of thunder broke that thar glass?" There was no doubt
whose voice that was. It belonged to the redoubtable Captain Broome, and
to no other. It was his stopping to look at the broken glass that gave
the two comrades their chance.

"Busted in'ard," he commented shrewdly, and then his gray, red-rimmed
eye, with its gleam of steel, caught sight of Jim and the engineer, as
they came through the door of the banquet hall. With a roar of wrath he
was inside, followed by six of his sailors; then his humor changed as he
saw Jim looking down from the head of the stairs.

"Very good of you, Mr. Darlington, to visit me in my humble home; sorry
I wasn't here to welcome you," he remarked suavely.

"Oh, I've made myself quite at home, Captain," replied Jim. "Nice place
here; wouldn't you like to trade it for my fine sea-going yacht in the
harbor?"

The captain grew red in the face at this piece of persiflage, and under
the stress of excitement he swallowed his quid of tobacco and likewise
his wrath, at Jim's coolness.

"Waal, son, that's extra kind of you, ain't it, boys?" and he looked
over the hard beaten crew at his back.

A loud guffaw of derision greeted this remark, and it was Jim's turn to
feel like swallowing something, only it was not a quid of tobacco, for
that was a foreign substance he never indulged in, but he made another
bold move by way of reply.

"Well, Captain, as you won't consider a dicker with me, I've got a
friend with me who represents the United States government. Perhaps he
will buy your chalet here by the sea."

John Berwick, who had been standing in the shadow back of Jim, gave a
grunt of surprise at the audacity of this move, but he was game, and
stepped quietly into the limelight. Captain Broome stood for a moment in
open-jawed surprise, and then he dropped his byplay of grim politeness
with startling suddenness. A shot rang out, and a puff of smoke drifted
across the hall. The bullet zipped close to John Berwick's head.

"Don't fire yet," warned Jim; "come quick."

He led the way swiftly down the hall, determined to make one last effort
to save the senorita, though it would have been easy enough for him to
have saved himself and his com