ou wretch! you young monster!" grated the old shipmaster. "Do you
think you can escape the retribution that pursues all such dastardly
creatures as you?"

"Oh, you make me tired! I have found out that the goody-good people do
not always come out on top in this world. Besides that, it's too late
for me to turn back now. I started wrong at school, and I have been
going wrong ever since. It's natural for me; I can't help it."

"Spare my child!"

"Oh, don't worry about her. I'll take care of her."

"If you harm her, may the wrath of Heaven fall on your head!"

"Let it go at that. I will be very tender and considerate with her.
Come, Elsie."

He attempted to lift her to her feet, but she drew from him, shuddering
and screaming wildly:

"Don't touch me!"

"Now, don't be a little fool!" he said, harshly. "You make me sick with
your tantrums! Come on, now."

But she screamed the louder, seeming to stand in the utmost terror of
him.

With a savage exclamation, Gage tore off his coat and wrapped it about
the girl's head so that her cries were smothered.

"Perhaps that will keep you still a bit!" he snapped, catching her up in
his arms, and bearing her to the smaller boat, in which he carefully
placed her.

She did not faint. As her hands were bound behind her, she could not
remove the coat from about her head, and she sat as he placed her, with
it enveloping her nearly to the waist.

"Is everything ready?" asked Gage. "Where are all the guns? Somebody
take Tomlinson's weapons. Let Jaggers have his. He may need them when we
are gone."

"Don't leave me here to die alone!" piteously pleaded the wounded
sailor. "I'm pretty well gone now, but I don't want to be left here
alone!"

Gage left the small boat for a moment, and approached the spot where the
pleading wretch lay.

"Jaggers," he said, "it's the fate you deserve. You agreed to stand by
me, but you went back on your oath, and tried to kill me."

"And now you're going to leave me here to bleed to death or starve?"

"Why shouldn't I? The tables are turned on you, my fine fellow."

"Well, I'm sure you won't leave me."

"You are?"

"Yes."

"Why won't I?"

"This is why!"

Jaggers flung up his hand, from which a spout of flame seemed to leap,
and the report of a pistol sounded over the marsh.

Leslie Gage fell in a heap to the ground.

CHAPTER XXXII.

A MYSTERIOUS TRANSFORMATION.

"Ha! ha! ha!" wildly laughed the wounded sailor. "That ti