the acid test which held, for him, no fear. It was
as though the rising rim of water brought a promise of grateful rest. He
saw ahead nothing except release from all the wild turmoil and misery
which had spoken itself without words that evening when Coulter had
silenced the improvisation of his violin.

But if the end was a thing of quiet philosophy to Lawrence, it was not
so to others. The lurid flare, which turned the impassioned picture in a
moment from a silhouette of blacks and cobalts to a crimson hell, seemed
to inflame to greater madness men already mad. There was a rush for the
rails. We saw figures leaping into the sea. There had been some hitch on
the bridge, due no doubt to the miserable condition of everything aboard
the disheveled tramp. The boats were not yet launched, but now the men
were embarking. Coulter himself was the last to leap for the swinging
boat, and a moment before he did so Hoak appeared. He had miraculously
made his way alive out of the engine-room's inferno, and his coming was
that of a maniac. His huge body, bare to the waist, sweat-streaked and
soot-blackened and fire-blistered, was also dark with blood. His voice
was raised in demented laughter and every vestige of reason had
deserted eyes that were now agleam only with homicidal mania. From the
companionway to the bridge, his course was as swift and sure as a homing
pigeon's. He brandished the shovel with which he had been shamefully
forced to feed the maws of the furnaces. The struggling men fell back
before his onslaught. But Hoak had no care for self-preservation. His
sole mission was reprisal.

The fight about the ladder's foot had waned. With a leap that carried
him half-way up and an agility that knew no thwarting the madman made
the upper level. The tyrannical despot of the vessel, standing poised
for his swing to the boat raised the pistol which had already halted
other mad rushes during the last sanguinary minutes. At its bark Hoak
staggered to his knees, but was up again and charging forward with the
impetus of a wounded rhinoceros. He had one deed to do before he died
and would not be denied. The flying shovel narrowly missed the captain's
head as he jumped for the boat, but the seaman with his lips parted over
the snarl of clenched teeth fought his painful way to the davit,
gripping a knife which he had brought in his belt. His eyes glowed with
the strange light that madness lends and his muscles were tensed in the
brief