gures pulling the boat through the
flying spray beneath the wall of ice.

"We ran her in," he told them, "with the snow blinding us. It was
working up for a heavy blow, and as we'd have to beat her out we
couldn't take sail off her. We stood on until we heard the sea along the
edge of the ice, and then there was nothing to do but jam her on the
wind and thrash her clear. There was only a plank or two of the boat, an
oar, and Charly's cap, when we came back again!"

"After all, though the boat was smashed, they might have gotten out,"
Hastings suggested.

"Well," said Dampier simply, "it didn't seem likely. The ice was sharp
and ragged, and there was a long wash of sea. A man's not tough enough
to stand much of that kind of hammering."

Agatha's face grew whiter, but Dampier went on again.

"Anyway," he said, "they didn't turn up at the inlet as we'd fixed, and
that decided the thing. If Wyllard had been alive, he surely would have
been there."

"Isn't it just possible that he might have fallen into the hands of the
Russians?" asked Hastings.

"I naturally thought of that, but so far as the chart shows there isn't
a settlement within leagues of the spot. Besides, supposing the Russians
had got him, how could I have helped him? They'd have sent him off in
the first place to one of the bigger settlements in the South, and if
the authorities couldn't have connected him with any illegal sealing
they'd no doubt have managed to send him across to Japan by and by. In
that case, he'd have gotten home without any trouble."

Dampier paused, and it was significant that he turned to Agatha with a
deprecatory gesture.

"No," he added, "there was nothing I could do."

It was evident that Agatha acquitted him, but she asked a question.

"Captain Dampier," she said, "had you any expectation of finding those
three men when you sailed the second time?"

"No," acknowledged the bronzed sailor, with an impressive calmness, "I
hadn't any, and I don't think Wyllard had either. Still, he meant to
make quite certain. He felt he had to."

The skipper gazed at Agatha, and saw comprehension in her eyes.

"Yes," she observed with an unsteady voice, "and when you have said
that, you could say very little more of any man."

She turned her head away from them, and for a few moments there was a
heavy silence in the room. It cost the girl a painful effort to sit
still, apparently unmoved, but there was strength in her, and she would
no