k hand who had been
supporting his swaying form. "Help me to get down to my bed, in God's
name; for I am that sick I can scarcely see."

And Brother Bart tottered away, leaving Dan standing hot and defiant by
his new friend, Mr. Wirt.

"Sorry to have made trouble for you," said that gentleman; "but when I
found that good old man wandering sick and distracted over the boat,
stirring up everyone in search of a lost boy, there was nothing to do but
give him the tip."

"Freddy may stand it," said Dan, fiercely; "but I won't be grannied. What
harm is there in staying up here?"

"None at all from our standpoint," was the reply; "but the good old
gentleman looks at things in another light. You're under his orders," he
said; and there was a faint, mocking note in the words, that Dan was keen
enough to hear. He was hearing other things too,--the pant of the engines,
the throb of the pulsing mechanism that was bearing him on through
darkness lit only by the radiance of those sweeping worlds above; but that
mocking note in his new friend's voice rose over all.

"Orders!" he repeated angrily. "I bet _you_ wouldn't take any such orders
if you were a boy."

"No, I wouldn't, and I didn't" (there was a slight change in the speaker's
voice as he paused to light a cigar), "and you see where it left me."

"Where?" asked Dan, curiously.

"Adrift," was the answer,--"like this big boat would be if there was no
one to command: beyond rule and law, as that good old friend of yours said
just now,--beyond rule and law."

"Beyond rule and law,--rule and law." The words began to hammer somehow on
Dan's head and heart as he recalled with waking remorse poor Brother Bart
tottering away in the darkness,--Brother Bart, who, as Dan knew, was only
doing his duty faithfully, to the boy under his care,--Brother Bart, who,
like the steamboat, like the stars, was _obeying_.

For a moment or two Mr. Wirt puffed at his cigar silently, while the
fierce fire that had blazed up in Dan's breast sank into bounds, mastered
by the boy's better self, even as he had seen Nature's fierce forces of
flame and steam mastered by higher powers to-day.

"In short," said Mr. Wirt at last, as if he had been having thoughts of
his own, "I am a derelict, my boy."

"What's that?" asked Dan, who had never heard the word before.

"A ship adrift, abandoned by captain and crew,--a wreck that tosses on the
sea, a peril to all that come near it. There is nothing a good s