d MacLean's horrified outcry. He remembered the
scene in the cabin, Captain Dabney lying inert on the floor, the
hateful ring of yellow faces, and Carew--Carew clasping Ruth in his
arms!

He remembered felling Carew, and being felled himself by the lethal
clutch of the Japanese. He remembered Ichi, and even Ichi's words,
"compelled to use the ju-jitsu." They had ju-jitsued him! That was
what was wrong with his throat.

The sum of his memories was clear, and for the moment it crushed and
terrified him. For it was evident that that which they had speculated
upon as a remote almost impossible, contingency, had come to pass--the
brig was in Carew's hands. They had been surprised in the fog, a
piracy had occurred, murder had been done, and Wild Bob and his yellow
followers had taken the ship.

He was a prisoner in the bowels of the ship, his hands chained behind
his back, absolutely helpless. And Sails was dead! And Little Billy
was dead! Captain Dabney was dead! The crew--God knew, perhaps--they
were slaughtered too! And Ruth--Ruth was alive, in Carew's hands, at
the mercy of the brute she so feared. Ruth was alive--to suffer what
fate? And he--he who loved her--was chained and helpless.

Panic, rage, despair, shook Martin. In excess of misery, he groaned
aloud, a smothered sob of anguish.

"Martin, lad! 'Ave you come around? You're sittin' up. Ow, swiggle
me, lad, pipe up!"

The words came from the huddled figure behind the stanchion, in a husky
beseeching rumble. The shadowy figure stirred, and Martin heard the
sharp clink of steel striking against steel.

The words and the sound pierced his dread, and brought his thoughts
back to the boatswain. He tried a second time to answer the other's
hail, and managed to articulate in a hoarse mumble. The words tore
barbed through his sore throat, and were hardly managed by his dry,
swollen tongue.

"All right--bos--dry--come."

He got upon his knees and peered into the darkness about him. He was
in a narrow passageway between two rows of ship's stores that fan fore
and after the length of the lazaret. He was facing forward. Just
behind him, on his right hand, a ladder ran up to the cabin overhead,
but the trapdoor in the cabin floor was closed.

His scrutiny was aided as much by memory as by eyesight, for he had
several times been in this chamber, breaking out stores. The passage
he sat in, he knew, ran forward to the row of beef casks which abu