ed about
bewildered as if looking for help.--"Who is he, steward? Who in the name
of all the mad devils is he?" he asked, wildly. He was confounded by the
cold and philosophical tone of the answer:--"'Tain't my place to trouble
about that, sir--nor yours I guess."--"Isn't it!" shouted Carter. "Why,
he has carried the lady off." The steward was looking critically at
the lamp and after a while screwed the light down.--"That's better," he
mumbled.--"Good God! What is a fellow to do?" continued Carter, looking
at Hassim and Immada who were whispering together and gave him only an
absent glance. He rushed on deck and was struck blind instantly by the
night that seemed to have been lying in wait for him; he stumbled over
something soft, kicked something hard, flung himself on the rail. "Come
back," he cried. "Come back. Captain! Mrs. Travers!--or let me come,
too."

He listened. The breeze blew cool against his cheek. A black bandage
seemed to lie over his eyes. "Gone," he groaned, utterly crushed.
And suddenly he heard Mrs. Travers' voice remote in the depths of
the night.--"Defend the brig," it said, and these words, pronouncing
themselves in the immensity of a lightless universe, thrilled every
fibre of his body by the commanding sadness of their tone. "Defend,
defend the brig." . . . "I am damned if I do," shouted Carter in
despair. "Unless you come back! . . . Mrs. Travers!"

". . . as though--I were--on board--myself," went on the rising
cadence of the voice, more distant now, a marvel of faint and imperious
clearness.

Carter shouted no more; he tried to make out the boat for a time, and
when, giving it up, he leaped down from the rail, the heavy obscurity
of the brig's main deck was agitated like a sombre pool by his jump,
swayed, eddied, seemed to break up. Blotches of darkness recoiled,
drifted away, bare feet shuffled hastily, confused murmurs died out.
"Lascars," he muttered, "The crew is all agog." Afterward he listened
for a moment to the faintly tumultuous snores of the white men sleeping
in rows, with their heads under the break of the poop. Somewhere
about his feet, the yacht's black dog, invisible, and chained to a
deck-ringbolt, whined, rattled the thin links, pattered with his claws
in his distress at the unfamiliar surroundings, begging for the charity
of human notice. Carter stooped impulsively, and was met by a startling
lick in the face.--"Hallo, boy!" He thumped the thick curly sides,
stroked the