of the deck. But his blood was aflame
now with the lust of combat. He wished to die fighting rather than by
a suicide's bullet.

They were not yet clear of the doorway when an extraordinary burst of
cheering and shouts in English and Spanish assailed their wondering
ears. The sounds seemed to come from the sea, from some point very
near to the ship. A loud hubbub arose among the Indians; Courtenay,
clubbing his gun, rushed past, with the dog at his heels, and ran up
the bridge companion. They could follow his progress as he raced
towards the port side, and they heard his amazed cry:

"What boats are those?"

"Your own, captain," came the answering yell, plainly audible above the
din.

"That is Mr. Gray," screamed Elsie, and she, too, ran towards the
bridge, with the doctor close behind.

"Sink every canoe you can get alongside of, and knock those fellows on
the head who are swimming," roared Courtenay, who was so carried away
by the fierceness of the fight from which he had just emerged that he
would have given the same directions to the archangel Michael had that
warrior-spirit come to his aid.

He seemed to have eyes in the back of his head, he turned so suddenly
when Elsie neared him.

"Ah, thank God you are safe!" he said, drawing her to him for an
instant. "Stand there, dear heart!"

He placed her in the forward angle of the bridge rail, and leaned out
over the side. She understood that she must not speak to him then, but
a great joy overwhelmed her, and her eyes melted into tears.

Christobal, who had missed no word of Elsie's frenzied protest in the
saloon, nor failed to note the manner of Courtenay's greeting, seemed
to take the collapse of his own aspirations with the unmoved stoicism
he had displayed in the face of danger.

"The ship's boats--" he began, but the captain raised his gun and fired
twice aft along the side of the vessel. Cries of pain and a good deal
of splashing in the sea proved that he had expedited the departure of
several Indians who were perched on the rails beyond the reach of
Walker's steam jet.

"The ship's boats," went on Christobal calmly, "have turned up in some
mysterious manner, just in the nick of time. A few minutes more, and
they would have been too late."

"But where have they come from? Where can they have been all these
days?" whispered Elsie, whose eyes were so dimmed that she perforce
abandoned the effort to make out what was going on in the sea near