who wore clothes. They were ready to kill and eat
the strange beings of another race who, few in numbers and ill armed,
wandered into their rock-pent fastness, but it was quite a different
thing to face them in equal combat.

At last the sounds of conflict died away. The black waters closed over
the dead; the last swimmer vanished into the silence. The spasmodic
barking of the dog, the groaning of men lying on the decks and the
shouts exchanged between Courtenay and Gray for the guidance of the
boats, were the only remaining symbols of the fiercest crisis which had
yet befallen the _Kansas_.

Elsie, wandering through a trance-like maze of vivid impressions, awoke
with a start to the fact that Courtenay was giving directions for the
lowering of the ship's gangway, meanwhile receiving information as to
the identity of the boats beneath.

"Mr. Malcolm is in charge of the jolly-boat," Gray was saying. "Miss
Baring and Mr. and Mrs. Somerville are with him. Miss Baring's maid is
dead. Senor Jerrera is in my boat, Number 2. We have been on White
Horse Island all this time, but we have seen nothing of the other
life-boat."

That meant that two boats out of those which quitted the ship had
arrived thus opportunely. Senor Jerrera was the Spanish mining
engineer who had been hustled into one of the craft manned by the
mutineers. And Isobel was actually sitting down there in the darkness
a few feet away. How wonderful it all was! Elsie thought her heart
would never cease its labored throbbing. Even yet her breath came in
little gasps. How could the captain and Gray talk so coolly, as if
some of the passengers and crew were returning on board the ship after
an evening ashore? It was the bedizened savages who now assumed
reality: the simple orders which dealt with the clearing of the falls
and the lowering of a ladder became wildly fantastic.

And Christobal was saying:

"Well, Miss Maxwell, you and I can look forward to a busy night. The
ship is littered with wounded men, and our newly arrived friends must
be worn with fatigue."

His smooth, even sentences helped to dispel the stupor of amazement
which had made her dumb. And the first reasoned thought which came to
her was that the Spanish doctor had treated her with the kindness of an
indulgent parent, for Elsie was far too unselfish not to be alive to
the unselfishness of others.

"How good you have been to me!" she murmured. "I can never repay you.
I r