er-beaten, bearded faces. There was a
grin on each, from the first, which was clear to its smallest wrinkle
in the candle-light, to those which were vanishing and reappearing in
the shadows behind. Billy seemed to be incapable of word or action.

"Come to report, sir," said the nearest wrecker. "We seed you was
aground, young skipper, and we thought we'd help you ashore with the
cargo."

Billy rested his left hand on the head of a powder keg, which
stood on end on the counter beside him. His right stole towards the
candlestick. There was a light in his blue eyes--a glitter or a
twinkle--which might have warned the wreckers, had they known him
better.

"I order you ashore!" he said, slowly. "I order you _all_ ashore.
You've no right aboard this ship. If I had my gun----"

"Sure, you left it on deck."

"If I had my gun," Billy pursued, "I'd have the right t' shoot you
down."

The manner of the speech--the fierce intensity of it--impressed the
wreckers. They perceived that the boy's face had turned pale, that his
eyes were flashing strangely. They were unused to such a depth of
passion. It may be that they were reminded of a bear at bay.

"I believe he'd do it," said one.

An uneasy quiet followed; and in that silence Billy heard the prow of
another punt strike the ship. More footfalls came shuffling aft--other
faces peered down the companionway. One man pushed his way through the
group and made as if to come down the ladder.

"Stand back!" Billy cried.

The threat in that shrill cry brought the man to a stop. He turned;
and that which he saw caused him to fall back upon his fellows. There
was an outcry and a general falling away from the cabin door. Some men
ran forward to the punts.

"The lad's gone mad!" said one. "Leave us get ashore!"

Billy had whipped the stopper out of the hole in the head of the
powder keg, had snatched the candle from the socket, carefully
guarding its flame, and now sat, triumphantly gazing up, with the butt
of the candle through the hole in the keg and the flame flickering
above its depths.

"Men," said he, when they had gathered again at the door, "if I let
that candle slip through my fingers, you know what'll happen." He
paused; then he went on, speaking in a quivering voice: "My friends
left me in charge o' this here schooner, and I've been caught nappin'.
If I'd been on deck, you wouldn't have got aboard. But now you are
aboard, and 'tis all because I didn't do my duty. Do