standing alongside of him. He wanted to move a spoke, to
move all the spokes, to grind the wheel down, hard down, for his comrade
drowning in the sea. He glanced at Captain Dan Cullen, and Captain Dan
Cullen gave no sign.

"Down! Hard down!" the second mate roared, as he sprang aft.

But he ceased springing and commanding, and stood still, when he saw
Dan Cullen by the wheel. And big Dan Cullen puffed at his cigar and said
nothing. Astern, and going astern fast, could be seen the sailor. He had
caught the life-buoy and was clinging to it. Nobody spoke. Nobody moved.
The men aloft clung to the royal yards and watched with terror-stricken
faces. And the Mary Rogers raced on, making her westing. A long, silent
minute passed.

"Who was it?" Captain Cullen demanded.

"Mops, sir," eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.

Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough.
It was a large wave, but it was no graybeard. A small boat could live
easily in such a sea, and in such a sea the Mary Rogers could easily
come to. But she could not come to and make westing at the same time.

For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real
drama of life and death--a sordid little drama in which the scales
balanced an unknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude.
At first he had watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan
Cullen, hairy and black, vested with power of life and death, smoking a
cigar.

Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute. Then he removed
the cigar from his mouth. He glanced aloft at the spars of the Mary
Rogers, and overside at the sea.

"Sheet home the royals!" he cried.

Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food served
before them. On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, on
the other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena. Nobody spoke. On deck the men
were sheeting home the skysails. George Dorety could hear their cries,
while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and
well, clinging to a life-buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean. He
glanced at Captain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the
man was eating his food with relish, almost bolting it.

"Captain Cullen," Dorety said, "you are in command of this ship, and it
is not proper for me to comment now upon what you do. But I wish to say
one thing. There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one."

Captain Cullen