spose at leisure!"...

His pallid face took a diabolic glow in the first sun.

"Except yourself, of course," he added. "_You're_ evidence. King's
evidence. I'm not forgetting you. I'll even give you your chance. Are
you coming, old 50 per cent? Yes--down there! With me! Hell--what kind
of an adversary do you call yourself? Come on and share. Now's your time
to get level and change your luck once for all. Fight it out with
me--what? No?... Damn it, deacon, I thought you were going to be
amusing.... I'll knock your silly head in when I come back."

He climbed to the ladder, but a final odd fancy occurred to him, a
parting twist to the other's torment; and he summoned the big negro
mate.

"You see that fella white man? Mebbe he wants to go below--good; you
give him that other suit. Mebbe he raises hell or touches the pump; you
knock seven bells out of him. Otherwise no order. You savee?"

Buttermilk saveed with a vacant grin.

There hung for a moment after the helmet had been locked a singled-eyed
and monstrous red ghoul of the sea that presently lowered itself and
sank....

Wetherbee landed easily on the boat deck of the _Fernshawe_ well away
aft. It was hardly bright enough as yet above him, and he had to feel
his path a foot at a time in somber green twilight. Quick fishes steered
to and fro about him, silent and curious witnesses of this invasion. He
gave no heed, he had no care of sharks or diamond fish or any possible
danger, too intent on his errand, too elate and confident.

Balancing on his hands like an acrobat, he crawled over the edge, down
to the main deck, and began to explore forward.

In one hand he held a short and heavy steel crowbar, with a fine ground
tip. In the other he drew the coils of his life line and air tube. They
lengthened after him as he entered by the main companion, passed the
door to the saloon, and up a long, dark passage to a thwartship
corridor. There, as he had known from a vague and general familiarity
with its plan, was the door to the steamer's strong room. The lock
proved a trifle in the nip of his powerful jimmy....

* * * * *

When he groped out into the passage, twenty minutes later, he carried
slung to his belt, a sagging canvas bag.

It seemed to him that the ship must have moved in the interval of his
search. Some shifting of cargo or fracture of the coral supports had
tilted her sharply by the stern. He walked down a noticeable sl