old boy. A cheerful, simple, wise old child."

"I would have given my right hand to save him," cried Slade. "It was so
sudden--so damnable--"

"Better to have saved him than me," said Darrow. He spoke with the first
touch of feeling that he exhibited. "I have to thank you for my life,
Eagen--I beg your pardon: Slade. It's hard to remember."

Dr. Trendon arose, and Captain Parkinson with him.

"Give you two hours, Mr. Darrow," said the surgeon. "No more. If he seems
exhausted, give him one of these powders. I'll look in in an hour."

At the end of an hour he returned. Slade was lying back on his pillow.
Darrow was talking, eagerly, confidentially. In another hour he came out.

"The whole thing is clear," he said to Captain Parkinson. "I am ready to
report to you."

"This evening," said the captain. "The mess will want to hear."

"Yes, they will want to hear," assented Darrow. "You've had Slade's story.
I'll take it up where he left off, and he'll check me. Mine's as
incredible as--as Slade's was. And it's as true."

VIII

THE MAKER OF MARVELS

As they had gathered to hear Ralph Slade's tale, so now the depleted mess
of the _Wolverine_ grouped themselves for Percy Darrow's sequel. Slade
himself sat directly across from the doctor's assistant. Before him lay a
paper covered with jotted notes. Trendon slouched low in the chair on
Slade's right. Captain Parkinson had the other side. Convenient to
Darrow's hand lay the material for cigarettes. As he talked he rolled
cylinder after cylinder, and between sentences consumed them in long,
satisfying puffs.

"First you will want to learn of the fate of your friends and shipmates,"
he began. "They are dead. One of them, Mr. Edwards, fell to my hands to
bury, as you know. He lies beside Handy Solomon. The others we shall
probably not see: any one of a score of ocean currents may have swept them
far away. The last great glow that you saw was the signal of their
destruction. So the work of a great scientist, a potent benefactor of the
race, a gentle and kindly old heart, has brought about the death of your
friends and of my enemies. The innocent and the guilty ... the murderer
with his plunder, the officer following his duty ... one and the same
end ... a paltry thing our vaunted science is in the face of such tangled
fates." He spoke low and bitterly. Then he squared his shoulders and his
manner became businesslike.

"Interrupt me when any point needs clearing