of snarling triumph
underlying his sneer. "You're right. The thing won't carry more than
one, and that one is going to be Miss Ridsdale. So off you get,
Lambert."

"But I can't swim another stroke. I'm done up," stammered the other.

"Don't care. You can go to the bottom then. Get off, will you?"

"No, I won't," yelled the unfortunate man in the fury of despair. "My
life's as good as other people's. I'm here first, and here I mean to
stick."

"Oh, do you?" And dragging down the side of the impromptu raft which
was nearest him Roden suddenly released it. Up it went with a jerk,
flinging its occupant to the other side, where, losing his hold of the
ring-bolt, he rolled off into the sea. By the time he could recover
himself and think about striking out, the hatch was quite a number of
yards away.

"Musgrave, Musgrave!" shrieked the despairing man, "for God's sake don't
leave me! Let me just rest a hand on the thing to support myself; I
won't try and get on it. I swear I won't."

The only answer was a laugh--a blood-curdling laugh, a demoniacal laugh,
sounding, as it did, from the very jaws of death upon that dark and
horrible waste of waters.

"I wouldn't believe the oath of such a crawling sneak as you, Lambert,
if taken on your deathbed; and that's about where it is taken now.
Remember the valuable discovery you made at Doppersdorp. Well, you
thought to ruin me, but you only twisted the rope to hang yourself with,
for if your discovery hadn't driven me from the country I shouldn't be
here to-day to take your last plank from you. Now we are quits; for I
tell you, if this thing would carry fifty people, _you_ shouldn't get
upon it."

While Roden was thus speaking Lambert had been drawing gradually nearer.
Now making a sudden last despairing effort, with a sort of spring out
of the water, he succeeded in seizing the edge of the hatch, upon which
Mona had already been lifted, and was lying unconscious. It began to
slant perilously.

"Let go, will you!" spake Roden, between his teeth, in a voice like the
growl of a wild beast. "What? You won't!" And with all his force he
struck out, aiming a blow between the other's eyes. But Lambert saw it
coming, and dodged it.

It was a strange and soul-curdling scene, that upon which the ghastly
moon looked down, these two men, both within the very portals of death,
striving, battling alone in the black oiliness of the midnight sea,
fighting for that sma