another thought of the
Red Un. Both of them had sold him out, so to speak; but the woman
had grown up with his heart and the boy was his by right of
salvage--only he thought of the woman as he dreamed of her, not as
he had seen her on the deck. He grew rather confused, after a time,
and said: "I ha' loved and I ha' worked!"

Just between life and death there comes a time when the fight seems
a draw, or as if each side, exhausted, had called a truce. There is
no more struggle, but it is not yet death. The ship lay so. The
upreaching sea had not conquered. The result was inevitable, but not
yet. And in the pause the Red Un came back, came crawling down the
ladder, his indomitable spirit driving his craven little body.

He had got as far as the boat and safety. The gripping devils of
fear that had followed him up from the engine room still hung to his
throat; but once on deck, with the silent men who were working
against time and eternity, he found he could not do it. He was the
Chief's boy--and the Chief was below and hurt!

The truce still held. As the ship rolled, water washed about the
foot of the ladder and lapped against the cylinders. The Chief tried
desperately to drive him up to the deck and failed.

"It's no place for you alone," said the Red Un. His voice had
lost its occasional soprano note; the Red Un was a grown man.
"I'm staying!" And after a hesitating moment he put his small,
frightened paw on the Chief's arm.

It was that, perhaps, that roused the Chief--not love of life, but
love of the boy. To be drowned like a rat in a hole--that was not so
bad when one had lived and worked. A man may not die better than
where he has laboured; but this child, who would die with him rather
than live alone! The Chief got up on his usable knee.

"I'm thinking, laddie," he said, "we'll go fighting anyhow."

The boy went first, with the lantern. And, painful rung by painful
rung, the Chief did the impossible, suffering hells as he moved. For
each foot he gained the Red Un gained a foot--no more. What he would
not have endured for himself, the Chief suffered for the boy.
Halfway up, he clung, exhausted.

The boy leaned down and held out his hand.

"I'll pull," he said. "Just hang on to me."

Only once again did he speak during that endless climb in the
silence of the dying ship, and what he said came in gasps. He was
pulling indeed.

"About--that airtrunk," he managed to say--"I'm--sorry, sir!"

*