le love.

The swift current seized the boat, twisting it hither and thither till
it seemed to the now trembling fugitive a symbol of the stream of
tendencies upon which he had launched the frail bark containing their
united lives.

"I wonder if I am strong enough to stem it?" he asked himself.

Pepeeta continued to press his hand and that gentle sign of love revived
his drooping courage. Perhaps there is no other act so full of
reassuring power as the pressure of a human hand. Neither a glance from
the eye nor a word from the lips can equal it. The fainting pilgrim, the
departing friend, the discouraged toiler, the returning prodigal welcome
it beyond all other symbols of helpfulness or love, and the dying saint
who leans the hardest on the "rod and the staff of God" as he goes down
into the dark valley finds a comfort scarcely less sweet in the warm
clasp of a human hand. Just as the courage of this daring navigator of
the sea of crime had been restored by this signal of his loved one's
trust, the boat grated on the beach.

"Can we find a minister who will marry us at this time of night?" David
said to the ferryman, although he had been careful to ask this question
before.

"Two blocks south and three east, second door on the right hand side,"
he answered laconically, as he received the fare.

Such adventurers passed often through his hands and their ways were
nothing new.

The fugitives drove hurriedly to the designated house, knocked at the
door, were admitted and in a few moments the final act which sealed
their fate had been performed.

CHAPTER XVI.

THE DERELICTS

"Born but to banquet and to drain the bowl."

--Homer.

The "Mary Ann" had just returned from a trip to New Orleans, and while
waiting for her cargo lay moored at the foot of Broadway. As the quack
ascended her gang-plank the captain and mate rose to greet him. There
was not on the entire river, where so many extraordinary characters have
been evolved, a more remarkable pair.

The captain was five feet four inches in height, round, ruddy, mellow
and jocund. A complete absence or suppression of moral sense, together
with health as perfect as an animal's, had rendered him insensible to
all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. He had never shed a
tear save in excessive laughter, and sorrow had never yet struck a dart
through the armor of fat in which he was sheathed.

The mate was his counterpart and foil. Six fe