blood rising hectic on his bruised and
broken face.

"If he thinks it's safe with me," he cried, "he'll learn different. I
didn't have a chance aft there; he came on me too quick, before I was
expecting him, and it was dark, besides. Or else----"

"It'll be dark again," said Slade, with intent, significant eyes
fixed on him, "and he needn't be expecting you. But--it don't do to
talk too much. Talk's easy--talk is."

"I'll do more than talk," responded Conroy. "You'll see!"

Slade nodded. "Right, then; we'll see," he said, and returned to his
breakfast.

His bunk was an upper one, lighted and aired by a brass-framed port-
hole. Here, when his meal was at an end, he lay, his pipe in his
mouth, his hands behind his head, smoking with slow relish, with his
wry old face upturned, and the leathery, muscular forearms showing
below the rolled shirt-sleeves. His years had ground him to an edge;
he had an effect, as he lay, of fineness, of subtlety, of keen and
fastidious temper. Forty years of subjection to arbitrary masters had
left him shrewd and secret, a Machiavelli of the forecastle.

Once Conroy, after seeming to sleep for an hour, rose on his elbow
and stared across at him, craning his neck from his bunk to see the
still mask of his face.

"Slade?" he said uncertainly.

"What?" demanded the other, unmoving.

Conroy hesitated. The forecastle was hushed; the seamen about them
slumbered; the only noises were the soothing of the water overside,
the stress of the sails and gear, and the irregular tap of a hammer
aft. It was safe to speak, but he did not speak.

"Oh, nothing," he said, and lay down again. Slade smiled slowly,
almost paternally.

It took less than eight hours for Conroy's rancor to wear dull, and
he could easily have forgotten his threat against the mate in twelve,
if only he had been allowed to. He was genuinely shocked when he
found that his vaporings were taken as the utterance of a serious
determination. Just before eight bells in the afternoon watch he went
forward beneath the forecastle head in search of some rope-yarns, and
was cutting an end off a bit of waste-line when the Greek, he of the
curly beard and extravagant eyeballs, rose like a demon of pantomime
from the forepeak. Conroy had his knife in his hand to cut the rope,
and the Greek's sudden smile seemed to rest on that and nothing else.

"Sharp, eh!" asked the Greek, in a whisper that filled the place with
dark drama.

Conroy p