ore. His adversary had laid him out with the butt of a pistol.

Cleggett was not that inconsiderable sort of a man who is killed in any
trivial skirmish: There was a moment at the bridge of Arcole when
Napoleon, wounded and flung into a ditch, appeared to be lost. But
when Nature, often so stupid, really does take stock and become aware
that she has created an eagle she does not permit that eagle to be
killed before its wings are fledged. Napoleon was picked out of the
ditch. Cleggett was only stunned.

Both were saved for larger triumphs. The association of names is not
accidental. These two men were, in some respects, not dissimilar,
although Bonaparte lacked Cleggett's breeding.

When Cleggett regained consciousness he was on deck; George, Kuroki and
Cap'n Abernethy stood about him in a little semicircle of anxiety; Lady
Agatha was applying a cold compress to the bump upon his head. (He
made nothing of his other scratches.) As for Elmer, who had not
stirred from his seat on the oblong box, he moodily regarded, not
Cleggett, but a slight young fellow with long black hair, who lay
motionless upon the deck.

Cleggett struggled to his feet. "Is he dead?" he asked, pointing to
the figure of his recent assailant. Cap'n Abernethy, for the first
time since Cleggett had known him, gave a direct answer to a question.

"Mighty nigh it," he said, staring down at the young man. Then he
added: "Kind o' innocent lookin' young fellow, at that."

"But the other one? Was he killed?" asked Cleggett.

"The other?" George inquired. "But there was no other. When we got
down there you and this boy----" And George described the struggle
that had taken place after Cleggett had lost consciousness. The whole
affair, as far as it concerned Cleggett, had been a matter of seconds
rather than minutes; it was begun and over like a hundred yard dash on
the cinder track. When George and Kuroki and Cap'n Abernethy had
tumbled into the hold they had been afraid to shoot for fear of hitting
Cleggett; they had reached him, guided by his voice, just as he went
down under his assailant's pistol. They had not subdued the youth
until he had suffered severely from George's dagger. Later they learned
that one of Cleggett's bullets had also found him. Cleggett listened to
the end, and then he said:

"But there WERE two men in the hold. And one of them, dead or wounded,
must still be down there. Carry this fellow into the
forecastle-