straining to understand what was taking place. Yes, and Mulligan Jacobs
and Andy Fay were bitterly and eagerly side by side, and Ditman Olansen,
crank-eyed, as if drawn by some affinity of bitterness, stood behind
them, his head appearing between their heads. Farthest advanced of all
was Charles Davis, the man who by all rights should long since be dead,
his face with its wax-like pallor startlingly in contrast to the
weathered faces of the rest.

I glanced back at Margaret, who was coolly steering, and she smiled to
me, and love was in her eyes--she, too, of the perishing and lordly race
of blonds, her place the high place, her heritage government and command
and mastery over the stupid lowly of her kind and over the ruck and spawn
of the dark-pigmented breeds.

"Where's Sidney Waltham?" the mate snarled. "I want him. Bring him out.
After that, the rest of you filth get back to work, or God have mercy on
you."

The men moved about restlessly, shuffling their feet on the deck.

"Sidney Waltham, I want you--come out!" Mr. Pike called, addressing
himself beyond them to the murderer of the captain under whom once he had
sailed.

The prodigious old hero! It never entered his head that he was not the
master of the rabble there below him. He had but one idea, an idea of
passion, and that was his desire for vengeance on the murderer of his old
skipper.

"You old stiff!" Mulligan Jacobs snarled back.

"Shut up, Mulligan!" was Bert Rhine's command, in receipt of which he
received a venomous stare from the cripple.

"Oh, ho, my hearty," Mr. Pike sneered at the gangster. "I'll take care
of your case, never fear. In the meantime, and right now, fetch out that
dog."

Whereupon he ignored the leader of the mutineers and began calling,
"Waltham, you dog, come out! Come out, you sneaking cur! Come out!"

_Another lunatic_, was the thought that flashed through my mind; another
lunatic, the slave of a single idea. He forgets the mutiny, his fidelity
to the ship, in his personal thirst for vengeance.

But did he? Even as he forgot and called his heart's desire, which was
the life of the second mate, even then, without intention, mechanically,
his sailor's considerative eye lifted to note the draw of the sails and
roved from sail to sail. Thereupon, so reminded, he returned to his
fidelity.

"Well?" he snarled at Bert Rhine. "Go on and get for'ard before I spit
on you, you scum and slum. I'll give you and the