clear," said the captain. "If you will agree, madam, to
testify against him in the English courts, I will immediately put him in
irons for attempted murder."

"Oh, do, captain," she exclaimed. "I cannot feel safe while he is at
liberty. Of course I will testify."

"Whatever you do, captain," said the husband, savagely, "rest assured
that I shall put a bullet through his head if he meddles with me or mine
again. Then you can put me in irons."

"I will see that he is attended to, colonel," replied the captain as he
bowed them out of his office.

But, as a murder charge is not always the best way to discredit a man;
and as the captain did not believe that the man who had defied him would
murder a child; and as the charge would be difficult to prove in any
case, and would cause him much trouble and annoyance, he did not order
the arrest of John Rowland, but merely directed that, for the time, he
should be kept at work by day in the 'tween-deck, out of sight of the
passengers.

Rowland, surprised at his sudden transfer from the disagreeable
scrubbing to a "soldier's job" of painting life-buoys in the warm
'tween-deck, was shrewd enough to know that he was being closely watched
by the boatswain that morning, but not shrewd enough to affect any
symptoms of intoxication or drugging, which might have satisfied his
anxious superiors and brought him more whisky. As a result of his
brighter eyes and steadier voice--due to the curative sea air--when he
turned out for the first dog-watch on deck at four o'clock, the captain
and boatswain held an interview in the chart-room, in which the former
said: "Do not be alarmed. It is not poison. He is half-way into the
horrors now, and this will merely bring them on. He will see snakes,
ghosts, goblins, shipwrecks, fire, and all sorts of things. It works in
two or three hours. Just drop it into his drinking pot while the port
forecastle is empty."

There was a fight in the port forecastle--to which Rowland belonged--at
supper-time, which need not be described beyond mention of the fact that
Rowland, who was not a participant, had his pot of tea dashed from his
hand before he had taken three swallows. He procured a fresh supply and
finished his supper; then, taking no part in his watchmates' open
discussion of the fight, and guarded discussion of collisions, rolled
into his bunk and smoked until eight bells, when he turned out with the
rest.

CHAPTER VI

"Rowland," said the big bo