would not be murder, there is no excuse in my conscience for
it. Whether the boat sinks or not, we will be taken off in time, for
that fellow over yonder is coming, and has ceased firing. But before you
are out of my hands I want to settle an old score with you--one dating
from our boyhood, which you'll perhaps remember. Toss that gun forward
and step aft a bit."

Forsythe, his face working convulsively, obeyed him.

"Florrie!" called Denman down the hatch. "Come up now. We're all right."

She came, white in the face, and stood beside him.

"Off with your coat, Forsythe, and stand up to me. We'll finish that old
fight. Here, girl, hold this gun."

Florrie took the pistol, and the two men discarded their jackets and
faced each other.

There is hardly need of describing in detail the fist fight that
followed. It was like all such, where one man is slightly the superior
of the other in skill, strength, and agility.

In this case that one was Denman; and, though again and again he felt
the weight of Forsythe's fist, and reeled to the deck occasionally, he
gradually tired out his heavier, though weaker, adversary; and at last,
with the whole weight of his body behind it, dealt a crashing blow on
Forsythe's chin.

Denman's old-time foe staggered backward and fell face upward. He rolled
his head to the right and to the left a few times, then sank into
unconsciousness.

Denman looked down on him, waiting for a movement, but none came.
Forsythe had been knocked out, and for the last time. Florrie's scream
aroused Denman.

"Is the boat sinking, Billie?"

He looked, and sprang for a life-buoy, which he slipped over Florrie's
head. The bow of the boat was flush with the water, which was lapping at
the now quiet bodies of the dead and wounded men forward. He secured
another life-buoy for himself; and, as he donned the cork ring, a hail
came from abeam.

"Jump!" it said. "Jump, or you'll be carried down with the wash."

The big scout ship was but a few lengths away, and a boat full of armed
men was approaching.

Hand in hand they leaped into the sea; and Denman, towing the girl by
the becket of her life-buoy, paid no attention to the sinking hull until
satisfied that they were safe from the suction.

When he looked, the bow was under water, the stern rising in the air,
higher and higher, until a third of the after body was exposed; then it
slid silently, but for the bursting of huge air bubbles, out of sight in
t