he depths.

* * * * *

About a year later, Lieutenant Denman received a letter with a Paris
postmark, which he opened in the presence of his wife. In it was a draft
on a Boston bank, made out to his order.

"Good!" he exclaimed, as he glanced down the letter. "Listen, Florrie,
here's something that pleases me as much as my exoneration by the Board
of Inquiry." Then he read to her the letter:

"DEAR SIR: Inasmuch as you threw two life-buoys over for us you may
be glad, even at this late period, to know that we got them. The
fight stopped when we hit the water, and since then Sampson and
myself have been chums. I saw both buoys thrown and held Sampson up
while I swam with him to the first; then, from the top of a sea, I
saw the other, and, getting it, returned to him. We were picked up
by a fisherman next day, but you will not mind, sir, if I do not
tell you where we landed, or how we got here, or where we'll be when
this letter reaches you. We will not be here, and never again in the
United States. Yet we want to thank you for giving us a chance for
our lives.

"We read in the Paris _Herald_ of your hearing before the Board of
Inquiry, and the story you told of the mess Forsythe made of things,
and the final sinking of the boat. Of course we were sorry for them,
for they were our mates; but they ought not to have gone back on
Casey, even though they saw fit to leave Sampson and me behind. And,
thinking this way, we are glad that you licked Forsythe, even at the
last minute.

"We inclose a draft for five hundred and fifty dollars, which we
would like you to cash, and pay the captain, whose name we do not
know, the money we took from his desk. We hope that what is left
will square up for the clothes and money we took from your room. You
see, as we did not give Casey but a little of the money, and it came
in mighty handy for us two when we got ashore, it seems that we are
obligated to return it. I will only say, to conclude, that we got it
honestly.

"Sampson joins with me in our best respects to Miss Fleming and
yourself.

"Truly yours,

"HERBERT JENKINS."

"Oh, I'm glad, Billie!" she exclaimed. "They are honest men, after all."

"Honest men?" repeated Denman, quizzically. "Yet they