e had fallen determined, he must suffer. For a moment his heart
stood still, his mouth gaped, he swayed on his feet. Then he clutched
the table and steadied himself.

"I am--giddy," he muttered.

"I am sorry that you have been put to so much inconvenience," Colonel
John answered civilly.

The words, the tone, might have reassured him, if he had not suspected
a devilish irony. Even when Colonel John proceeded to direct one of the
men to open a porthole and admit more air, he derived no comfort from
the attention. But steady! Colonel John was speaking again.

"You, too, gentlemen," he said, addressing Cammock and the Bishop, "I
am sorry that I have been forced to put you to so much discomfort. But
I saw no other way of effecting my purpose. And," he went on with a
smile, "if you ask my warranty for acting as I have acted----"

"I do!" the Bishop said between his teeth. The Admiral said nothing,
but breathed hard.

"Then I can only vouch," the Colonel answered, "the authority by virtue
of which you seized me yesterday. I give you credit, reverend father,
and you, Admiral, for a belief that in acting as you did you were doing
your duty; that in creating a rising here you were serving a cause
which you think worthy of sacrifice--the sacrifice of others as well as
of yourselves. But I tell, you, as frankly, I feel it my duty to thwart
that purpose and prevent that rising; and for the moment fortune is
with me. The game, gentlemen, is for the present in my hand; the move
is mine. Now I need hardly say," Colonel John continued, with an
appearance almost of _bonhomie_, "that I do not wish to proceed to
extremities, or to go farther than is necessary to secure my purpose.
We might set sail for the nearest garrison port, and I might hand you
over to the English authorities, assured that they would pay such a
reward as would compensate the shipmaster. But far be it from me to do
that! I would have no man's blood on my hands. And though I say at once
I would not shrink, were there no other way of saving innocent lives,
from sending you to the scaffold----"

"A thousand thanks to you!" the Bishop said. But, brave man as he was,
the irony in his voice masked relief; and not then, but a moment later,
he passed his handkerchief across his brow. Cammock said nothing, but
the angry, bloodshot eyes which he fixed on the Colonel lost a little
of their ferocity.

"I say, I would not shrink from doing that," Colonel John continued
m