OVER THE BORDER

BY MORGAN ROBERTSON

PUBLISHED BY
McCLURE'S MAGAZINE
AND
METROPOLITAN MAGAZINE

CONTENTS[1]

OVER THE BORDER

[THE LAST BATTLESHIP]

It was nearly midnight, and the battleship Argyll, stripped to bare steel, was drifting with banked fires but a full head of steam, waiting for daybreak to discover the enemy. New things were expected in this coming action. Wireless news had told of the presence of submarines, as yet unproved in war, and before the going down of the sun a high-power telescope on board had brought to view two small moving spots in the distant sky—airships; but whether they were friends or enemies had not been determined. No hammocks were piped that night—men slept at their stations or remained awake and talked; and aft on the superstructure a group of officers off duty discussed the possibilities of future warfare, and the coming place of the battleship under the menace of the bomb-dropping dirigible balloon and the invisible submarine with its deadly torpedo. All had taken part, some with laughter and joking, others with the earnest conviction of serious thought, and the discussion finally had narrowed down to a wordy combat between the highest and the lowest of the commissioned officers, Mr. Clarkson, the executive officer, and young Mr. Felton, temporarily the torpedo lieutenant. Mr. Felton had become dogmatic in his assertions, which is excusable at sea only in the young.

"But, Mr. Felton," said the executive officer, slowly and earnestly, "have a little common sense. Can't you see that conditions must change, that the battleship, like the steamship, has almost reached the limit of size and development, while the airship and the submarine are in their infancy?"

"But there must be a center, a nucleus of the fleet. How can you preserve the line of battle without such a backbone? Where will you put the admiral?"

"Up in the air, where he can see things?"

"And be seen, too, and shot at."

"Felton, an ordinary gas bag can travel faster than the speediest water craft ever constructed. We cannot hit a destroyer at full speed. How can we hit an airship above us? Gun sights are useless at such elevations, even though guns could be pointed."

"All a matter of mathematics. Design new ones."

"And suppose a few bombs come down on deck, or down the funnels; what'll happen to the boilers?"

"Armor the deck, and do away with funnels. We will soon have internal combustion engines, anyhow."

"And for submarine attack? Armor the bottom, too? Felton, a battleship will cease to be a battleship. With that weight of armor she could only carry the guns of a cruiser without a cruiser's speed."

"But she would still hold the line of battle."

"Until she was further reduced. Then she would not be even a cruiser. Finally she would sacrifice some of her armor—side armor, we'll say, because unnecessary—then, with enemies only above and below, she would lose it all, seal up and dive, or take wings and fly."

"Oh, Mr. Clarkson," said Felton, wearily, "you are a visionary and theorist. The battleship is here, a perfected fighting machine."

"But she cannot grow much better, while the flying machine and the submarine have just begun. Imagine the three types starting together. Which would be chosen?"

"It would depend upon the judgment, experience, and gray matter of the choosers. I"—young Mr. Felton threw out his chest—"would choose the battleship."

"Because you never hit one. There goes eight bells. Turn in, Felton, and sleep it off."

Amid the laughter—for Mr. Felton, as torpedo officer, had not yet scored a hit in his department—of the listening officers, the group dispersed, to stand watch, or sleep, until four hours later, when the striking of eight bells would again bring a change on the watches. It was Felton's turn in, and he went to his berth; but, hot and excited over the discussion, he remained awake, tossing and rolling, and mentally arguing with the impractical "first luff," until one bell had struck, then two, and finally three. Then he dozed off, and was sound asleep when the familiar stroke of the bell again rang in his ears. "Clang-clang, clang-clang."

"Only four bells," he murmured, sinking back for another two hours of sleep. But he had hardly lost consciousness when the gun-room orderly tapped at his door.

"Going into action, sir," he said. "You were called, and I thought you had wakened. All hands are at stations, sir."

Felton sprang out of his berth and dressed hurriedly. Until the enemy was within the "cruising radius" of torpedoes his station was on the bridge with the captain. As he ran along the gun deck he heard through the steel walls of the big ship the faint sound of distant firing, and when he had bounded up the forward companion steps to the main deck he could hear the singing of shells, and see through the inky blackness twinkling points of flame. A crash and a jar of the whole huge fabric told him that one ship of the enemy had the range, and that something had struck somewhere, and penetrated.

There was no time for sight-seeing. The bridge was above him, and the quickest road to it was by way of the turret, from the top of which he could swing himself up. He mounted the iron ladder bolted to the turret, but slipped on the hard steel roof and, with a force that deprived him of breath, was pressed sprawling on his face. But a deafening roar of sound from within the turret told him that the force came from below—from the explosion of a shell and one or more twelve-inch charges, perhaps the whole magazine in the depths. Hardly had his dazed faculties grasped this fact than another was borne in upon him. Gripping tightly the hand-hold of the turret hatch, and choked with gas fumes oozing through the sight holes in the hood, he felt that he was whirling through the air, upward and to port, he and the whole turret roof. As it turned in air he could see for a moment the dim, bulky outline of the ship below; then it faded into darkness, and he was clinging for dear life to that slowly canting disk of armored steel, until, as it assumed a perpendicular, he was holding his weight with one hand, very curiously, as he then thought, weighing very little. But he partook of the motion of the whole.

Something hard and rigid brushed him on the shoulder, and in a moment he was torn from his support to find himself clutching a smooth, round rod of what seemed to be steel or iron. It was perpendicular, and beyond in the darkness he made out another, and beyond another. Looking down he saw a long, pointed platform or deck, to the edge of which the rods led. He was clinging to the stanchion of an airship, but what kind of an airship he could not determine.

Thankful for life and a whole skin—though bruised and shocked almost into unconsciousness—he slid down the stanchion to the deck, and faced a man in the darkness—a tall man who peered down at his face.

"Hello, who are you, and where'd you come from?" he asked, rather kindly. "How'd you get aboard!"

"I hardly know myself. I hardly know I'm alive. This is an airship, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"My name is Felton, torpedo officer of the battleship Argyll. There was an explosion in the forward turret, and I was on top. I went up with the roof."

"Was that a turret top? I wondered what they were shooting at us."

"It was. I was rifling it. Which side are you on in this mix?"

"The side of the Lord."

The man whistled shrilly, and immediately half a dozen other dark forms materialized out of the dark. They threw themselves upon Felton, choked, pinioned, and bore him down, and before he could speak his protest he found himself bound hand and foot.

"Stay there," said the tall man, who seemed to be the commander, "until we need to expend weights. We did want a little more ballast."

Felton wisely accepted the situation, and remained through the waning night where they had placed him. They had not gagged him, and he was free to roll over and change his position when tired. He lay on what seemed to be a grating, but on turning to look at it, he found that it was the deck of the car, through the slits of which he could see lights below, and the quick gleaming of distant gun fire, but nothing on the black carpet that took form and identity.

In his immediate vicinity, however, objects were becoming faintly visible in the first blink of the morning light that had not yet reached the surface below. He made out the shape, size, and general construction of the craft that carried him. It was not the conventional elongated gas bag, with car and motor, rudder, and screw; nor was it suspended in the air by wings or planes, unless the long, concave roof above, toward the edge of which the stanchions led, performed some such function. Amidships were a vertical and a horizontal steering wheel, aft a noisily buzzing engine, and, behind it in the darkness, presumably, were the screw and rudders that propelled and guided the craft. Symmetrically disposed about the deck were long, steel cylinders that doubtless contained the compressed gas or air that worked the engine, and through and between them all a system of pipes, valves, levers, and indicators, as complicated as the fittings of an engine-room. The tall commander was at the wheel amidships, another man at the engine, and the rest of the crew, seven in all, were scattered about the deck "keeping lookout," not ahead, but down.

"There she is," said one, suddenly lifting his head. "Ahead, and to port."

"I see her," said the captain, peering down and shifting the wheel.

"You see, young man," he said to Felton, "we had to rise so suddenly to dodge that turret top that we lost sight of her."

"Do you mean to say," answered Felton, cautiously, for he did not yet understand the temper of these men, "that you can dodge anything?"

"We can dodge or outrun a shell, or anything else big enough to see. But it was dark, and we didn't see that turret coming. It almost hit us."

"What is your lifting power, captain?"

"The centrifugal force of the earth—partly, inconvenient in one respect, for we rise at a tangent. We descend by its opposite and balancing force, gravitation, which is more direct."

"How do you tap this centrifugal force?" asked the amazed Felton. "How do you overcome gravitation?"

"Gravitation is only one phase of magnetism. In magnetism, repulsion equals attraction. By reversing our polarity we are repelled from the earth at the speed of a falling body, but, of course, at a tangent."

"It's beyond me," said Felton. "Of course, that tangent would take you westward at the speed of the sun."

"In a succession of jumps—yes."

"But how do you change your polarity?" asked Felton, becoming interested.

"There is your ship down there, nearly beneath us." And the interest was crushed.

Felton looked down. The light was stronger now, and he could dimly see on the surface beneath the indefinite outlines of a battleship toward which the airship was heading. Not a light could be seen on her. Her fires were quiet; not a flare shone from her funnels. Though there was fighting at a distance, this craft was not engaged in it. Slowly, from the lofty point of view, she moved along on a course that crossed the course of the airship, and slowly the latter turned and followed, soon dropping squarely in her wake—if such term may be used—a full half-mile above. The engine now accelerated its speed, increasing its volume of noise; and this noise must have been heard on the battleship. A sudden illumination was seen—like a flash of heat lightning—then came the singing of a projectile, and with it the report of the gun.

"Oh, fudge!" said the captain, gently and pityingly. "Go ahead, boys."

It was now light enough for Felton to examine the faces of these men. To his surprise they were young, almost boyish. They were not in uniform. Their dress and faces were as commonplace as could be found in a factory; only the tall, thin young captain showing in voice and expression the signs of study and thought. He twirled the wheel, manipulated levers and valves within reach, and watched, downward through the slits, the big craft beneath.

The sun was rising in the east, and Felton could make out the details of the ship below—his own ship, with its familiar bridge, turrets, and superstructure, and an enormous, gaping hole forward where once had been the twelve-inch turret. Far to the south and east were other ships, pursued and pursuing, but which was friend and which enemy he could not make out. Warships, like bicycles, had become standardized.

A small, round shot was dropped over, and Felton watched it descend until it disappeared from sight. But soon a scarcely perceptible splash was seen—a little astern and to starboard, and the captain moved the wheel and turned a lever. Another shot, or finder, went down, and this splashed nearer. Then they lifted a pointed shell, vaned like a dynamite projectile, held it poised until the captain gave the word, and dropped it. It went down true as a plummet, and went out of sight. But its effects were soon seen in an uplifting of the quarter-deck close to the stern, and the rising of a cloud of yellow smoke.

"Nothing left of the steering gear," shuddered Felton. "Wonder how many were killed in that—and the other."

A six-inch gun on the superstructure was barking away, and shells still screamed upward, but none came near the airship.

"We'll silence that gun," the commander said, taking out his watch and slightly changing the course and speed. "Stand by."

They poised another shell, and at the word "drop" down it went. The commander pocketed his watch, and said: "Now for the rest of her; after turret next."

Felton heard, but was watching the descent of the shell. It went out of sight like the others, but soon he saw the uplift of deck, the yellow smoke of explosion, and a dismounted gun flying overboard.

"My God, captain!" he exclaimed. "Is this legitimate warfare? What chance has she? She can't hit back. That was the only gun she had with elevated trunnions."

"And she cost about four millions, didn't she?" answered the captain, derisively. "Did you ever hear about the boy who was reproved for clubbing a mule tied to a post? His excuse was that it had no darn business to be a mule. Mine is that you've no darn business to build battleships."

"Well, we may build airships, too," said Felton, helplessly.

He said no more, but watched, while his ship was picked to pieces. The after turret went next, its big guns lifting and falling across each other. It took two shells to do this, though the second may have had aid from the magazine beneath; for the whole turret rose with the explosion. Then the eight-inch turrets, one after the other, shattered to shapeless lumps under that terrible dropping bombardment; then the superstructure, with its inclosed armament of six-inch and smaller guns, received the fire; and when the whole expanse was an uneven tangle of riven plates, twisted rods, smashed boats, and uprooted ventilators, the funnels came in for attention. Three open, ten-foot tubes leading to the vitals, water-tube boilers and steam connections, one after another belched upward a mighty white cloud, and after each uprush of steam the dropping of bombs ceased until the steam had thinned; for in this deadly, leisurely destruction of a battleship, no bombs need be wasted.

There was still the gaping hole where once had been the forward turret, and the commander seemed to be studying this, as Felton, sick at heart and furious with impotent rage, lifted his gaze from the wreck, which, rolling slowly from filled compartments, smoking with inward flame, and covered with crawling dots seeking escape from the inferno beneath, had lately been his refuge and his home—the invincible, impregnable Argyll—queen among battleships.

"I say, there," called the captain to Felton. "What blew up that forward turret? No gun fire can reach a magazine, and it wasn't I that did it."

"How do I know? Perhaps it was something else like you," snapped Felton.

"Do you think," and the commander's face took on an anxious expression, "that it might have been a submarine's torpedo?"

"Find out."

"That's what I'll have to do. We'll go down and see."

One of the men, a big, lumbering fellow with a dull, moon-like face, came up to where Felton lay and kicked him.

"Don't talk like that to the boss," he said.

"D— you!" yelled Felton. "You kick a man bound and down. Loose my hands, if you dare. Loose my hands! I won't need my feet."

"Loose him," called the captain, unconcernedly.

"Give him his way."

The man stooped and unfastened the cord which held Felton's wrists, then, even as he scrambled to his feet, he released his ankles.

"Now, you dog, take it," he growled, launching his fist at the man's face. It landed squarely, and the man went down, bleeding. He arose, but instead of resisting, or making any attempt to strike back, stood placidly in his tracks while the angry man struck him again.

Once more he went down, to rise again and tranquilly face his assailant. Felton hesitated, while his anger cooled a little; this kind of fighting was new to him. But the kick in his ribs flashed into his mind and the anger came back. "Fight! Fight!" he growled, and again knocked the fellow down. This time he put all his strength, and the weight of his body into the blow, with the result that the man reeled aft past the steering gear before he fell. He sat up and turned his swollen, bleeding face toward Felton, but did not rise nor speak.

"You've had enough, I judge," said Felton. "Any one else here who wants to kick me?"

No one answered. They were all looking down, and even the victim joined in the scrutiny. Not one had seemed in any way interested in the fracas.

"Come on. Who's next?" said the puzzled Felton.

"It is against our rules here to fight," said the nearest man, without looking up. "We save our energies for the enemy."

"But it seems within your rules to kick a prisoner," answered Felton in disgust.

"Do you think," asked the captain, raising a troubled face, "that there are any submarine craft around?"

"How do I know?" answered Felton.

"I don't feel easy, at all," said the other, plaintively.

"How the devil," exclaimed Felton, "can a submarine hurt you?"

The captain looked down without answering, and Felton seated himself to cool off, wondering, the while, what particular brand of human nature was embodied in this crew, and half expecting a concerted attempt to bind him again. But nothing of the kind happened; and when his breathing and circulation were normal, he, too, looked down on the spectacle below.

The airship had descended to less than a hundred yards from the sea, and hung poised, not over the floating scrap heap that had once been a battleship, but to starboard. One look was enough for Felton; he saw men writhing among the wreckage, unable to crawl to the rail and end their agony. Smoke was coming from every aperture, and here and there a small tongue of flame shot up, and fell back into the smoke. Nauseated with horror, he closed his eyes, changed his position, and opened them on the placid sea on the other side—away from the Argyll. A smooth, rolling swell pulsed and ebbed along the surface, and it was slightly roughened with ripples; but this did not materially lessen the transparency of the ocean, viewed from a height. Fish were visible, swimming about in the depths, and Felton thought of sharks, waiting for the final plunge of that hot and smoking wreck. Far over, a movement on the surface caught his eye; it was a triangular arrangement of ripples such as is made by the cutwater of a boat moving slowly. The apex of the triangle pointed toward the Argyll, and it was coming toward her. As it drew near Felton made out the cause, a short length of pole extending about three feet out of water and moved by some power beneath. Then a huge, bulky shape, pointed like a fish, but foreshortened and distorted by reflection—a darker blue on the blue of the sea—appeared to view as the source of the motive power.

"There's a submarine, for you, captain," he called grimly. "See the periscope tube?"

"Where?" yelled the captain, excitedly. "Where is it?"

He sprang to his feet, and looked to where Felton pointed. The others followed suit, their cries, queries and alarmed faces increasing Felton's doubts as to their sanity.

"Oh, God help us!" cried the captain, mournfully, as he saw the tube and the shape beneath. "Jump—jump for your lives! Jump, you!"

He pointed at Felton, and sprang toward him.

"Why should I jump?" asked Felton, wonderingly, and prepared for defense. The others came at him, each shouting his loudest: "Jump, jump for your life! Overboard with you! Quick, you fool!"

Then one sprang to the rail, poised a moment and threw himself out into space. Another followed, and another.

"Jump, will you?" yelled the captain, gesticulating earnestly. "I'm in command. I must be last to go. Over with you. Over with you all."

They were crowding to the rail, where one after another, the rest of the crew took the leap. And Felton, amazed, alarmed without knowing why, and against all the dictates of cold reason and common sense, allowed the captain to push him to the rail.

"Over you go, now," commanded the latter, encouragingly. "Don't be afraid. I'm coming, but I must be last, you know."

This seemed to be irresistible logic to the bewildered young officer. With no further thought about the matter, he reached the rail, and without looking down, drew a deep breath and leaped—a victim of suggestion.

Three hundred feet is a long jump. He turned over twice in that terrible descent, and once, looking upward, he saw the sprawling form of the captain, and above it the quiescent airship. But when he looked again he did not distinguish the man, and a lessening spot in the western sky was all that could be seen of the airship.

With consciousness nearly gone he struck the water feet first and was almost split in two by the impact; but the cold shock brought back his lapsing senses, and he found himself feebly swimming, in which direction he could not tell, for it was pitch dark in the depths to which he had sunk. With aching lungs he swam and turned, looking for light that would indicate the surface, but saw nothing to guide him, and in utter despair was about to give up when light appeared. It was not a dim glow, like diffused sunlight, but a spark, a point of yellow, that grew larger and became a disk. It was approaching and now another appeared beside it, fainter, and crescent shaped. On the other side appeared a third and, dazed with physical agony that reached from lungs to brain, he recognized the dead lights of a submarine's conning tower. He looked for the hull beneath, and saw it, a dark blur that was growing in size.

It came swiftly at him, and just as he was reaching out, to ward himself from the pointed nose, there was a coughing thud, and something brushed by him in a blast of bubbles and went on. Then, with many sharp knocks on head, ribs, and knuckles, he was sucked with the inrush of water squarely into the open tube that had just discharged its torpedo. He heard a clang behind him, the shutting of the forward tube door, then a whistling sound; then he felt the pressure of air on his face and with a groan of thanksgiving he expelled the long breath he had taken above, and drew it into his lungs. But the pressure had nearly burst his ear drums before the tube was emptied of water, and the inner door was opened. With a gasping call for help, he crawled and hitched along the tube and men reached in to him. They pulled him out into the lighted handling room, where, too weak to stand, he fell to the floor, breathing in deep, convulsive gasps.

A man brought a bottle, lifted his head, and poured a generous portion of some stimulant down his throat. Felton had just strength to swallow, and it warmed and aroused him. He sat up and, being a torpedo expert, had little difficulty in assimilating his first impressions. He was acquainted with submarines; there was the tube from which he had emerged, beside it the air flasks and trimming tanks. Amidships the vertical and horizontal steering gear, and aft the engine and motor. In this much the craft resembled the conventional submarine that he knew. But there was this difference—that he noted when able to turn his head. The boat was stiffened with upright stanchions of about the size and length of the stanchions in the airship, and placed in about the same position along the sides. Another similarity struck him at his first glance around; and he wondered why he had not remarked it in the airship; the air flasks, trimming tanks, and spare torpedoes arranged along the sides, occupied the same relative positions as did the steel cylinders in the other, while the steering gear of both was amidships and the motive power aft.

"What have you caught this time, Bill?" called a voice from the wheel—a strangely familiar voice.

"Dunno," answered the man with the flask. "It's a sheep, I think, or maybe a dog; but it looks something like a horse. Have another drink, and tell us what you are."

Felton did not refuse a second draught. It brought him to his feet.

"I'm a man," he answered with spirit. "Are you guying me—in this exigency? I'm near dead."

"He says he's a man, sir," called the man.

"All right. Send him aft."

Felton was pushed, rather than led, to the man amidships.

"How do you do?" he said kindly. "So, you thought you'd visit us. We catch all our fish this way."

"My God, captain," answered Felton, "I'm not visiting! I jumped out of an airship, and was sucked into your tube. I'm glad I'm alive."

And then—was the liquor affecting his brain?—the captain's face, line for line, feature for feature, was the face of the captain of the airship, whom last he had seen sprawling above him in mid-air. Had he beaten him down, and been picked up first? It seemed impossible.

"How—what—how—" he stammered, rubbing his eyes. "How did you get here, captain? You jumped after me."

"I jumped after you? You are wandering. I saw you all jump, through the periscope, but I was here."

"Then it's the closest resemblance I ever saw. You're the living image of the airship's commander, or else it's the liquor. My head feels queer."

"No doubt. But it's not the liquor. You've had a terrible experience. It's a wonder the jump didn't kill you, as well as affect your mind."

Felton was not satisfied with the explanation. It was a strange and striking resemblance, nothing more; and he was about to say as much when a man came forward from the engine with an oil can. He was the duplicate in face and form of the man he had pommeled, but without the contusions. Felton blinked in amazement, then looked at the others, whom, in the agitation of his entrance, he had not closely observed. Man for man—nine in all—they duplicated the crew of the airship.

"My God," he stuttered. "Am I mad, or drunk?" His brain reeled, and, as it had reeled before, in the social life of a naval officer, he ascribed it to the liquor.

"You've drugged me," he yelled insanely. "Every man here is a double of another."

"Steady—steady, now," said the captain, stepping down and laying a hand on Felton's shoulder. "You're not drugged. You're a little off your balance, and the drink was too heavy. Every drunken man sees double. Isn't that so?"

This seemed logical, and Felton stammered assent. He sat down on the projecting bilge of a torpedo, trying to recover his mental balance. It was hard work, but finally he adjusted himself to the captain's point of view. It was a terrible jump—three hundred feet. He had escaped death by a miracle. Men had gone insane under less pressure, and he had taken two drinks of a powerful stimulant. He would be all right, in time—after a little sleep. Thus reconciled, he took note of his surroundings. The engine was stopped, the men forward had just finished reloading the torpedo tube, and the captain was peering into the periscope—the non-magnifying telescope which gives a view of the seascape.

"Come up here," he said, "and take a look." Felton climbed to the small platform on which the captain stood. Just before him was the eyepiece of the periscope, and, at a sign from the captain, he peeped into it. Pictured on the lens was the dismantled wreck of the Argyll, down by the head, a helpless, sinking wreck.

"She's floating on five compartments," said the captain. "I just filled the sixth, and I think we'll fill two at once this time. By the way, what did you fellows butt in for? It was my fight. I hit her last night, and blew up the forward magazine; then I lost her in the dark."

"But say," answered Felton, "which side are you on in this mix? You blew up the turret, you say, and the airship destroyed her. But the crew of that airship displayed mortal fear of you, and jumped overboard at sight of you."

"Exactly. They would have gone off at a tangent if they hadn't. It's better to die on your planet than to become a comet for all eternity."

"Like the airship. I see. But how did you do it, if I may ask?"

"I reversed his polarity, that's all. See that? Look, and listen."

The captain turned a lever, and a dynamo nearby began to revolve, while an arc lamp suspended from above glowed, glistened, and sparkled, as the current passed through the carbons. Soon it began a curious, musical buzzing, and the captain shut it off.

"Merely an alternating current through an arc," he explained. "But the electric impulses sent out by that singing arc are of a wave length and frequency produced by no other means. They are just right to turn his two magnetic poles into one, and—away he goes."

"I don't understand. Yes, I understand that you might reverse his polarity, or combine it, as you say, by some wireless method. But, which side are you on?"

"The side of the Lord."

"Look here, captain," said Felton, angrily. "That is the answer your double gave me when I asked him the same question last night. It means nothing. I am either a prisoner of war, or a guest entitled to consideration. Why do you treat me like a fool?"

"Because you are a fool. You believe in the invulnerability of the battleship. Well, there is one of the best. Look at her."

"I see. Destroyed, but not by you; by an enemy of yours. One who feared you."

"Yes, as mediocrity fears intelligence, as the child fears the dark, the savage the gun of the civilized soldier—humanity as a whole the unseen, the unexpected, the invisible. The airship is potential, but not final—she can be seen."

"And shot," said Felton, doggedly.

"Did that battleship hit your airship? You know that she could not. The airship's limitations are contained in her visibility. She cannot be hit by shot or shell, but she can be seen, and projected into space."

"Granted, but suppose she dropped a bomb on to your back before you saw her?"

"She could not, except in the dark; then she would have to strike a knife edge, and it would be an accident—one chance in millions. We are constructed like a razor-back hog, to deflect falling bombs."

"But you cannot deflect horizontal torpedoes," said Felton, looking up at the dome of the submarine. It looked curiously like the dome-shaped roof of the airship. "I know well," he went on, talking as was his wont among his fellow officers, "that if I could see your periscope tube with a telescope, I could hit you with one of my torpedoes."

"Your torpedoes?"

"I am torpedo officer of that battleship. I was on the turret top when you blew it up last night, and went up with it. I landed on the airship."

"You are a member of that battleship's crew?"

"I am." Felton dropped his eyes at the menace in the captain's voice. On the way his glance took in the curving walls of the submarine. They had become semi-transparent, and even as he looked they vanished, leaving a clear view of the sky and horizon with its string of fighting ships, pursued and pursuing. He was again in the airship, and the upright stanchions that he had first observed as anomalies in a submarine now served their legitimate purpose of supports to the roof.

"The drink," he murmured, while his brain swam, and his soundings disappeared in a mist. "They've drugged me."

"You belong to that battleship?" roared the captain, but Felton had sunk to the floor, incapable of voluntary action. The captain blew a whistle, and his crew answered. They surrounded him, with scowling faces, and lifted him to his feet. He could stand, but some inhibitory power prevented him from moving a muscle. Foremost among them was the man he had trounced, and this man struck him, again and again, in the face, and Felton essayed to strike back; but the paralysis of his muscles prevented him. His blows fell short.

"Back to the battleship," thundered the captain. "Load him into the tube. Expend that torpedo and make room."

Men sprang to the tube and turned levers. The captain sprang to the periscope. "Right," he said. "I'll finish her."

How an airship could fire a torpedo was beyond Felton's benumbed faculties at the time. He was struggling weakly, trying to strike, but unable to, pounded on the face and body by the implacable victim of his fists in the former fight, helplessly borne along toward the tube, now emptied of water.

"Back to the battleship," they chorused. "In with him."

Powerless to resist he was jammed head first into the tube. He heard the door creak into place behind him. Then he felt an impact of cold water, and he had barely sense to forestall this by an inhalation of air. Then, faintly as the voice of a telephone, came the voice of a man.

"The forrard door's jammed, it won't open."

"Hammer it," came the captain's voice. "Get a top-maul."

An age or two went by, while Felton lay imprisoned in the tube, holding his breath, and immersed in water. Then, faintly as the voices, came the sound of a heavy hammer on the walls of the tube:

"Clang-clang, clang-clang."

Felton awoke in his berth, as wet with perspiration as though still immersed in that tube. The gun-room orderly tapped at his door.

"Eight bells, sir," he said.

"All right," he answered. "Eight bells," he murmured to himself. "I heard the first four of them—let's see—about twelve hours ago. Twelve hours of experience between the fourth and fifth strokes. How long does a dream take? Darn a dream, anyhow."

[ABSOLUTE ZERO]

He was not exactly an imbecile—merely feeble-minded, unable to remember his past, or even the events of a year gone by—an elderly man who loafed about the studio building, a man with few wants and no vices, who picked up a scanty living by cleaning up studios for the artists, and occasionally posing for them. We called him Old Bill; he did not know his last name, and was subject to fainting spells.

The artist, like myself, was a marine painter, each of us having followed the sea when young, and in answering to the higher call that comes at least once in every man's life, had taken to art with the sea for a specialty. We both painted ships and shipwrecks, storms and sailors, but the difference between us in age, experience, and ability was so great that there was never anything but sincere friendship between us.

I welcomed his advice and criticism, and he welcomed my society, because, as he put it, my youth and enthusiasm revived his failing energies. His studio adjoined mine, and when the afternoon light had waned, I visited him to smoke, talk, and listen to his yarns, for he had been longer at sea than I had, and he had more to tell. Also, besides being a master of his art, he was a deep student of science, keeping himself well informed on each new invention and discovery; and his comments on such subjects were practical, logical, and conclusive.

As, for instance, in discussing that ninety-and-nine days' wonder, the wreck of the Titanic, and the proposed measures to prevent a repetition of such a terrible disaster, he had laughed at the futile idea of more lifeboats.

"All the lifeboats in the world," he said, "will not avail of themselves if they must be lowered from a boat deck seventy feet high, with the steamer rolling in a heavy sea. They would all smash against the side before half-way down. The Titanic had a smooth sea, remember."

"Long davits," I suggested, "to keep them well outboard."

"Long davits—long enough to answer the purpose—would foul one another."

"Short davits, then, and travelers up and down the side."

"Impracticable, even if a steamship company would be willing to disfigure their ships so much. In time of panic, the boats could not be fitted into the travelers."

"But don't you think," I asked, "that more and stronger compartments would solve the difficulty?"

"They would have to be as strong as the side of the ship," he answered, "and the necessary angle irons and bracings would interfere with cargo space and interior accommodations."

"Then a detachable upper deck," I said, "that would stay in place by gravity, but float if the hull sank."

"It would break into pieces in a seaway. It would need to be an upper section of two decks with an air space. Well, how about hatches, stairways, and masts leading to the lower body? The two ends of the ship, which are clear of these fixtures, would not hold all hands, and if you do away with hatches, making this upper section water-tight, how about the hundreds of people—engineers, firemen, and steerage passengers—imprisoned in the hull?"

"Right," I answered. "It seems, then, that the only safety from ice is in the Southern Lane route, and slow speed in a fog."

"Yes, unless this English scientist's invention proves practicable. Have you read of it?"

I had not, and said so.

"He intends," he explained, "to send forth at intervals sharp notes of inaudible sound which, acting like audible sound, will come back from an iceberg, a ship, or a coast as an echo, and the time elapsed, recorded by a suitable receiver, and divided by two, will give the distance."

"Inaudible sound," I answered. "That seems anomalous."

"Hypothetical rather—not yet proven. But who knows? There are sounds of too low and long a vibration—I do not mean the roll of a drum, which is merely a succession of beats—that cannot be cognized by the human ear. There are sounds too high to be heard, such sounds as the chirp of a cricket, or tweet of a bird. Some people never hear these sounds. Why not use these sounds, and receive their echoes by delicate instruments?"

"Give it up," I said hopelessly.

"They call silence the negation of sound," he continued, "as they call darkness the negation of light. There is polarity throughout the universe. We are aware of plus and minus quantities in mathematics, each calculable by the same methods.

"We know of the north and south poles of the magnet; we know of positive and negative electricity; we know, by the expansion of gases, that there is a force the opposite of gravitation, and which repels instead of attracts. Some theorists have called this force apergy. I believe that all these negative forces exist, but only in the presence, or because of the existence, of their opposites. For I know that cold, which, more than all other conditions, may seem to be a mere negation, will answer to the laws of other radiant energy, and, like heat, decrease in force as the square of the distance."

I looked stupidly at him, then at Old Bill, who, no more stupid than myself under this avalanche of erudition, was puttering about, cleaning up the studio. Not noticing my bewilderment, the old artist went on.

"But an iceberg," he said, "is too large to be cognized by the law of inverse squares. It would need a diaphragm bigger than itself—bigger than the largest ship, to collect its radiations of cold. Could it be reduced to a point, however, and its cold concentrated, we could calculate its distance and direction, at least, if not its size. You know the nature of a searchlight, do you not?"

He looked at me now, and, trying to bring an intelligent expression to my face, I nodded.

"An arc light in the focus of a parabolic reflector placed behind it," he continued. "Stand in the path of its beam and you will sensibly feel the heat. Place a large lens—as large as the aperture—in the way, and focus the beam on yourself, and you will feel a heat equal to that of the arc light—about seven thousand degrees Fahrenheit—less what has radiated into the surrounding air.

"Now, get out of that focus, and place an opaque disk on the center of the searchlight aperture, and the beam will go forth with a dark center, like a hollow pipe of light and heat. And this dark center will have the temperature of the outer air, plus only what has radiated into it from the surrounding pipe.

"But after passing through the lens both the light and the dark center will reach the same focus, and if you can place a thermometer, without burning yourself, near the focus of the dark core, you will notice a great drop in the temperature. So, you see, cold, while negative heat, is a minus quantity; but it needs the presence of heat to make it respond to the same laws that govern heat."

He paused for a moment, then looked at me; and this time I could not conceal the vacuous expression on my face. He smiled, then turned to Old Bill.

"Bill," he said, "what do you think about it? Do you think all gases will ultimately be solidified as they are now liquefied? Do you think the absolute zero of space can be determined by any application of the integral or the differential calculus?"

In answer to this whimsical question Bill said: "I dunno, sir. I can't calcilate. I jess 'member I washed the windows an' swept up an' dusted. D'ye want me in the mornin', sir?"

"No, Bill. If you're through, that'll do to-night."

"I'll want you, Bill," I interposed, as the old fellow started for the door. "Come at nine o'clock, and wear your oldest, raggedest clothes."

"Yes, sir," answered Bill, and departed.

"It's the last figure in the picture," I added quickly, to forestall a resumption of the harrowing lecture on matters I did not understand. "And it will be done about noon. I'll be glad if you will come in and look it over."

"Most certainly," said my friend. "Been a long time at it, haven't you?"

"Yes; but I didn't want to bother you until it was done. I want to be original, if I can, and depend on my own conceptions."

"That's right. Be yourself. I'll be in at noon, and look at it."

I had been a long time on that picture, in conception, composition, and execution; and it had followed a longer time of inactivity, during which I had done nothing in the way of work except to search my soul for an idea. At last it had come to me, and I had made sketches, one after the other, until, in composition, it was complete; then I had painted it.

Still, there lacked a motive. It was a picture, but it told no story intelligible to the eye without an explanatory title, and I had not yet thought of a title. The scene was on the deck of a ship—a flush-deck, polacca-masted craft, a type of rig I had seen but once in my travels—and the viewpoint was at the break of the poop, looking forward. The fore and mainsail were clewed up, hanging in the buntlines, and the flying jib was down a-bag on the jib-boom end.

The craft was heeled, a gale of wind blowing, as evidenced by the gray storm clouds and a sea washing over the bow, and scattered about the deck were dead men, of the Chinese, Malay, or negro type; but here consistency ended, for though these men were bareheaded and barefooted, indicating warm weather, huge icicles hung from the fife rails and scuttles, while the sea bordering the bow lost the translucency of water as it reached the deck, taking on the white, glistening effect of ice, in which some of the bodies were frozen.

Near the foremast, on the weather side, his feet and ankles hidden in ice, stood a huge negro holding over his head at full length the figure of a living man, his attitude indicating an intention to hurl him to the deck. On his dark, evil face, as on the faces of the dead men, was an expression of terror and pain.

But the face of the living man held over his head showed nothing. I had not yet painted the face, and that was why I wanted Old Bill, to take the pose and assume a terrified look. I had painted the others from my imagination, taking care only to make each one different; but this living face of a man about to be hurled to death was to be the center of the picture—to be worked out in detail, with all the high lights. A grotesque, Dantesque, Doresque, horrible idea for a picture, one might well think; but its incongruity never struck me as my mind had worked it out.

Old Bill came on time next morning, and, without looking at the painting, climbed to a plank I had placed between two easels about seven feet above the floor. He lay on his side, and at my direction assumed the pose I wanted—arms and legs outstretched, with fingers clutching at nothing. In this, he suited me; but when it came to taking a frightened look, he failed. His wrinkled features went into all sorts of contortions, and I painted, wiped out, and repainted, again and again, then gave it up. The world had treated Old Bill too kindly, I thought, and he could not comprehend fear.

When I had paid him for his time he left, and I painted in the face from imagination alone—giving it, not the wrinkled look of age, but youth, strength, and courage, and the terror that comes to youth and strength and courage when menaced with sudden death. Then, the picture finished, I sat back and smoked, while a weariness came over me that soon merged into slumber, from which I was awakened by a knock at the door. My cold pipe fell from my lips, and I arose to admit my neighbor, tutor, and critic—the old artist.

"There it is," I said, as I led him to the picture. "Old Bill didn't help much. He couldn't—"

"Great God, man!" he interrupted. "What are you doing? I thought you wanted to be original. Have you been through my old drawings?"

"No, I have not," I answered hotly. "What do you mean?"

He did not answer at once. He looked at the picture with eyes that almost bulged, muttering to himself: "Pango Sam, Wong Fing, Landy Jim." Then he turned to me, and said excitedly: "Were you on board that bark?"

I wondered if he had gone crazy, and did not answer.

"No," he said. "It happened before you were born. What manner of man are you—to see into the past? It is not prophecy. Wait!"

He darted out of my studio and into his own, where I heard him throwing things about, opening trunks and closets, and talking to himself. I relighted my pipe, seated myself, and waited, wondering what had upset him. After a time he returned, much calmer, and holding in one hand a painting, in the other a small tintype, the faces of which he concealed from me.

"Our finite minds," he said, as he stood above me, "consider only what appeals to the five senses. Our subconscious minds consider the infinite, in which there is neither time, nor space, nor distance. That mutiny and murder has occurred, is occurring, and will occur. You have dipped into the infinite, that is all. Look!"

He showed me the painting. It was dusty and dingy, but, with a few minor exceptions of detail, the exact duplicate of the painting on my easel!

"I painted this thirty years ago," he said, "and for twenty-five years it has lain at the bottom of an old trunk. The subject was too grisly for the market, and I did not try to sell it."

While I stared, open-eyed and open-mouthed, at his picture, and my pipe went out from my irregular, gasping breathing, he held before me the tintype. It was the picture of a young man clad in cheap, ready-made garments—the "store clothes" of the farmer, or the "shore clothes" of the sailor. And the face was the face that I had conceived for the man held aloft by the negro in my painting!

"I was that young fellow," he said, "and this tintype was taken at the end of that voyage."

"What does it mean?" I gasped. "Have I read your mind?"

"I do not know. It depends upon what else you know yourself. Can you tell me what killed those men? Can you tell me what killed the nigger, so that instead of being thrown twenty feet I merely slid down from his grip and bumped my elbow on the ice? Ice, understand, near the equator, in the Indian Ocean."

"I do not know," I choked. "Did this happen? When did it happen?"

"Nearly fifty years ago, when I was 'fore the mast, unable to understand. But it was one of the influences that led me to the study of science. Perhaps I could understand now, if I had the data. But I cannot remember, and I have not your power of intuition. It is a wonderful power, but as likely to harm as to help you. Have you studied physics at all?"

"Only in the most elementary way," I answered. "And something killed those men, you say—something you do not understand?"

"I can only surmise. Something struck them that froze them stiff, that turned moving salt water to ice in an instant, that killed the intelligence that directed it. It was a passenger, a young missionary going home—a young genius of a man with a bent toward material things, and a whole boatload of scientific paraphernalia that he was always experimenting with. He was on the poop-deck when this occurred, but went clean crazy when I fell to the deck. We put him in the Cape Town hospital, but up to the last he was demented. He alone could tell what he did to that bunch of mutineers, but he could not have lived much longer."

"Tell me the yarn," I suggested. "Perhaps I can make a further guess at it."

"The best way," he answered, "would be to hypnotize you and question your subconscious mind. It is done in the hospitals to learn of mysterious, baffling diseases, and why could not you tell how this happened? But I never hypnotized anyone, so I'll give you the yarn—tell you what I know, and perhaps you can get the rest."

He placed his picture, face downward, on my table, seated himself, and lighted his pipe as a preliminary to his story. But before he could begin there was a knock at the door, and I admitted Old Bill.

"Thought, sir," he said, "that you might want me to clean up when the job is done."

This was usual; when a piece of work was in the making I paid no attention to my place. Only when the last stroke was applied to a picture did I think of housecleaning, and send for Bill.

"All right," I answered. "But not right away. Come back in an hour, when we're through talking."

He had entered the room, and nodded at my answer, even though his eyes were fixed upon the painting on the easel.

"But ye haven't put my face in it, arter all, sir," he said.

"No, you didn't make good, Bill," I answered. Then my attention was taken by the expression of his face—a curious blankness which I knew too well. My neighbor noticed, too, and said sharply:

"Brace up, Bill! Brace up, man!"

I knew the remedy from former experience, and happened to have it in a closet. Quickly pouring a glass of liquor, I gave it to the shaking, tottering old man, and he swallowed it at a gulp.

"Thank ye, sir," he said a moment later, when he was steadier. "Ye know I don't drink, sir; but when I feel it comin' on, nothin' else but a drink'll stop the spell. I'll be back in an hour, sir."

He left, and the artist remarked: "Poor old Bill. He'll go out feet first one of these days, and that'll be the last of him. Well, I'll tell you about that bark. I shipped in her at Hongkong, and stuck to her at Batavia, where every other man 'fore the mast deserted. She was not exactly a hell ship, as hell ships go; but the skipper and two mates were American, with American ideas of discipline, and these ideas were too strenuous for the cosmopolitan crew of Dagoes, Dutchmen, and Sou'egians that had taken her down the China Sea.

"But the crew we took on at Batavia was worse; there was not a white man in the crowd. There were three giants among them—one, Wong Fing, a short-haired renegade from Ningpo, where he was wanted for cutting his brother's throat. Another was Pango Sam, a West Coast negro, and a capital seaman, but with a frightful temper. The third was Landy Jim, and I never knew his nationality. He was a half-breed, or a fourth-breed; when things went well with him he was yellow, but when angered he turned black, and his eyes turned red as his hair, which, though kinky, was the color of a brand-new brick. They were a fine trio, and the master spirits.

"The rest were the usual riffraff of the Orient, yellow and brown, barely able to speak English or understand orders, but able to get out of their own way, steer after a fashion, and pull a rope if put in their hands. With this crowd we went to sea, bound for Cape Town, and at the last moment our passenger, of whom I have spoken, joined us with his apparatus. There was nothing that I understood at the time, nor even now. He had a lot of tanks, flasks, carboys, spiral pipes, and such things, with a big, cup-shaped affair that might have been a reflector if it had not been so long. I remember it was polished inside, and perhaps now, could I see that outfit, I might make a guess as to what he was experimenting with.

"No, in painting that picture you did not read my mind, or you would have put the Reverend Mr. Mayhew in with the apparatus on the poop; for I saw it plainly, though unable to understand; and there is plenty of room in the foreground—on the poop. You have pictured Pango Sam correctly, and the fellow down on deck near the fore-rigging is Landy Jim, and Wong Fing is that fellow on the fore-hatch. It is wonderful, and it is more than mere mind reading, though I cannot say that you have got the features of the others. I cannot remember."

At this moment there was an interruption. The elevator boy appeared, announcing that a visitor had arrived, asking for my neighbor, and, with apologies and promises to return, he left me, leaving the door open. I sat there in my easy-chair thinking of the wonderful powers of the subconscious mind, as indicated in my own case, and wondering if I could go farther, and solve the mystery that was beyond the powers of my experienced and erudite old friend. I smoked and pondered, until my pipe went out, then filled and relighted it to smoke and ponder still more, while I looked at the picture I had painted. And as I looked the pipe went cold in my grasp, the fixed expression on the faces of Pango Sam, Wong Fing, and Landy Jim took on mobility of action, while the men on deck writhed in their dying agony.

My pipe fell to the floor again, and I roused up, realizing only that I had been half asleep, but also feeling the desire to fill in the hiatus—to place in the vacant foreground the scientific apparatus vaguely described by my friend. So, after a few preliminary outlinings in charcoal, I went at it, and soon I had placed the tanks and spiral pipes and the long, cup-shaped object described to me.

Vaguely, as I worked, I felt that I was merely obeying suggestion—following up the hints given me by my neighbor; yet, when I had finished, and seated myself for another smoke, I felt myself trembling from head to foot, as though I had actually lived the experience, and were suffering from the memories. From this state of mind I was aroused by the return of my neighbor.

"By George!" he said, as he looked at the painting. "Where do you get this? You have got it right, and refreshened my memory. Fifty years is a long time, and I had forgotten; but there is the whole apparatus, lacking only the Reverend Mr. Mayhew. Why didn't you put him in, behind that big, long cup?"

"Don't know," I answered. "Didn't think of him."

"Well, never mind. There is a reason for all things. No doubt you will yet get it all, if you delve farther into the infinite."

But I did not need to delve still farther, as will be apparent by what follows.

"There is not much to the yarn," he continued. "The trouble began in the usual way, from the white man's fixed idea that it is always safe to kick a nigger, and that a nigger is anything human, but not white. A good deal depends, of course, upon the kind of nigger that is kicked, and big Pango Sam was not accustomed to it. Neither were Wong Fing nor Landy Jim, but they all got it before we were well through the Straits of Sunda. All three threatened the second mate, who was doing the kicking, with sudden death, and the result was that we were all called aft and compelled, under the muzzle of three pistols, to hand in our sheath knives.

"I needed no such coercion, for, though I was a 'foremast hand, I had no great sympathy for, nor community of interest with, my shipmates. However, the skipper and two mates classed me in with the rest, and had as little sympathy for me. In fact, the only companionship I enjoyed on that passage was when I was at the wheel, and the passenger would talk with me. He was about my age, and seemed to have taken a liking to me; yet there was little that we could talk about. I was uneducated and crude, while his was the brightest mind I had come into contact with.

"Even then I could appreciate that he knew more of navigation than did the skipper, and I heard him say one day that the mistake of his life was in taking to the ministry instead of devoting himself to science. For preaching came hard to him, he said, while the study of science was a delight.

"Well, I hardly know how the trouble started. It was partly due to our losing our knives, for a sailor without a knife is like a mechanic without tools. It put us all in a bad humor; we had to untie with our fingers rackings, whippings, and stops which ordinarily we would have cut. And one day, when the passenger had his apparatus on the poop, a fierce squall hit us, and soon developed into a gale that demanded the taking in of canvas. There was no time to lift those heavy tanks and flasks down below, so, while we hauled on downhauls, clewlines, and buntlines, the passenger remained by his property, watching and guarding it.

"We had trouble at once from the lack of our knives, for the coils of all halyards had been stopped up clear of the deck, and we had to untie these while the three bullies of the after-guard yelled at us. Seas began boarding us, too, and that made matters worse. But finally we got the two royals, the gafftopsail, and the flying jib down, and the courses clewed up; but while the latter was being done, I and two of the small fry went aloft to furl, my job being the fore royal. I furled it, and had started down, when I looked below, and saw the whole crowd on deck fighting the two mates, with the helmsman running forward to join the row, leaving the skipper at the wheel.

"I slid down by the royal backstay, for while I had no great fellow-feeling for the officers, still, they were my countrymen, and I had no desire to take part in mutiny. Before I reached the deck, however, the fight was over, as far the mates were concerned. They were running aft, for their guns, I suppose, while all but Pango Sam lay stretched out on the deck, and he met me at the rail with murder in his eyes, knowing instinctively, I suppose, that I was not on his side.

"As I jumped to the deck and reached for a belaying pin, he grabbed me. I was utterly helpless in the grasp of that giant. He roared inarticulately, and frothed at the mouth as he lifted me at full length over his head, to dash me to the deck.

"But, as I told you, I merely slid down, to paralyze my crazy bone on hard ice—ice, remember, in the tropics. When I picked myself up Pango Sam was still standing, but dead and stiff, his feet frozen in the ice that covered the deck. Then I saw our passenger flat on his back. He never recovered his reason. His last intelligent speech was given as he fell to the deck, which was about a second or so after I fell myself. While at the wheel, a few days later, I heard the skipper quote it to the mate. It was: 'God have mercy upon my soul!' After that he uttered nothing but gibberish."

Behind us the sound of footsteps came to our ears: but before we could turn, or arise, a voice, fervent and agonized, repeated: "God have mercy upon my soul!" And Old Bill launched headlong between us, and lay unconscious on the floor at the foot of the easel.

"Another spell," said my neighbor. "It was coming to him, I guess. Help me lift him to your couch."

We laid the old fellow on the couch, where he lay with every indication of a fainting spell. But, though we worked over him for a time, he did not come out of it. He did not seem to be in a natural sleep, either, for his breath was too faint, his pulse too irregular. We watched him with growing disquiet for a while, then telephoned to the nearest hospital. Old Bill was taken away, still unconscious, and all we could do was to put him from our minds with the mental reservation that we would visit him.

We did not visit him. Work, engagements, the eternal scramble for money incidental to the life of every man who works for himself, prevented my neighbor and me from getting together for the visit. In a month, however, Old Bill visited us as we sat, discussing my picture; but we hardly recognized him, and, on his part, he did not recognize us at all.

His old face, though still wrinkled and withered, bore an alert, intelligent look far removed from the dull, stupid expression we had known; he was clad in well-fitting garments late from the tailor. He carried a cane, and on his hands were gloves which, as he removed them, showed fingers thick and stubby, but with the unmistakable signs of recent manicuring.

"Pardon me, gentlemen," he said, as he looked us over, "but I have been directed to this studio by an ambulance surgeon as the place from which I was taken in a comatose condition about a month ago. I wakened a few days later with the memories, the consciousness—the ego, I might say—of a young man of twenty-five. Had not that ego been in a good, stable condition I might have gone mad when I saw my old face in a mirror, and realized that I had lost fifty years of my life.

"Since then, however, I have been re-establishing my old connections, and I am now trying to learn what I have been, where I have been, and who I have been. Can you tell me anything? I am, or was once, a Methodist clergyman, named Franklin Mayhew; but I fear that I have forfeited the title of reverend."

"What?" exclaimed my neighbor. We had both risen to our feet, to stare at the metamorphosed Old Bill, but now we sat down, rather weak in the legs. I had the grace to motion our visitor to a chair.

"If you are the Reverend Franklin Mayhew," continued my neighbor, "did you once take passage in the bark Rangoon at Batavia, bound to Cape Town?"

"I did, and by my chronology it was but a month ago. The terrible scenes on board that vessel were the first things that came to my mind when I wakened in the hospital. Do you know anything about it? I want to know what happened to me."

"I do not know what happened to you, nor what happened to that crowd of mutineers. I was 'fore the mast in that bark, and remember you; but I have known you lately merely as a man-of-all-work around this building. I owe you a dollar for cleaning up my place"—our visitor raised his hand deprecatingly—"and we called you Bill. You couldn't remember your last name, nor very far back. You went crazy aboard that bark, Mr. Mayhew, and we put you ashore, still crazy, at Cape Town. I know nothing more."

"Nor does anyone else?" The look on his face was piteous.

"I doubt that you can gather up the threads. Why should you wish to? You must have lived a life of misery and hard labor. You were shocked into fainting by the sight of a picture, right here in this studio, and you have awakened to intelligence and mental activity."

"What picture?"

For answer I arose and wheeled the easel around so that the painting faced him. The effect upon him was more startling than had been the same experience upon my friend.

"Oh, God, help me!" he almost screamed. "God have mercy upon my soul! Why must it be perpetuated? Have I not suffered enough?" He covered his face with his hands, and with some misgiving I covered the picture with a cloth.

"That was it," he continued. "That was the last I remember on board that bark, and the first in the hospital the other day. I killed seven human beings—I, an ordained minister of the gospel!"

"Steady, sir," answered my neighbor, rising and laying a reassuring hand upon his shoulder. "You killed only six—how, I don't know—six bloodthirsty cutthroats who would have killed you if they'd had their way."

"But one was innocent," answered Mr. Mayhew, uncovering his moist eyes. "The young fellow in the clutch of the big negro."

"That was myself, and I am very much alive. In fact, Mr. Mayhew, you saved my life. You killed the nigger, but I simply fell down to the deck. Then I came aft and helped carry you below. Look here?" He lifted the cloth, and pointed to the face of the man held poised over the negro's head. "That's me. Never mind who painted this picture, but look here." He displayed the tintype. "Taken at the end of that voyage," he continued, "and still in my possession. No doubt, Mr. Mayhew, your mind gave way under the shock of the experience, and it returned to you when you looked at the reproduction. Now, don't worry about it any more. You did right to quell that mutiny."

"Perhaps—according to most standards. But I was a minister, and my conscience was already active enough from my devotion to science to the neglect of my clerical work. But perhaps you are right. I'll try and not worry."

I joined in with what encouragement I could offer, and when he had calmed somewhat my neighbor said: "You must tell me how you did it, Mr. Mayhew. You killed six worthless heathen, and saved the lives of several white men, by some application of intense cold. I am a student of science, but I cannot understand."

"Very simple," answered our guest. "You know that cold is merely negative heat, and, if reduced to a point, will act like heat, decreasing in strength as the square of the distance."

The old artist chuckled. "I knew it," he said. "Go on."

"And do you notice that the reflector in the picture has the elliptical curve, instead of the parabolic of the usual reflectors?"

I gasped. In painting that object into the picture I had not thought of curves. In fact, knew nothing of conic sections at the time.

"The secondary focus of that reflector," went on Mr. Mayhew, "was about sixty feet away. I had designed it for experimenting with light. In fact, I had invented the searchlight, now in general use, as I have learned by reading up lately. But I have also learned more—that in the fifty years of my darkness the scientific world has not caught up to me. At that time I had not only liquefied the six refractory gases of Clerk Maxwell, but had solidified hydrogen and discovered in advance a gas which I had not named, but which I now find is called helium. I had also succeeded in liquefying this gas."

"And in the focus of that reflector?" inquired the old artist, half rising from his chair.

"Was a small cup of liquefied helium, on which floated a lump of solid hydrogen. It produced a temperature of nearly two hundred and seventy-three minus centigrade—the absolute zero of space."

"And it froze the blood in their veins," commented the artist, reseating himself. "Lucky for me you didn't switch it a little higher."

I shivered, and after a few moments of silence I asked:

"If I did not read your mind, but delved into the infinite, as you say, why didn't I get this too?"

"Didn't have time, my boy. But you may have read the mind of Mr. Mayhew, the subconscious mind of Old Bill—the mind that never sleeps and never forgets, you know, and which retained through the years all that Mr. Mayhew had put into it; for you drew into the reflector the elliptical curve, which Mr. Mayhew conceived, but which never in my life have I considered in conjunction with reflectors."

"But you?" I asked again. "Your picture?"

"I painted from memory, and, if you will remember, left out the reflector. But Mr. Mayhew had also dipped into the infinite, and discovered what no living brain knew. Mr. Mayhew"—he turned to the still shaky old man—"you have lost, it is true, fifty years of your life. But your remaining years will be full of honor, profit, and ease, for the whole scientific world will rise to do you homage. You are still in advance, for you have not only isolated and liquefied helium, the last of the refractory gases, but you will ultimately solidify it."

[OVER THE BORDER]

First, let me introduce myself. I am now an old man, healthy of body and mind—else I could not tell this story—but in late middle life was somewhat feeble-minded. I was an installment collector for a furniture house.

My earnings were small—just sufficient to afford me a hall room in a boarding house, where, with my few books, I maintained my interest in life. I began it as a sailor in deep-water ships, but, because of the small promise of advancement, quit the sea after ten years, and worked on shore. I was ambitious, studious, and fairly well educated. I worked at one thing and another, finally becoming a reader for a magazine; and, later, editor-in-chief. But the strain upon my mind of reading, classifying, and rejecting or accepting for publication the various and multitudinous manuscripts sent to me, wore down my mental powers until there came an utter collapse, and I spent the next few years in sanitariums, with all memory of my past blotted out, except a few salient points, such as the name of my first ship, my first job on shore, my first incursion into literary work, and the final furious quarrel with my employer, when I was discharged as incompetent. Then came my slow recovery to the point where I could obtain and hold my position as collector. So much, in prelude, for myself and history.

Yet there is one more point of my early life that I remembered, but only because my memory of it was refreshed occasionally as I fought my way along in my shore life after leaving the sea—Jack Sullivan, a watchmate on that first ship, who later became a boarding-house runner and afterward a successful boarding and shipping master.

Jack's path in life did not coincide with mine, yet we met often during my struggle for advancement, and each time it was a drink together, and a reminiscent talk about that voyage; and it continued during the years when I was an incompetent neurasthenic, and he a prosperous man with influence at Tammany Hall.

It was after such a meeting with Jack, in which he had paid the bill and clapped me on the back, bidding me to brace up and look ahead, that I wandered into a small playhouse, the bills of which advertised a mesmeric exhibition.

I had never seen such a public performance before, and was extremely interested, as the operator, a tall, bearded man, in evening clothes, called up members of the audience and, after a few passes over their heads and down before them, put them into hypnotic or mesmeric sleep; and then made them perform absurd and ridiculous feats.

I left the theatre, fully impressed, struck with awe at the power of one man over others, and boarded a street car on my way home.

Still wondering, and afflicted with an uneasy struggle of my mind with the idea that I had known of such things before, I was forced to listen to a desultory conversation between two men who sat near me.

They were well-dressed and well-spoken—educated men—and as the talk went on I easily deduced that they were physicians, slightly acquainted—one, a visiting physician of a hospital; the other, a general practitioner.

"A remarkable case," the former was saying, as I began to listen. "He has been there longer than any other patient, and there has been neither improvement nor decline. A complete case of aphasia in some regards, amnesia in others; for we once succeeded in partly hypnotizing him and getting incoherent comments—in the choicest of English, however."

"Is he sane, as regards the present—of passing events?" asked the general practitioner.

"Sane as you or I, except in the relapses. He has illusions and hallucinations, but recovers himself without treatment other than seclusion. It is a case of second personality, no doubt; but there is no prognosis."

"And you cannot classify it?"

"No, except as double personality. He cannot remember his name before the time the police brought him to us. He began all over again, and is now an intelligent man, who reads the papers, and talks sanely."

"Keep up that hypnotic treatment."

"What's the use? We are busy over more modern and vital cases. He is merely a medical and physical curiosity."

"Keep it up. By hypnotic treatment you can obtain his past and restore his memory. You know that. Isn't it worth while—to restore a man's soul to him?"

"Well, perhaps I will; but I am very busy, and he is a hard subject to hypnotize."

The car was approaching my corner. With my mind in a whirl that I could not understand, I arose, and, facing the two doctors, I asked them where this man was confined. "Bellevue," answered the narrator of the story.

I thanked him, and went out, standing for a while on the corner, breathing deeply of the fresh air, and trying to analyze my state of mind. Something within me was beating against my poor, tired brain—something that would not take form and expression; something of truth and fact and experience of my own that I could not remember—something pertaining to my life at sea.

At last I went home and sank into a troubled slumber, from which I wakened in the morning, not with any projects for the welfare of the man in the hospital, but for my own good. Hypnotic operations would restore memory; so the doctor had affirmed. My mind went at once to the successful hypnotist that I had seen at the theater, and, after a day of idleness and musing, I called there before the performance began.

I met him, explained my loss of memory, and he promised to do what he could, appointing a meeting at his apartment at twelve, when the day's work was ended, and his mind and mine were tranquil.

I was there on time. While well-dressed and well spoken, there was a slight burr to his voice and a roughness of the skin on the back of his neck that—I do not know why—betokens the outdoor, manual worker. He spoke gently to me, asked my name and occupation, and, when I told him that I was a collector, remarked that he had once been a collector himself. First seating me in an easy-chair, he faced me in another, and took my hands in his.

"Now, I am going to mesmerize you," he said, "instead of merely hypnotizing. I am going to put you to sleep by personal or, as some say, animal magnetism. It is more efficient in a case of long duration, but I never use it on the stage, because it is not necessary, and because only I could waken the subjects. Something might happen, you see—a fire, or an injury to myself. But here we are quiet and safe. Now, look me steadily in the eyes, and when you have gone to sleep I will command you, firmly, to remember all your past. That will be all. Very simple."

I obeyed him, looking steadily into his kindly, brown eyes. As I looked they seemed to grow larger, while the pressure of his hands on mine relaxed. Larger and larger grew his eyes, until I seemed to see nothing else; then a tingling sensation crept through my frame—a delicious tremor that soothed me into drooping my eyelids.

"Close your eyes now," he said, and his voice was far away. "You are going to sleep, and, when I waken you, you will remember all that you have forgotten."

I obeyed him, and for a moment or two thought I had slept; but the closing words of his command seemed to arouse me. He was still before me, but in the act of rising. He went into another room, and came out, dressed in rough clothing and smoking a short clay pipe; then the wall containing this door grew blank and white, and in a moment had taken on the exact form of the forward side of a ship's forecastle, while a duplicate door appeared in it.

Sitting quietly there, I watched the strange transformation scene, able to rise if I wanted to, but not wanting to, nor feeling the slightest uneasiness about the phenomena. The pictures left the wall, and faded into nothingness; the mantel to my right hand elongated and took on the form of a ship's rail; then with a rush all else in the room changed.

The floor rose suddenly, and became a fore-hatch, while the place was filled with sailors, known to me by face and name; but among them I could not now see the transformed mesmerist—the only man smoking was Bill Andrus, a young fellow from Australia. To complete the picture, my easy-chair changed into the weather windlass barrel, and a dash of salt spray came over the bow. Being able to move, I left my seat and got out of the way of the water. All seemed natural to me; I was at sea again, and on one of the boats stowed on the house I spelled the name of my first ship.

Of course, it was a dream, even though real to me at the time; and there was no beginning to it. I dropped into that chapter of my life with a full memory of the chapters preceding it, and I went on with it as I had lived it before, with no thought that my seat on the windlass had, a few moments before, been an easy morris chair.

The men around me were my shipmates, and in no sense out of proportion of place or time. It was the last dog-watch, and when eight bells struck I went aft to my trick at the wheel with no self-questioning. And so, I will tell the rest of this story as though I had never forgotten it.

The name of the ship was Chariot, and she was small, well found and manned, with an easy skipper and mates. We were bound to Sydney, and before the trades had been reached each man was on good terms, not only with the others of the crew, but with the cook and steward, skipper and mates. There had not been a blow or a harsh word from the officers since we lifted the anchor in the Horseshoe.

In my watch, besides myself, were Jack Sullivan, an intelligent young Irish-American; Swansen, a big, good-natured Swede—a Sou'wegian, we called him—Wilkinson and Tompkins, two Jerseyites; Andrus, the Australian, the youngest and least efficient of the ship's company, but the most intelligent; and Devlin, an Irish, hot-headed graduate of the Dublin university, who had gone to sea from sheer rebellion against the conventionalities of shore life. We were a congenial, cheerful lot of good fellows, ready for work or play or fight—only there was no occasion for the latter.

We had our afternoon watch and first dog-watch below, a rare condition in American ships, and on Sundays a liberal dinner of duff and good wholesome beef sweetened to the flavor of corned beef by an overnight soaking in fresh water. Each Sunday, while the trades lasted, all hands remained on deck in both forenoon and afternoon watches, to wash clothes, overhaul and air dunnage, to shave or be shaved and to mutually cut hair, all of us confident of a good night's sleep, even on deck; for braces are rarely touched at night while the trades are blowing.

But on a Sunday morning, just after the trades had blown out, the young Irish ne'er-do-well wanted a haircut and a shave. Wilkinson and Tompkins had proved the best barbers, and had done all the work heretofore; but this time they rebelled; they were tired of it, and, besides, a squall was coming. Devlin vociferated and declaimed, saying that he had looked like a dog long enough, and finally, to appease him, young Andrus volunteered the task; so Devlin sat down on the fore-hatch, and Andrus went to work, with mock pitying comments on his doglike face.

"Of course, you're a dog," he would say, "the Skye terrier breed; but I'll make a fox terrier out of you 'fore I'm done. Keep quiet. I can't cut your hair while you're wriggling like a cat in a bathtub. You're not a cat; you're a dog."

Devlin finally ceased his profane comment and wriggling, sitting quiet until the clipping was done; then Andrus, after a walk to the rail and a look at the growing squall to the westward, came back, saying that there was time for a shave—which Devlin needed as badly as a haircut.

"Quiet, you dog!" he said jokingly. "You're a Skye terrier now, and I'll soon make you a fox terrier—just as soon as I get that fur off your face."

He shaved him clumsily but quickly, then stood back.

"Now, Devlin," he said, still carrying on the good-natured raillery, "you're as handsome a dog as I ever saw. Let's hear you bark."

To our astonishment, Devlin emitted a series of canine sounds, and ended with a menacing growl. He still sat quietly on the hatch, however, without a sign or a smile on his face to indicate that he fell in with the joke. Then came a shout from the mate, calling us to halyards, clewlines, and buntlines, to shorten down for the squall.

We answered, and it was not until the squall had passed and sail made again that we noticed that Devlin still sat on the hatch, occasionally giving voice to barks and growls. We spoke to him, but received only growls.

The skipper and mates came forward, and commanded him; he answered by louder barks and deeper growls. We continued for an hour, and at last he became violent. He was put into his berth, voted crazy from some cause inherent in his nature, and ministered unto by all hands.

He grew quiet in a few days, but never regained his senses. We would talk to him, coax him to answer, and even sing the old forecastle songs to him; but all we received in answer were barks and growls, and soon we perceived that he had forgotten the use of his pan, pannikin, and spoon. We sorrowfully taught him to eat.

And we mourned also for another good fellow, from the time of that squall that followed the barbering. Andrus, the Australian, had been lost overboard. At a time when royals and topgallant sails were flapping and fluttering, the ship laid over by the squall until the lee rail was buried, and, with wind abeam, making twelve knots, Andrus had floundered down into the water in the waist to rescue the ship's cat, old Tom, that had been caught unawares and was in danger of floating overboard.

No one knew just how it happened. We only knew that the ship righted for a moment, then sagged back to a farther angle, and, when next she righted, Andrus and the cat were gone.

We let the canvas flap and carry away, while we strove to back the main yards, and the skipper threw over life-buoys and gratings. But in that furious wind we could not gain an inch on the main-brace, and by the time we realized this Andrus and the cat, life-buoys, and gratings must have been a mile astern. There was a ship on the horizon, following in our wake, but it was past all reason that Andrus, who we knew could not swim, should reach a life-buoy or grating and be picked up.

We taught and trained Devlin as we would train a dog, and he learned readily. He first learned to pull a rope with us, and soon understood the meaning of "belay." He learned to sweep and scrub decks, and, after a few trips aloft with us, learned to furl, to reef, and to "loose" a sail. He remembered every word spoken to him, and would repeat them at the right time; but we had rounded the Cape before he could converse, and then in short, jerky sentences; yet he learned to speak much more rapidly than could a child.

We called him Devlin until we understood that he could not remember it as his name; then we addressed him as "Say." Little by little he learned the ropes, the compass, and the use of marlinespikes and deck gear, and, though still stupid, was in a fair way to become an able seaman again, but for an unfortunate speech of one of our number—I think it was Swansen—who, at our forecastle supper, jokingly called him a dog.

Devlin immediately became a dog, snapping, snarling, barking, and growling, with all his tutelage gone from him.

We mobbed Swansen, but it did not help the case; Devlin remained an imbecile until we reached port, where he went to a hospital.

So, with our spirits clouded, we were glad to quit that good ship at Sydney, and separate, each going his own way. Mine led to other voyages until, as I have said, I quit the sea to work on shore; then, on through my struggles for a livelihood to the time of my mental breakdown; and I even remembered and lived the experience of the night at the theater and my visit to the hypnotist. And then I awoke, to find him standing over me, making passes upward and over my head.

"Well," he said, as I glanced confusedly around the room, "how do you feel?"

"Feel?" I answered. "Why, professor, I've dreamed of my whole life—only, it is fading away. Let me think. The ship—Swansen—the squall—no, it is going. I cannot remember. I cannot."

"Go home," he said kindly, "and sleep all you can. Each morning will bring back fresh recollections, and in time your memory will be thoroughly restored."

He was right. Next morning I recalled the incidents of my boyhood and my early seafaring experience, culminating in my signing able seaman in the Chariot. And as I viewed my face in the glass, I marveled at the change; I knew it as my face, and remembered it, but now remembered the face of my youth, which gave no promise of the worn and wasted features in the glass.

Yet the following morning brought back more recollections of that voyage, and the next and the next still more, until at the end of a week I could review my past, perhaps with a keener memory than that of the ordinary man who has tired his brain and memory without the relief that had come to me. I called down blessings upon the head of that hypnotist, and in my gladness of heart thought of the poor devil in Bellevue Hospital, and went to see him.

But I was not admitted. I was not acquainted with him, and had no plausible excuse for wishing to see him. So I went to Sullivan, my old shipmate, and explained the case, at the same time telling him of my wonderful cure, and my wish to secure to him the services of the kindly man who had served me.

"Won't let you in?" he cried. "I'll see about that. Just come along wi' me up to Tammany Hall, an' I'll see if a fri'nd o' Jack Sullivan is to be barred out of any public institution in this burg."

We started, and as our way led past the apartment of the professor, I suggested that we stop and endeavor to take him along, as, if all went well, the thing could be done in a few moments.

Luckily we found him at home, packing up for the road. His engagement was ended, and he would leave town that evening; but, when I had explained about the poor fellow at Bellevue, whose case was worse than my own, his kindly brown eyes lit up with a fellow sympathy, and he came with us.

We took a cab, and Jack and I occupied the forward seat, while the professor sat opposite. As we rode along, I noticed that he furtively glanced into Jack's seamy face, and occasionally, and as furtively, into mine, while a doubtful, thoughtful expression stole over his own. But he uttered no word during that ride, and indeed there was hardly a chance, for Jack kept the atmosphere sulphurous with his comments on the insolence of the doctors at Bellevue.

At Tammany Hall Jack went in, and what he said or did in there I do not know; but he soon came out, waving a pass to the hospital, and still swearing.

We soon reached Bellevue, and were readily admitted and led to the ward containing the hopelessly insane. And here we were at a loss as to which of the fifty or more patients was our man. The one nurse there did not know the pathology of a single case in the ward; but he went to inquire, and brought back the visiting physician whom I had met in the car. He recognized me, heard my story, was introduced to Jack and the professor, and said to the latter:

"If you have restored this man's memory, sir, you may succeed with our man. I am perfectly willing you should try. We have always failed. I suppose you want a quiet room. Come with me, and I will send for the man."

He led us into a small, vacant bedroom, containing, beside the bed, a washstand and one chair. The doctor called for more chairs, and then said:

"It is best perhaps that you should know something about him before he arrives, as he is intelligent and sensitive in his present personality. Besides his utter loss of memory, he carries the strangest antipathy to cats and dogs—"

And here, as though in confirmation of the description, a huge cat bounded into the room, followed by a frenzied-eyed man, who uttered incoherent snarls and growls, as he endeavored to catch the cat.

"That's the man," said the doctor. "Look out."

Following the maniac was the nurse, who endeavored to stop the chase; but he could not hold the violent patient, though the cat had a moment's reprieve. It glared at its enemy from a corner; then, as the pursuer bounded toward it, the cat sprang to my head and shoulders, spitting and snarling defiance, and from my head, which was rather bald, it leaped to the head of the doctor—which was balder—thence to the floor, and out of the room. The patient pursued, but was stopped and held by the doctor and nurse.

"Sit down in that chair," said the doctor, "and behave yourself."

The frenzy left the man's eyes, and he quietly obeyed.

"I have told you often enough," said the doctor to the nurse, "to keep that cat out of this ward." He wiped the blood from his bare scalp. "Why are not my instructions carried out?"

"It was not my fault, sir," answered the nurse. "I do not know who let the cat in."

"Never let it happen again. Bring those chairs in."

"Wait, doctor," said the professor. "Can you send in a bench about a foot high, or, if not, a bucket or pail. I want to seat this man on something hard."

There was no such bench, he was informed, but a large pail came in with the chairs.

I had been studying the patient. He was a middle-sized, middle-aged man, with a careworn face and gray hair and beard, and he sat tremblingly in his chair, and looked pleadingly at the doctor.

"I could not help it, doctor," he said. "I hate them—they madden me."

"Never mind, Monson," answered the doctor kindly; "but we're going to try again to take it out of you. You must sit still and be hypnotized."

"What! More of that foolishness! It never did any good."

"Not hypnotized this time—mesmerized. This gentleman thinks he can put you to sleep. If he succeeds, you will remember your past. Isn't it worth trying? Come, now; be sensible."

He looked at the professor doubtingly, and I also looked at him, noticing perhaps what the doctor did not—that he was trembling from head to foot, and that the muscles of his mouth twitched; but he pulled himself together and approached the patient.

"Yes, my poor fellow," he said, in his kindly voice, "it can be done. I have never failed. You will remember your former name and all your early life."

"I have studied this thing a little," answered Monson, "and I understand that it is done by suggestion to the subconscious mind."

"You are right. And as you seem to be a well-informed, intelligent man, it will be all the easier. Come over here, and sit down on the upturned pail."

He changed his seat, and the professor, warning us to perfect silence, made a few passes over the man's head and down before him.

"Sit up, now," he commanded, "and don't fall over." Monson stiffened straight, and the professor continued his passes until Monson's eyes took on a fixed expression. Then the mesmerist began twitching and pulling his patient's hair, sometimes gently, and again roughly. Then he took a chair, seated himself before Monson, as he had done in my case, and, taking his hands in his own, commanded him to stare at his eyes.

Monson obeyed, and, in a few moments, his eyelids drooped. Soon he was asleep. But the professor continued the passes and the occasional twitching of the hair for fully five minutes; then he stood up and stepped back. The sweat was running down his face, and he wiped it off with his handkerchief.

"Gentlemen," he said, "I have him in the somnambulistic stage, but it may be necessary to send him deeper. I will try. Monson, answer me," he commanded in a sharp voice.

"Yes, sir," answered the sleeping man.

"Do you hate cats?"

"Yes, sir, I do."

The professor made more passes, waited a few minutes; then made more, and again asked sternly: "Monson, do you hate cats?"

There was no answer.

The professor looked at us with a smile. "I think I have found him," he said. He again began the hair twitching, and after a few moments again questioned him. And the question brought Sullivan and me, gasping and choking, to our feet.

"Devlin," he said, in a joking tone, "am I cutting your hair to your satisfaction?"

"You are not," answered the sleeper. "I was doggy enough before, but ye're making a hairless Mexican poodle o' me 'stead of a fox terrier."

"Devlin," shouted the professor, as he drew away his hands, "you are not a dog. You never have been a dog, and you never will be a dog. You are a man, and your name is not Monson. It never was Monson, and it never will be Monson. When you waken you will remember every event of your past life up to and after the time of the squall aboard the Chariot. You will remember everything. Wake up, Devlin, wake up, and don't count your trouble against me, old shipmate. I did not know my power then. I nearly drowned before that ship astern picked me up. Wake up, Devlin. Wake up."

The professor was making furious passes upward.

Slowly the man's eyes opened, and, with the daze of sleep still in them, he looked at the professor.

"You're a bum barber, Andrus," he said. "I wouldn't give ye hell room."

The professor did not catch his train that evening. Four old shipmates dined together; and the dinner lasted until it became a supper, and finally a breakfast.

[THE FIRE WORSHIPER]

At the proper age and condition he developed the usual habit of forming mental pictures while looking into a grate fire, and enjoyed the usual introspective calm and comfort therein; but in him, the primordial inheritance also found expression at an age so early that it might have formed a part of his infant reproduction of the Stone Age. From the time he could crawl he loved the fire with the fixed, passionate devotion of the cat, and, like the cat, he would lie contentedly for hours on the rug before the hearth, or, to the scandal of the cook, remove the kitchen stove lids and scorch his face over the glowing coals.

He seemed to possess a salamander-like immunity from its effects; again and again he was burned, but never to the point of fear, utterly disproving the theory that burned children dread the fire. He loved fire, and played with it, setting the carpet of his play-room in flames at the age of three. At five he had made a bonfire of his toys, at seven burned the barn down, and at ten was a past master in the art of building camp fires in the woods—fires without smoke, fires of green wood, wet wood, and rotten wood; fires of great heat and little flame, and fires that went out without constant attention.

In playing Indian he was a valuable comrade, and though we did not meet until the mutations of schoolboy life brought us together in the same class—his early history coming to me later—I found this proficiency the one asset in George Morton's character. He was a high-strung, nervous lad, morbid and erratic at times, cowardly except in reference to fire, and a bully when he dared be. He even lacked the school-boy's sense of honor, which permits stealing anything eatable, and lying for any purpose except self-defense.

Our first meeting was momentous, determining and fixing our mutual attitude, and our nearly common interest in a third person, who was to strongly influence us both. I was crossing a vacant lot which was part of his wealthy father's property when I found him tormenting a small girl of four. He had rigged her doll to the tail of his kite, and was laughing gleefully at her anguish as the inanimate pet soared aloft. I claim no chivalric impulses at the time; I was bad boy of the village—a title I had earned by my health, strength, and willingness to fight—and here was a chance for a fight.

A short conflict ended in victory for me and a new emotion born of the child's happy smile as the doll was restored to her arms. It was solely paternal and protective in its nature, and had I not taken note of the wonderful beauty of the tot it would have remained so; but the pure little face stamped itself on my mind as an earthly picture of the super-human, and, though it made no sexual appeal, it protected me for years against the love affairs of boyhood and youth. She became my goddess, and has remained so.

But I was brought to earth by the impact of a stone on my head, and the whimpering voice of my late victim coming from a distance.

"That's my sister," he said, "and you leave her alone and mind your own business."

My pursuit of him was fruitless, for his legs were longer than mine; but it seemed to have aroused in him the same protective regard for his sister as had animated me, for from that time on he never teased her, and often left the boys to lead her away from possible annoyance from them—and from probable contact with me. There was danger from the latter, for on many occasions I "played hooky" to loll away the day in the bushes, satisfied with one glimpse of the child playing near the door. And I always returned to school bettered by the experience; for I studied harder, realizing my seafaring father's ambition that I should have an education, and responding to his advice that if I "must be a sailor, to be the right kind—a naval officer." He, with his blood, his example, and his talk, had impressed upon me his love of the sea, but instead of crawling in the hawsepipes as he had done I compromised by winning, in a competitive examination, an appointment to Annapolis, at the age of sixteen.

My closest competitor was George Morton, from whom I received half-friendly hints that he would get even, and my warmest admirer his young sister, now about ten, to whom I, in my new capacity of prospective hero, had officially been introduced. She thought I was going to war, and earnestly asked me to be careful and not be killed.

Morton spent two years more at school before going to college, and in this time made good his threat to get even. He was a popular hero many times over before I had become sure that I could hold my own in study, and he acquired this distinction by timely use of his one talent. In the exclusive, restricted community of wealthy families there was little of the material from which firemen are drawn, and as a consequence a volunteer fire company had been formed, with palatial quarters, gorgeous uniforms, and an up-to-date equipment. Fires were so scarce, however, that its activity had found vent in parades, dinners, and balls, until George Morton joined it. Then, as though in response to the presence of its lover and master, fires broke out here and there in the manor, all of which he attended, and most of which were extinguished by his efforts or advice. He intuitively knew the thing to do—just where to play the stream, just when to pull down a wall. In six months he was made foreman, and in this time had saved much property and a few lives.

But his notable feats were performed later, and these were told me by his sister Grace, when I had finished my second year, and George was ready for college. My parents had died since my appointment, but I took my vacations at home, just to meet and be near her.

"He is brave as a lion," she said, with twelve-year-old enthusiasm. "Why, when Mr. Mills' big house burned down he went up a ladder to the third story, which hadn't caught fire yet, and went all through the building until he had found and brought out three servants who were unconscious from the smoke. Then he even went back for the dog, and saved him."

"That was good work," I responded, rather vacantly.

"And then," she went on, "when the big, new schoolhouse caught fire he happened to be right there to notice it from the outside, and after getting all the children out safely he entered the building at the head of his fire company and extinguished the fire. He went right into the blazing basement with a fire extinguisher and put it out himself. None of the rest wanted to go in, either."

I grunted my approval. I had never liked him, but evidently had misjudged him. The child continued:

"But the bravest thing he did was when the seminary caught fire at night. He was asleep when the alarm sounded and he rushed to the fire half clothed. The whole lower story was afire, and above were the dormitories with over a hundred girls fast asleep; but he went up, right through the flames coming from the windows, and wakened everybody. Then he pulled up ladders with a rope, and helped the girls down. He was the last to come out, and just in time, for the walls fell in a moment later."

"You have a fine brother," I responded, joining the girl in her enthusiasm, and willing to do him justice. "I never thought he had courage at all, but he certainly has proved it."

"Oh, he has," she rejoined. And then, with sisterly single-mindedness, she gave me this: "He isn't afraid of you any more, and says he is going to thrash you."

"Me—why?" I asked in amazement. "What for?"

"Oh, papa says the same, too. They say that a man of your age ought to be thrashed for talking to a girl of twelve. But I don't see why. I like to talk to you."

The disparity in our ages had not influenced me when younger, and as it was growing less each day that we lived I had not given it a thought. But this new attitude of her father and brother compelled me to, and in helpless anger and chagrin—for I was either the same bad boy of the village, or, still worse, a man playing the boy—I forswore her society and went back to my third term at the academy, resolved not to seek her again until she was of age. And with me on the train, as it pulled out of town, was George Morton, bound for college, but we did not speak.

I manfully held to my resolution until I had finished my course at the academy and my two years of sea service. Then I graduated, a commissioned officer of the United States Navy, and with this backing, and the heart hunger strong upon me, I returned to my old home, bound to see my boyhood divinity at any cost. But I did not see her; instead, I saw her brother at the door, and the stormy scene that followed assured me that conventional social relations with her were impossible. So, convinced that he had nursed the old antagonism through the years, I fumed and sulked while waiting for sea orders, and even half-heartedly planned unconventional relations—I sought to meet her outside her home. But before I had met with any success, orders came from Washington, sending me, not to a seagoing ship, but into retirement until possible war should make my services of value to my country.

With my career ended in the navy, and without friends, money, or influence, I did the next best thing in the way of a livelihood. I went to sea in the merchant service, beginning as third mate, and learned real seafaring, which is good for sulks and heartaches. In three years I was first mate, with the confidence of my skipper and owners, and the prospect of a command; which attainment, and my assured education and social position as a graduate of Annapolis, might give me hope and courage to again approach my goddess. But, gradually and imperceptibly—unknown to myself because there was none to tell me—the little niceties and refinements of speech, manner, and dress acquired at the academy, and which make a naval officer eligible to any society in the world, had worn away from me under the harder work and rougher associations of the merchant service; so that, when paid off at Philadelphia in my twenty-sixth year, I was as hardy a specimen of the typical "Yankee mate" as could be found on the water front. I shaved for comfort, not appearance, and wore my clothes for utility rather than beauty.

Thus arrayed and conditioned I killed time while waiting for word to join my ship, and one day ran over to Asbury Park, finding the huge resort half deserted, as it was in October; but there was enough of life there to suit me, the air was clean and salt as that at sea, and I decided to remain a few days.

I remained too long for my peace of mind and immediate welfare. The quiet and solitude brought back the old morbid melancholy, and in this mood I wandered about the beach and through the streets lined with deserted cottages, fighting with myself and reviling the fates that had made sport of my life and ideals. In this mood I was ripe for any adventure, and spying, late at night, a figure slinking by me in the darkness, that reminded me of George Morton, I softly followed, keeping him in sight, but not letting him see me. He entered a dark, two-story house in a row of other dark cottages, and I mechanically walked on, halting before the house, with a hazy idea that perhaps it was George Morton, and that his family lived there. No light appeared from within, however, and I slowly retraced my steps, pausing at the next street lamp to fire up my pipe.

While puffing at the half-lit tobacco a dark figure darted from across the street and joined me in the lamplight. It was a girl, all but her face hidden by a hooded cloak, and this face was so white, drawn, and terror-haunted, that I could barely recognize in it some little resemblance to that of the child I had loved. Then she spoke, and before my brain had grasped the fact that Grace Morton must have grown up, I knew her voice. And the next moment, without leave or ceremony, I had her in my arms, and kissed the frightened face until she struggled free.

"Oh, Jack," she said brokenly, "and it is really you, after all! I saw you to-day from the parlor of the hotel, but I could not be sure—you have changed so much. Where have you been all these years? I have needed you so much, so much, and I could trust no one but you. You must help me to-night, Jack."

"Of course," I answered. "What is it?"

"My brother—you know him. Did you know?—no, you couldn't. Jack, he has gone into the house there—the house we have lived in all summer; and I think, I almost know, he is setting fire to it. You followed him. I saw you. Did you notice a bundle?"

"Setting fire!" I exclaimed in amazement. "Why, I thought—"

"Yes," she interrupted. "We all thought him a fire hater, because he did not fear it. But he loves it. He set fire to every house and building that he later helped put out; Mr. Mills' house—remember—and the school, and the seminary. He joined the church since then, and confessed to father and me. But father is dead now, and I am alone with him. Come, you must stop him. Stop him by force, before it is too late. Come! I am afraid of him alone. He is insane—at these times."

She seized my hand and hurried me back, puzzled and astounded at this new revelation of human nature.

"He carried a bundle under his arm," she whispered as we reached the door. "It is very likely a can of kerosene, purchased in Philadelphia, where he went this morning. I was to go to New York, but I suspected him and came back."

She opened the door with a key and we softly passed in. At once I detected a faint odor of kerosene, but there was no light, no sound. Grace led me through the lower rooms, but there was no sign of fire, smoke, or firebug. We opened the cellar door and peered down into the blackness, and the cool, odorless air told us that he was not there with his oil.

"Upstairs," she whispered.

"Why not sing out?" I asked, in her ear. "It'll stop him."

"Don't you see?" she answered. "I want to catch him in the act, to shock him, overwhelm him—and cure him."

I acquiesced, and we climbed the stairs, making no noise and sensing more strongly as we went the rank smell of kerosene. She led me into the front room, the door of which stood open. All was dark, and there was no significant odor.

"This is his room," she whispered. "He must be in mine, in the rear."

We passed into the hall and peeped into this room. From a lighted house on the next street a faint illumination showed up every corner in it; and there in the middle, stooping low over his work, was George Morton, laying a trail of oil from the nozzle of a can, back and forth across the carpet. This done, he made a neat pile of newspapers against the wall, emptied the can upon it, and applied a match. A nudge from the girl started me and I walked in upon him. He uttered one snarling yell as he glared into my face, then sprang upon me.

I was a strong, healthy man, large of frame, heavy, and well-trained in most forms of personal combat; but I soon realized that I was fighting a maniac. He writhed, twisted, and bent himself, forcing me again and again to change or renew my hold upon him. Even though I held him at arm's length, I could not retain my grip without help from the other hand, and then I would likely feel one or both of his feet on my chest. It was like wrestling with a panther. I shook him, and, flail-like, whirled him around me, but I could not conquer him without hurting him, and this I did not wish to do. As the fight resolved itself into a struggle of endurance, I heard a few broken words from Grace, barely distinguishable above the noise of the scuffle, and a later glance around told me that she was gone.

And still I fought on, endeavoring to master the firebug without hurting him—just why, I have never been able to explain to myself. Possibly, I dimly felt at the time that his sister would not like it, for I spared him the weight of my fist and the throttling clutch that would have ended the fight in a moment, even though his own hands had torn my coat to shreds, and my face was scorched and smeared with kerosene in one of my whirling lunges toward his bonfire. He, too, must have felt the heat, for his snarling utterances took on a note of pain, and for a few moments he struggled in my grasp more furiously than ever; then he paused, became limp in my hands, and seemed to sink down. It was a clever ruse, for no sooner had I relaxed my hold than he broke away and shot out of the room, down the stairs, and into the street. I let him go, but looked around; the room was in flames on two sides, while several trails of burning oil traversed the floor.

I believe that some men in my position would have followed him; but I know that any fireman, policeman, soldier, or sailor would have done exactly as I did—remain to put out the fire. I dragged the blankets from the bed, whipped the flames from the walls and windows as I could, and when they were burned beyond use threw the fragments on to the still burning bonfire to smother it. As I labored I heard shouts of "Fire!" in the streets, and welcomed the news that assistance was coming. Then I heard the clatter and clang of the engines and voices and footsteps on the stairs. I whipped away at the flames, and just as I laid the last damaged blanket on the now smouldering fire, a policeman burst into the room and seized me.

"Caught wi' the goods, hev! Stand still," he said. "Stand still, or I'll fan you."

I ceased my momentary struggle with him as firemen came in with hose and an extinguisher, and stopped myself in a half-uttered sentence of explanation. This was a matter of family honor that need not be made public.

"It's a job all right, isn't it, Bill?" asked the officer of a fireman who was calmly playing a small stream from the extinguisher on the remaining flames.

"Surest job I ever saw," answered the man, turning for a look at me in the darkening light. "Pretty tough-looking customer. Don't belong to this town. Smell the kerosene?"

"I smell it all right. You can smell it a mile, and he's got it on his clothes, too. Come on wi' me, my jewel. You're good for a few years at Trenton."

Under a fictitious name I spent the night in jail, and in the morning, before the time for court to open, received a visit from Mr. George Morton.

"Want to get at the person higher up, Mr. Morton?" asked the jailer, as they appeared before my cell. "Well, I can give you about half an hour."

"Yes, yes," answered my visitor. "I want to talk with him privately; so, leave us alone, if you will. But don't get beyond call, please—not too far away."

"Right. I'll come if I hear from you."

He admitted Morton and locked him in with me, then left us alone. Morton was clean and well-dressed, with only a nervousness of speech and movement to indicate that a few hours before he had fought for liberty and honor with the man he was now facing. He took a seat at the end of my plank, while I sat at the other end, and took his measure; thinner and older, of course, than when I had known him at school, but with the same graceful figure, and handsome, though unpleasant, face.

"Well," I said, with what sarcasm I could command. "Are you here to get me to tell who hired me to set fire to your house?"

"Not exactly," he answered, eying me closely. "I'm here to find out what you mean to do."

"I'm waiting on you," I said sharply. "I've kept quiet on your sister's account, but I expect you to clear up this matter, in any way you can."

"How? By pleading guilty myself? I am also interested in my sister, and I do not think she would like it."

I looked at him.

"It lies between you and me," he went on. "The evidence at present is all against you, while there is nothing against me, and nothing in my record to indicate that I would set fire to the house I had lived in, but did not own."

"But if your record was known," I growled, "there would be indications bearing upon this."

"I see. You have listened to my sister. Do you think she would come into court and swear away the liberty of her brother?"

A chill passed through me at this, but I answered doggedly: "Don't know. It depends, I suppose, upon how much she thinks of her precious brother."

"And also," he said softly, "upon how much you think of her. She took you—in my behalf, of course, though that might not be proved—into her home at midnight when I was supposed to be in Philadelphia. Do you care to have her cross-examined upon that point, first by the prosecuting attorney who will try you, and then by my lawyer in case I am tried?"

"Damn your wretched heart and soul!" I yelled. "Would you shield yourself behind your sister's good name? Would you permit it, even to save your miserable life?"

"Not so loud, please. I answer that question in kind. Would you?"

"No!" I thundered. "A thousand times no!"

"Then plead guilty. My sister, who is a very resourceful and self-possessed girl, turned in the fire alarm as the quickest way to end our little difficulty, and she is in New York this morning, believing that you and I walked out. But it was I who notified the policeman of my discovering a firebug at work in my deserted home. You have given a wrong name, and she will not be interested in the little noise your trial will make—unless, I suppose, you arouse that interest."

He got up to call the warden, and I was upon him as the words left his lips. But I did not harm him much; I had not the time. I dropped him at the muzzle of the warden's pistol, and cooled down at my leisure.

I did not plead guilty; I remained doggedly silent, however, and not even the efforts of the lawyer appointed to defend me availed to mitigate my sentence. I had been caught red-handed, had made a furious assault upon the kindly disposed tenant of the house I had fired, and this, indicating a deep, dark vengeance based upon some real or fancied wrong, brought me the swift, harsh decree of Jersey justice—five years in the Trenton penitentiary. And so not even notifying my captain, I sank out of sight as completely as though I had signed for a voyage and sailed.

Five years behind the bars will alter the character—yes, even the soul—of any man living. And I do not claim that mine was changed for the better. I began that five years with the faint hope that, somehow, Grace Morton would learn of my plight and devise means to free me. Then, as this hope left me with the passing of the months, a dull, apathetic inertia took possession of me, and I worked, ate, and slept as mechanically as an animal. Then came the meridian of my imprisonment, when two years and a half had expired, and I could look forward to release. With this prospect in view my mind woke to a keener activity than it had ever known under the spur of ambition; for that ambition was based upon a love for a girl that was now eclipsed by a hatred for her brother. I looked forward to freedom, not that I might win that girl, but that I might find that man—somewhere, and alone.

As for Grace Morton, the doubt often came to my mind as to whether I ever had loved her. I had really known her only as a prattling child; I had met her once, as a woman, and in the fervor of my sudden emotion had embraced and kissed her. Was that love? Was her acquiescence the sign of a mental invitation, or only the acceptance of a matter of course? Was the sister of such a brother worth loving?

Yet these unsettled doubts invariably crystallized unto the hope that she would so prove herself, and with this hope in mind my plans for vengeance never embraced the killing of my enemy, only the meeting with him, alone in some secluded place, where I could use my superior strength and skill and thrash him within an inch of his life.

In one way my imprisonment had refined me, or rather, worn off the rough spots acquired at sea. Good behavior had brought no commutation of my five years' sentence, but it had brought me light tasks instead of hard ones, and one of these was the care of the prison library, which gave me communion with many good books.

So I emerged at last with none of the working sailor about me except in my mind, and none of the prisoner except the cropped hair and cell pallor. These last I got rid of in a short coasting voyage before the mast, and then, with my chest, money, and discharges replevined from the Philadelphia boarding master who had faithfully cared for them, I visited my old home. Here I learned that my imprisonment was not known and that George Morton and his sister were traveling in Europe for the shattered health of the former. Then, with the unregenerate hope that soon it would be given me to shatter that health still further, I went back to my battle of life, for in love, war, or work a man must live.

Luck was with me from the start. I signed before the mast and filled a sick second mate's place before the ship had reached the line. And at Hongkong found my old captain, who had a first mate's berth vacant, and was glad to get me back without asking questions. A few questions to him, however, brought out the reason of this delicacy.

"If you young fellows knew," he remarked dryly, "all that you surely learn later, you'd let the stuff alone. I'm part owner here, and when you went on that drunk and quit me I had made up my mind to put you in command. 'Tend to business, now, and you can take her out next voyage."

"I'll make good, sir," I answered, pleased with the prospect, and willing to be thought an ex-drunkard rather than an ex-convict.

"But keep still about it," he said. "The principal owner is on board for the trip home. Your job is to impress him before the proposition is put up to him. He's somewhat crotchety and queer."

I joined the ship—a big, black, skysail yarder, filled to the hatches with sugar and jute—as she was lifting her anchor. We went to sea in a gale, and for two days and two nights I had not time to unpack my chest, much less to take note of my surroundings and the impression I was creating as a first mate fitted to command. I saw the owner occasionally in the brief lulls of shortening down—a tall, spare figure, muffled to the nose in a hooded mackintosh—but I did not meet him until the morning of the third day out, when, after an hour or two of sleep, I turned out for a look around before going to breakfast, and there, in the forward companion, ran plump into him. The next moment I had him by the throat, position, prospects, honor, love, and liberty going down before the uprush of rage and hatred.

There flashed into my mind at that moment a memory from boyhood, forgotten through the years, of his father being largely interested in shipping, but it was futile, irrelevant, and left me as it came; then, while he sagged under my grip, there came to me the picture of Grace Morton's frightened face as she had turned it up to me in the lamplight. But I forced it from me. That love is dead, I thought, and I hissed the thought through my teeth with my curses. Then, thinking of the long, bitter years in prison, the suffering and the shame, the thwarted hopes and plans, the struggle to maintain my integrity for the sake of a girl that had forgotten me, and knowing only that the cause of it all was right here, in my hands, I felt what I had not felt before—the impulse, the desire, and the self-justification to kill.

But I did not kill him. I relaxed my hold and looked into the same frightened face that had appealed to me once before. Older now, with lines of care and trouble in it, but more womanly and commanding. She stood in the dining-room door, and had commanded me to stop; and I obeyed her. Her brother slunk past her into the dining-room. The second mate was on deck, the steward had not come aft with the breakfast. The captain had not come through from the after cabin. None but the girl had seen the assault.

"Go to your room, George," she called to him through the door. "Wait for me, and say nothing to the captain."

Then she turned, and calmly regarded me. On my part, I stood before her like a culprit, trembling, and with my tongue dry against the roof of my mouth.

"Jack," she said, "I have watched you through this window since we sailed, watched you in your strength and mastery of your calling. And I have listened to your voice, that roused me from sleep on the first night, and which I recognized as yours. And I said to myself that you were a man, that you must be a man, and that I may have misjudged you. But here, you assault an invalid for a quarrel over five years old, that began in my behalf, I admit, but which ended in your own."

"An invalid," I managed to say. "A quarrel—in my behalf? Go on, please, Miss Morton."

"In your own," she repeated. "Of course, I do not know how men feel, and what the best may say at times about—about a woman. But could you not let it drop, instead of resuming it here, on this ship, where I am a passenger?"

"Please explain. You let me drop, Miss Morton, when I needed you; but I have not complained. It seems that the slightest inquiry must have apprised you of my extremity. It seems that something might have been done that would not compromise you."

It was her turn to be mystified. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Do you deny me dignity, self-respect, pride, or confidence in myself? Could I inquire about a man who had taken advantage of my momentary weakness and boasted of it? Not only boasted, but threatened to a member of my family that he would follow up his advantage for revenge at a beating?"

"Boasted! Revenge at a beating! Grace, explain yourself. You are accusing me of something. What is it? Boasting that I kissed you?"

"That," she said, looking defiantly into my face, while two red spots came to her cheeks. "That, and threatening my brother, after your defeat at his hands, with making your mastery complete."

"The damnable scoundrel!" I said explosively. "Did he tell you that lie? Did he say that he defeated me?"

"I saw him getting the best of you," she said, with a little doubt in her face.

"Because I did not want to hurt your brother. Did you turn in an alarm?"

"Yes."

"Before the firemen came your brother had got away from me and ran. Then I, remaining to extinguish the fire, was arrested for causing it."

"Arrested?" Her eyes opened in wonder and alarm.

"And the best proof, Miss Morton," I said grimly, "that I am too much of a man to boast about a woman, is that I served five years in Trenton prison rather than call upon you to clear me."

"You did? Jack!"

Tears started to her eyes, but I went on relentlessly:

"The case was well outlined to me by your brother on the morning after my arrest. He had sent the policeman into the house after me, and having succeeded so far, called upon me in jail to carry it further. I was to plead guilty so as not to attract attention to him. The evidence was against me. I was caught adding fuel to the fire, and with my face and clothing smeared with oil. My only chance was that the girl that I loved would come forward. She did not, and I could not ask her. No doubt, your brother told you that lie to kill any interest or curiosity you may have felt concerning me."

For a moment I thought she was going to faint. She paled to the tips of her small ears, staggered back, and leaned against the bulkhead, her lips parted and her eyes staring at me in wonder and horror.

"Why—why," she gasped, "why did you not tell me?"

"To ask that you save me at your brother's expense?" I answered. "To place you on the stand, where the lawyers could bait you? To compromise you? To shield myself behind a woman's good name? No, Miss Morton, whatever I may have become under the influence of stripes and confinement, I was, at that time, a graduate of Annapolis—an officer and a gentleman."

She shrank away from me and seemed about to fall. Then, having spoken my mind, the bitterness left me, and I would have gone back to prison could I have unsaid my words. The old love replaced the hate, and I reached forward, just to touch her hand, if I might; but she drew it away.

"Don't," she whispered weakly. "Don't. I didn't know; I didn't know." She was not speaking to me, and for a moment I hesitated. Then I forcibly turned her face to mine and looked into her eyes, swimming with tears. "It's all right, Grace," I said huskily. "Never mind."

"I would have come," she said, in a firmer voice, "but I did not—"

I had my arms around her now, and for a moment she lay unresisting, her face close to mine; but the next moment she struggled free.

"The girl that you loved," she said softly, accenting the last word.

"And love now," I rejoined, seizing her again. Then I flung her from me and bolted into my room, on the port side of the passage.

The captain had appeared in the dining-room, and seven bells—breakfast time—rang on deck. When she reached the deck I went in to my breakfast.

That evening, in the last dog-watch, Grace came to me at the weather-mizzen rigging.

"I have questioned him, Jack, and at last he admitted it," she said. "He is a nervous wreck, has been so for a year, and now I know why. Your term was coming to an end and for fear of you he has dragged me all over Europe and the Orient. He had you watched and knew by cable that you had shipped for Hongkong, but did not imagine that you would join this ship, which he found here on our arrival. He did not expect you here for a month."

"We made a fast passage out," I answered. "But what about him? What is to be done with him? Is he still a pyromaniac?"

"I do not know. It is congenital, and may break out at any time. But at any rate, I am through with him. He has forfeited all my regard. When we get home I shall remain there."

"And I suppose you do not want the captain informed of his weakness for fire?"

"Not unless you think it necessary, Jack."

"I think not," I said. "He is very properly scared and subdued, and knows that I will be watching him."

There was little further intercourse between George Morton and myself. He appeared on deck occasionally, but usually in my watch below, and when we met he would turn his head away, much to the chagrin of the captain, who had no knowledge of conditions. He was pale, emaciated, and fidgety in his manner, evidently a very sick man, and beyond all thought of punishment; but I felt no regret at the loss of my vengeance—I had won something better, and was content.

His attitude toward his sister, however, was one of doglike devotion and apology, while hers was one of toleration and contempt. He would hasten to meet her at the companion, to help her to a seat, to bring rugs or books, satisfied if she murmured a mere word of thanks. Then he would banish himself and look at her hungrily, waiting to be called. There is no doubt that, up to the limits of his narrow soul, he loved his sister; but it was a love based upon possession—the property instinct, the love of a dog for a cached bone, a bird for its perch, a cat for those who have housed and fed her. He had lost something, and wanted it back; and as it was lost forever I feared for that other love that was part of his being—his love of fire.

I could not watch him when asleep, nor depute the task to others—all I could do was to overhaul the deck and force pumps, make up an extra supply of draw-buckets, and examine all approaches to the inflammable jute in the hold. In that last I found nothing to alarm me. It could not be reached except through the hatches, which were all battened down. And it was all in the lower hold; on top of the ballast tiers of sugar, and above it, stowed in the 'tween deck, was the rest of the sugar. He could not set fire to the sugar, even if he reached it.

Yet in the hot, blistering heat of the Indian Ocean, when we had lain for days in a calm that was harder on our nerves than a hurricane, smoke filtered up through the seams in the cabin flooring—smoke with the pungent odor of burning jute; and the first man to notice it was George Morton.

"Done it, by heavens!" I growled, as I turned out in answer to the captain's quiet call.

There was a consultation in the cabin of the after-guard, to which were called the cook and steward, carpenter and sailmaker, and the two boatswains from the forecastles. All of these reported the smell of smoke in the compartments of the forward house, and the boatswain said that it was plainly noticeable at the fore and main hatches. Grace and her brother were listening; in Grace's face were uncertainty and apprehension, in her brother's, as he darted furtive glances at me, the deadly fear of immediate denunciation; but whether there was guilt or not I could not determine.

No one could guess how the fire had started, and only two points were elucidated from the discussion, both bearing upon the captain's opinion that nothing could be done at present but to keep the hatches on and smother it. The carpenter ventured the opinion that the fire could not be smothered. "For the ship is a sieve, captain," he said. "You know I told you so in Hongkong, and wanted you to calk her, topsides, deck, and all. There's millions of little holes to let the air in."

"And even so," added Morton, "the interstices between the barrels of sugar hold air that can be drawn upon."

"Right," said the captain impatiently, and a little sadly. "But it's too late to calk every seam in this ship, and if it don't smother out, and we can't make port, this ship is gone. All we can do is wait, for if we open hatches and jettison sugar to get at it, we'll only give it more draft."

So, we waited, but while waiting, headed the ship toward Calcutta, if not to save our lives, at least to meet with some craft that could deluge our jute with water—a large steamer, with power pumps and hose. But nothing came our way, and the days and weeks went on, with the deadening calm still engulfing us, and the deck growing hotter each hour. Soon the smoke became visible, curling up in countless little spirals, where the minute holes gave it egress.

Morton faced me one day, his eyes wide open and his face twitching. "I know what you think," he stammered. "You think I set fire to the cargo. But I swear by all I reverence that I did not. My sister believes in me."

"Mr. Morton," I answered, steadily as I could, for I never was my real self in his presence, "perhaps you did not. But all that makes me think so is my utter inability to comprehend how you could do it. A man who will fire a seminary will fire a ship at sea."

He slunk away from me, so pitiable and wretched an object that immediately I was sorry for my words. After that I spoke kindly to him whenever it was necessary to speak at all.

Work went on as usual; not that, in this doomed ship, painting and scrubbing were necessary, but to keep the crew's minds off the danger and the formulating of futile plans and suggestions—which always comes of idleness. But in spite of this, mutterings of discontent were heard, and in the interests of peace, I abolished all work except the continuous washing down of the hot deck, night and day. And at this monotonous work men would go to sleep in their tracks, waking when they fell over.

I had long noticed the peculiar mental effect of the jute smoke on myself, at first a tendency to day-dreams and a lazy, sleepy indifference to our danger; later a trancelike condition in which voices were not heard, or if heard not noticed, and the whole inner consciousness busy with serene contemplation of the past, the present, and the future, mingled with visions of green trees and flowers, sounds of tinkling water, and music that seemed not of earth.

All this brought no misgiving to my mind until I wakened, prone upon the blistering deck one night, with no recollection of my falling. Then I regarded it as serious, and in the morning spoke to the captain.

"Yes, we must quit," he said mournfully, "while we have our senses. It is the soporific principle of the jute, akin to that of hasheesh, which is made from Indian hemp. No one could sleep below without that continuous narcotic, and such sleep is dangerous. I had trouble waking you yesterday. Capsize the boats and provision them. The ship may burst into flames at any moment, and when she does, she'll go quickly. She's dry as a chip."

We numbered about thirty, all told, and to accommodate this many we had three good boats, upside down on the forward house. These I soon had over the side, floating light upon the smooth sea at the ends of their painters, and we provisioned them as heavily as was safe with our added weight. When all was ready I reported.

"And none too soon," answered the captain. "Look there!" He pointed forward, where the tarpaulin of the main hatch had lifted like a great bubble from the pressure of hot air and gases beneath. "There is dunnage under the hatch and it is afire, Mr. Morton," he said, turning to our passenger, "you and your sister will go in the boat with me. I will bring her up when I bring my papers."

I had no mind for this. I turned away, and while directing the manning of the boats, did some deep and desperate thinking. Put her in an open boat with a lunatic brother and a doddering old skipper, I fumed? Not much.

As the men swarmed down, Grace appeared in the forward companion. I beckoned to her, and she came. We had already rigged a whip from the fore yardarm, and in a "bosun's chair" at the end of this I quickly hoisted her over the side and into my boat. George, leaving his sister to the captain's care, had descended to his boat on the other side. When all were over but the captain and myself, the former appeared on deck.

"Where is Miss Morton?" he called. "I cannot find her."

"In the boat, captain," I truthfully yelled. "Hurry up, sir. There's no time to lose."

I pointed, as he had done, to the main hatch. The bubble had burst, and up from the rent rose a column of smoke.

"Go ahead, sir," he answered. "I must be last."

I clambered down the side, and joined Grace in the sternsheets.

"Where is George?" she asked. "I thought he was coming, and the captain, too."

"Both in the starboard boat," I answered. "You're in here with me, where I can take care of you. Shove off!" I commanded. "Both boats shove off, and get away from here."

The second mate had charge of the other boat, and together we shot away from the ship, putting a hundred yards between us before pausing to wait for the captain's boat from the other side. But it did not appear at once. Instead, we heard loud shouts, and the name "Grace" in Morton's tremulous voice.

"Miss Morton is here," I sang out, but, if heard, I was not answered.

Then the shouts ceased, and Morton's figure appeared on the opposite rail.

"Grace!" he called. "Grace, where are you?"

"I'm here, George," she answered. "I'm safe. Save yourself."

"Here!" I bellowed. "Here with me! Get back into your boat."

But instead he jumped down on deck, out of our sight. We pulled back toward the ship, and waited, a fair swimming distance away. Then, as a box of matches bursts into fame, so did that huge ship. The main-hatch covers flew into air, tangible and visible; and as they fell, the black pillar of smoke increased in size and solidity, while each oaken rail became a line of fire, and even the masts, dried by the heat of weeks, turned to fiery red columns in a few minutes.

But the top of the cabin was still immune from the flames. And up the after steps by the side of the companion climbed Morton. He ran to the skylight, turned around, went part way back, and then retraced his steps, calling again for his sister.

"Jump overboard!" I shouted. "Jump, for your life!"

He did not jump. With his hands to his nostrils he shuffled forward toward the monkey-rail that overlooked the main deck, halting at moments, only to shuffle again. He turned around once and took a few steps backward, then wheeled suddenly and resumed his shuffling advance. I called again and again for him to jump, and Grace joined me in pleading screams, while I heard the captain calling from the other side. But to no avail; the god that he worshiped was calling the louder. He staggered now, reached the rail, and with arms extended as though in supplication, plunged into the inferno beneath.

Only once since then has anyone spoken of him to me. It was the gray old skipper, who, after our rescue, wanted to set me right.

"You thought he fired the ship," he said, "for he told me of your suspicions, and felt badly. But he did not. It was all my fault, for I should have calked the ship at Hongkong. That three-day gale that we met let the water down on the jute. It was spontaneous combustion."

But, in mercy to each other, Grace and I never mention his name.

[THE BABY]

It was Dartmoor who saw the chance. He was the son of a wealthy father, and perhaps the one man of that medical class to feel equal to the experiments given up by the old professor.

Physically, Dartmoor was exceptionally favored by nature, possessing one of the most winning personalities I have ever met, and the face and figure of a Greek god. And to this was added a mental development that was almost abnormal in its completeness. I had gone through school with him, and never saw him studying. He seemed to learn his lessons by a few glances at the page of a book.

He had courage of a high order, but never had a fight in his life, for he could make an adversary surrender without a fight. He could win any girl for sweetheart, or any boy for friend. He had his enemies, carefully chosen by himself, but when he so decided he would make these enemies his friends. I had been one.

Shortly after our diplomas were given us, Dartmoor secured legal possession of the freak, with a history of the case. The history was simple; its mother, a poor immigrant, had died at its birth, and its father was unknown.

The professor, a visiting physician of the hospital at the time, had taken it into his sanitarium and cared for it; but beyond keeping it alive had not helped it. It was a man that had never been conscious—a human being born without the five senses.

Dartmoor erected a pavilion on his grounds, installed in it the freak, together with the apparatus for massage and exercise, and gave himself up to the study of his charge. He had me around once to witness the experiments, but I was not enthusiastic.

The creature, who was about as old as Dartmoor and myself, lay in a reclining posture on the exercising frame, staring vacantly with wide-open, blue eyes. He was full grown, but with the features of an infant—pudgy nose and pursed-up lips.

Two hinged levers worked by a crank caught his wrists as they lay extended over his head, lifted him to a sitting position, and pulled him forward until his fingers touched his feet. Then back he went, to be again swung forward. When there had been enough of this, two other levers lifted him by the ankles and brought his feet over his head, then dropped them back.

Then there were massaging and vibrating apparatus and a portable shower-bath to finish him off. All this had been going on since his infancy, and now he was fairly well developed—about six feet tall, with the muscles of an athlete.

"Dartmoor," I said, when the job was over, "this is a problem for a college of physicians and surgeons, not for one man."

"But think of the credit," he answered enthusiastically. "Think of the world's applause if I succeed in giving consciousness to this poor, animated clay."

"It may be an idiot."

"Not necessarily—an infant, perhaps."

"Where do you think the trouble lies?"

"I do not know; neither does the professor. It is something that affects the sensory, motor, and sympathetic nerves as a whole. I shall try the different absorption treatments, and various forms of radio-activity and ultra-violet rays. Mental suggestion may do it."

"Well, good luck to you. I've a living to make curing live people."

But I did not make a living by my profession. A girl who had said "yes" at the beginning of my studies now said "no," and it needed no deep investigation to discover the reason for the change. She had come under the sway of Dartmoor's personality, and my cause was hopeless.

What made it harder was that he seemed unaware of it. He evidently cared nothing for her, busying himself with his experiments and never seeking her. Otherwise I might have had it out with him.

However, the girl's "no" carried with it a denial of all else that I valued. I was young, unproven, much wrought up, and utterly irresponsible. For the next five years my life had better be glossed over. I went to sea, and found in the wandering life of a sailor the only relief for the aching drag at my breast.

At last, being more sane than insane, I turned over a new leaf and began to save money. A few years later I found myself owner and master of a fine little schooner, and, after a few exploring and trading trips around the South Sea Islands, came upon a pearl fishery which laid the foundations of a fortune.

This done, I took in a ballast load of guano, and, ten years from the time of my departure, sailed for the Golden Gate and home. I wanted to see that girl again, married or single.

It must have been intuition, for I arrived at San Francisco just before the date fixed for her marriage to Dartmoor. I saw him first, and it was he who told me. He was worn out with his unsolved problem, and about to abandon it.

There had been something lacking in his life, he said—something that lessened his powers, but now he had found it—the love of woman. He had awakened to the fact that he loved Miss Ewing, had always loved her, and was rejoiced to know that she had always loved him.

They were to be married in a week. His living dead man would then take second place in his thoughts, and perhaps new thoughts would come.

It was sad news for me, but I gritted my teeth and congratulated him.

"You're right," I said grimly. "A few years more of this business and no woman would have you. You look hunted. Your hair is turning."

"Yes," he sighed, "I'm getting gray and old. Perhaps, as you once said, it is too much of a task for one man. I have tried every scientific appliance, but I have not stirred a single sense perception.

"And I am being interfered with. A local society for the prevention of cruelty to children is getting active. I am charged with inhumanity, and in danger of arrest at any time. Why, he could not live a week without the care I am giving him."

"Why not let the society have him? Get him off your mind. Do you expect your wife to be happy with that monstrosity between you? Give it up, Dartmoor."

"I cannot. It is my life's work."

"Then you'd better take him down to my island, where I am the law and the lawmaker. Otherwise your life will be short and your wife a young widow."

I had made the suggestion at haphazard, but he became interested at once, asked me all about my pearl fishery, and the gang of coolies who obeyed me as a king, and said he would think it over. I left him then; and believing that even as a rejected lover I had a right to see my old sweetheart once in ten years, I called upon her.

It is hard for a man roughened as I have become to describe that girl; so I shall not try, except to say that all sense of fair play left me, and that I had not been in her presence five minutes before I was down on my knees, begging to be taken back.

I almost gained my point. There were tears in her eyes, and her hand trembled as I held it. She admitted that Dartmoor's long neglect had lessened his value in her eyes, now that she had won him. But he had done nothing culpable; her promise was given, and he seemed fond of her, and in need of her.

"Confound Dartmoor and his need of you!" I growled. "I need you more. He has his man-baby and his science. You will be second. You would be first with me, Ella. Give him up—for me."

She shook her head slowly, and more slowly, while I held tightly to her little hand. Then the doorbell rang, and we heard Dartmoor's voice.

"Curse him!" I cried hotly. "Ella, I won't have it. I won't give you up to him. I'm a man now, not a bewildered boy."

He came in before she could reply. He must have seen something out of the way in our faces, for he said jocularly:

"Talking about me, I'll wager. I wondered what made my ears burn. Do you know," he said, "that there is a scientific basis for that old fancy?"

As he took it scientifically and good-humoredly, I let it go; besides, as I remembered later, my anger had left me.

"Captain," he said seriously, "I have a proposition for you—that you take me and my phenomenon, with my attendants and apparatus, down to your island, where, I presume, we will be undisturbed. When I am alone with him I wish to try some experiments that I have long contemplated, but which have been interfered with by the people of this city. I will assume all expenses."

"Come along," I answered graciously. "I won't come within a mile of you, and the coolies will avoid you both."

"And, Ella," he said, turning to the girl he thought he loved, "it will necessitate a postponement of our wedding for a while. I cannot take you down into the South Pacific on an uncertainty. You will not mind, I know; we have waited long, and can wait a little longer. You agree with me, do you not, captain?"

"Of course, I do," I answered with a leaping heart, but trying to appear unconcerned. "It's no place for a woman."

She merely bowed her head and said nothing. What she thought I could not know. Nor can I remember much of what I thought myself. Mingled with my joy over the delay, there seemed to be vague imaginings of my holding Dartmoor by the heels over the taffrail and dropping him into the water. But I am not sure that these visions did not come later.

Wrong, of course; but I was an angry and jealous man.

I saw her once more before we sailed, but could not move her. She was kind, gentle with me, and sorrowful, but obedient to the influence of Dartmoor, with no will but his. So I gave it up for the time, trusting not to a watery grave to break his influence but to his absence from her.

We transferred the freak by night and lodged it in the hold, where I had built a sort of enclosure under the cabin trunk for the apparatus. Dartmoor brought a couple of his servants along to carry on the daily exercising, and my Kanaka crew expressed no curiosity concerning the strange weights they hoisted over the side at midnight. So, we got away without trouble.

Whether or not Dartmoor exercised any mental influence over me I do not know. I felt a healthy hatred for him as the man who had taken the woman I loved, but I could not bring myself to quarrel with him. He could not force me to like him, but possibly he disarmed my resentment by his kindly feeling for me.

My island was a small affair, as islands go—merely the top of a submerged mountain—surrounded by a barrier reef with only one passage through it; and this entrance was known to no one but myself. Well up from the beach I had erected huts for my coolie divers and a comfortable house for myself on the high ground near a spring of water.

Here I purposed to install Dartmoor and the freak; but I wondered, grimly and ungenerously, as I steered through the dangerous passage and glanced at a dismantled hulk wrecked on the reef during my absence, as to the chances of anybody getting off that island without my consent.

As we let go the anchor, a man pulled out in a small dingey I kept for exploring the lagoon and climbed aboard. He was tall, elderly, and mild of face and manner.

"Glad to see a white face again," he said as he offered me his hand. "You are the captain, I believe—the white chief of these poor heathen. I am Mr. Pfeffer, a seagoing missionary, and my little craft was wrecked here last week while trying to make the passage in a storm. I am the only one saved, and I owe my life to your divers. They have been very kind to me, a shipwrecked wayfarer, and I would like to remain among them a while, if it is possible for me to do so."

"Stay as long as you like, Mr. Pfeffer," I answered. "Convert us all, if you like; but there's a critter down below that's proof, I'll warrant."

He asked questions, and Dartmoor explained. Then the missionary inspected the monstrosity.

"I consider my shipwreck as an act of God," he said, as he came on deck. "You will succeed, Mr. Dartmoor, I know you will. And I will be here, to aid you with prayer and spiritual help. For this new-born intelligence must be trained to know and believe in the goodness of God, who creates nothing without a purpose. It is all clear, now, captain. I have been brought here to assist."

I did not dispute him. Fish, yams, and cocoanuts were plentiful on that island, and I had other things to think of. An overhauling of the work done in my absence and a trip to Honolulu for supplies would keep me busy for some time.

As I was about to start, Dartmoor's two servants asked to be taken with me. I consulted Dartmoor, and he sadly advised it. They did not like the quiet life on the island and, though he had offered more pay, they were not content. I landed them at Honolulu and saw no more of them.

Their going left the manual work of exercising the freak to Dartmoor, and I grinned shamelessly. At this juncture I had half a mind to run over to San Francisco and make another appeal to Ella, but gave it up. She might not have grown away from him yet; and at any rate I could keep Dartmoor on the island as long as I pleased. To such dark depths of knavery does jealousy bring a man.

I ran back to the island, and no sooner was the anchor down than Dartmoor and the dominie appeared on the beach, shouting and gesticulating like lunatics. Then, over the noise they made, there came from the house up the hill a sound like the braying of a burro mixed with the wail of a fog siren. Then I heard Dartmoor.

"It's alive," he called, "and conscious. It can sit up."

"Great Scott," I said. "Then that's its baby wail."

I went ashore and received the particulars from the excited Dartmoor.

The whole life treatment had been wrong because of its mechanical nature. He had found himself without the strength to manipulate the machine, and had consequently resorted to hand massage. When tired he would sit for hours, concentrating his mind upon the desire that the freak would awaken—would see, hear, taste, smell, or feel. Then he would resume the massage.

It worked. The creature opened its eyes one day about a week back and moved its limbs. With the wakening of the motor nerves came a correlative wakening of the sensory and optic nerves. He could see and feel.

But the sensations were too much for him and, like a new-born infant, he set up the loud, discordant wailing I had heard. A little further treatment brought to life the sense of hearing, and after a few simple experiments it was proved that he could taste and smell.

I went up and inspected the baby. He lay on his cot, dressed in dungaree jumper and overalls, twiddling his toes and fingers, and sticking out his tongue at the ceiling; but at the sight of me he set up a roar that drove us out into the open. He could certainly "take notice."

"His lungs are all right," I said. "He'll make a good bo'sun's mate when he grows up. Think he'll start growing now?"

"Oh, no," said Dartmoor seriously. "He's got his growth. But we are teaching him to walk, and we must teach him to talk. His intelligence and memory will come with the accumulation of perceptions."

"He will talk soon," said the old missionary hopefully. "He is very imitative. This morning he repeated 'Now I lay,' but could go no farther. His first speech must be prayer, to give thanks for his rescue from darkness."

"He'll learn to swear," I said unsympathetically, "if I catch him around my pearls. Think he'll be an idiot, Dartmoor? Has he a soul after all these years of unconsciousness?"

"He has always possessed a subconscious mind," said Dartmoor didactically, "and now has the beginning of consciousness. But if he has a soul, depend upon it, it is my soul. I brought him to life, and he will feel what I feel and do what I do to the extent of his power.

"Why, that is proved now. I can quiet him by a word, or even a fixed thought of disapproval. He smiles or laughs when I do. I was frightened by a shark yesterday—just a momentary shock—but his wailings were pitiable. Yet he was out of sight of me."

"Well, all this is beyond me," I said. "But now that you've got him alive what will you do with him? Take him back to the coast and exhibit him? He'd make a fine dime-museum star."

"Nothing so cheap. I do not care to take him back until I have fully demonstrated my theory. But, in his development he will need more than my care and Mr. Pfeffer's. He needs the tender ministrations of a mother. A woman's instinct alone can tell when to punish and when to reward.

"I want you to go back home, captain, and bring Ella to me, with her mother. Mr. Pfeffer can marry us, and then you can take the mother back."

"Dartmoor, you inhuman devil," I answered with what restraint I could, "would you condemn a civilized young woman to companionship with that brute?"

"In the interest of science, yes. My wife will work with me."

"She won't come," I answered explosively. "In justice and fairness I shall warn her of what is ahead. She won't come, depend upon it."

"She will. I will write her a letter which you can deliver to her."

I acceded—I do not know why. I had sworn to drown him in the lagoon before I would lend a hand toward his marrying that girl. I only came back to myself when three days out, homeward bound.

I was obeying his orders; yet, as the days went on, I found my will power and determination growing. If I took that girl out, I vowed she would go as my wife.

Nothing of the sort happened. When she read his letter she insisted upon going, and her weak old mother fell in line. In vain did I beg and storm. Nothing I could say availed against that letter.

I could not recognize Dartmoor's right to that girl over my own, though I was compelled to yield to his greater power. On that run out to sea I did all I could to sway her. I prayed to her and argued with her, representing as strongly as I could her life with a heartless, bloodless scientist and a man-baby—a repulsive, incongruous parody on the human race; but I finally had to give up in despair.

As we sailed into the lagoon I observed through the glass the whole colony, Dartmoor, the missionary, and the gang of coolies mustered on the beach. And with them was the baby. They had taught him to walk. Clumsy and huge, he lumbered around among them, and occasionally dropped to all-fours. Even at the distance I could hear his thundering "Da, da da!"

"Nice prospect for Ella," I thought gloomily. "Heaven help the poor girl!"

I lowered the quarter-boat and sent mother and daughter ashore, for I was determined not to witness Dartmoor's meeting with the girl I loved. Yet the jealous devils in my soul were too strong for my determination. I looked through the glass at Dartmoor assisting Ella ashore, and swore dismally as he took her in his arms, kissed her on the cheek, and turned away from her to the mother.

A scream, either from Ella or her mother, interrupted the second greeting, and I shifted my glass. There was the brute baby, with his huge arms around Ella, attempting to follow the example of Dartmoor. The missionary shouted, and the coolies danced around at a safe distance.

Dartmoor acted. With a bound he had the brute by the throat and pulled him clear. Then I saw them clench, and at this I dropped the glass and sprang into the dingey.

I took only one look behind as I pulled furiously on the oars. They were on the ground in a mad struggle, the brute uppermost. Ella had fainted and her mother was bending over her, while the missionary and the coolies were well up the hill.

As I grounded and sprang out with an oar, the brute slowly rose erect, looking at Dartmoor.

"Get out of here!" I yelled. "Clear out!" and brandished the oar.

He stumbled away a short distance, dropped and crawled a little farther, then lay down on the sand. I made toward Ella.

"Is she hurt?" I asked anxiously.

"Only fainted away," answered the mother. "That creature frightened her so. He is simply terrible."

I went to Dartmoor, prone upon his back, and stooped over him.

"Hurt, Dartmoor?" I asked.

"My back," he whispered. "He has broken my back. I cannot move and there is no sensation below the waist. Where is he now?"

"Lying down over yonder," I answered. "What can I do?"

"Nothing. Protect Ella from him."

"I will. I'll murder him if need be."

"You will not need," he went on in that weakening whisper. "I did too well. He had only my soul to inspire his impulses, without my governing mind. He took my love for Ella only as his mind could interpret it, as mere impulse. He took my anger and vented it upon me. He will die with me. It is but the passing of one soul."

Dartmoor was right. He breathed his last in a minute, and I went over to the beast. He, too, lay quiet and still.

[THE GRINDING OF THE MILLS]

Now, be it understood at the first word that I have never believed in astrology as an exact science, or even a working hypothesis to explain the curious happenings of life which we ascribe to luck, fate, Providence, the law of cause and effect, or, latterly, to mortal mind. Nor do I offer this story with any intent to help the astrologers in their difficult efforts to prove their science correct; for it proves nothing beyond the scope of coincidence—unless, possibly, that the laws, mathematical and other, beyond human soul life, are past our present comprehension. This is merely the contribution of an experienced old man, grown gray and tired in the effort to understand his fellowman, and who has at last given up the problem, trusting that it may aid some younger investigator.

My acquaintance with them began early, very early—in fact I was present at, and assisted at, their birth, which occurred at the same moment, their mothers lying side by side on the same narrow cot in the crowded hospital. There had been a railroad accident, and these two injured women had been carried to the nearby institution where I was serving my apprenticeship in medicine. They recovered in time, went to their separate homes unacquainted, and resumed their lives, one the wife of a wealthy man, the other a scrubwoman. They never met again, nor did their lives conflict; but their children, born at the same moment, and at the same spot, lived out careers that were strangely parallel, strangely consistent with what the astrologers teach.

In my later capacity of visiting physician to that hospital I often met young Dunbar, the scrub-woman's boy, as he progressed through the ailments and accidents of childhood; and as family physician to the wealthy Lance family I as often met their pampered youngster. After a few years I noticed that if anything was wrong with one, something—not necessarily the same thing—happened to the other. For instance, young Dunbar broke his arm at the time young Lance had the measles. The latter sprained his wrist, and the former came to the free clinic the same day with a black eye, acquired in a fight. I called this coincidence for a while, until both mothers died at the same hour, of the same disease. Then I recalled that I, who had been present at that other momentous event in their widely divergent lives, was now the useless physician to each. I began to take notes, but never investigated the lives of the mothers; my studies and speculations were concerned with the lives of the sons. And I first learned that since birth they had never met.

Each in his own environment, these two boys grew up, as different in physique, mentality, and morals as can be imagined. At sixteen their characters were shaped, and at this age I invoiced their attributes. Each was what the other was not. Dunbar was a tough, Lance a gentleman; but Dunbar possessed physical courage of the highest order, while Lance, up to this period in his life, had never voluntarily placed himself in the way of pain or punishment. He would run from an angry goose or girl playmate. On the other hand, he possessed moral courage, while Dunbar was a moral coward. Lance proudly bore himself through a storm of boyish ridicule when caught playing with dolls and toy-houses, while Dunbar hid himself in shame because of defeat at the hands of a larger, heavier boy. Lance was truthful, polite, and with a high sense of honor and justice; Dunbar a liar, a bully, and a bad example. His associates were the worst in the town, and when there came the time that my safe was robbed, and the loot was found upon Dunbar, I could not have saved him, even though I had believed him innocent. It was simply a case of the People against Dunbar, and I was prosecuting witness.

Others had robbed me, and Dunbar, unthinkingly, had held the goods until arrested. I could not prove this at the time, and so Dunbar was convicted. But, as an incident in this story, on the day that he entered prison to begin a four-years' sentence, Lance, the most effeminate boy I had known in my experience, entered the Naval Academy at Annapolis, there to begin a four-year tutelage in a profession where the most masculine attributes are required.

I saw him on his four vacations at home, each time more mature, more certain of himself, more effeminate in speech and mannerisms, yet graceful in bearing and possessed of what might be called masculine beauty. He was tall, erect, with curly hair and a pink complexion, untouched by the tan of sun and sea and wind; for he had not yet begun his two years' sea cruise.

I visited Dunbar in prison as often as I saw Lance, for my own vacations took me into his vicinity. On the first three occasions he was sulky and resentful, but on the fourth and last was utterly changed. He begged my forgiveness, was earnest and hopeful of the future. He asked for books to read, and advice on his plans. I met him more than half-way, and soon learned the cause of the change in him—the warden's daughter. She had lent him her small store of books, had sympathized with him as she dared or cared, and had become his Goddess of Light and Hope. I talked with her before I left; she was a tall, willowy sort of girl with a very sweet, spiritual face—not so beautiful as compelling. She could exercise a strong influence on any man of Dunbar's rugged type. Dunbar was tall, broad, and intensely masculine. He was dark of complexion and dark of mood, for his limitations bore heavily upon him; he knew that he must start life and ambition handicapped by a term in prison. But the dogged, courageous spirit of the man triumphed over this, and he had planned for a seafaring career, in which not too much would be asked of a man's past, and not too much would be required in the way of refinement to insure success.

"For I know I'm a bad investment, Doc," he said, "because I didn't go to school when I could, and I traveled with the worst playmates I could find. But I think I can make it up. I'll have that girl ahead of me, to reach for and work for if I get her. She understands about my kind of men. There are a lot of us here."

I wished him good luck, and when his time had expired—he served the full term with no commutation—I secured him a berth with a relative of mine who commanded a ship, and he went to sea. The ship sailed on the day that Lance's leave expired, and, on that day, Lance, too, went to sea on his practice cruise.

Astrologers say that, given the date, place, and exact minute of a person's birth, a calculation can be made that will prophesy the happenings for good or evil in that person's life, and fix the dates or the periods of time; and, conversely, if given the dates of the happenings and departures, the exact minute and place of birth can be determined. If this is true, it would equally apply to the case of two persons born side by side, giving them similar experiences varying only by the pressure of environment and the initial distance apart when born. And Lance and Dunbar seemed to be proving it true.

Shortly after they left, the jail warden was elected sheriff, and moved his goods and family to the county seat, the small town where we lived. The daughter, now about seventeen, was welcomed in the best society of the place. I saw her often; and the more I learned of her beautiful mind, the more I deplored Dunbar's unfortunate infatuation, and felt that a lesser girl would have answered the purpose. But now I know that a lesser girl could not have reached him. He needed a star of the first magnitude.

In two years Lance was back, a passed midshipman, waiting for his commission as ensign and an assignment to a ship. Dunbar did not appear, and I wondered if the connection was broken; but was relieved on this point by a letter from my relative, which apprised me that Dunbar had quit him to ship second mate with another skipper; and on comparing dates I found that this was simultaneous with the return of Lance, though Dunbar was in San Francisco at the time. But there seemed to be other influences entering into the environment of Lance. He met Miss Ella Madison, the daughter of the Sheriff. Now, while the best society of the small town had welcomed this splendid girl, Lance, invested with wealth and the aroma of a commission, was not affected by the general estimate. To him she was a find, a pretty girl to flirt with. I saw them together very often, but never arrived at a conception of his attitude until he expounded his philosophy of life in answer to a query of mine—a quest born of my interest in Dunbar.

"Are you to be married?" I asked.

"Married? No. I don't believe in marriage. I consider marriage, the linking of two human beings together, to be a crime worse than the tying of a dog and cat together by a rope and turning them adrift to fight it out. Marriage, Doctor? Why, marriage is an institution of human society worse than slavery—responsible for more crime, sin, sorrow, suffering, and murder than anything that ever afflicted the human race."

"Well," I answered, somewhat amazed, "what will you substitute for marriage, admitting that what you say may be true?"

"Association of two who love, until each is tired of the association, then separation."

"And do you apply such a code to your interest in Miss Madison?"

"Of course; but she's old-fashioned in her notions. Likes to be loved, but wants to be married. She resists my philosophy."

"She's right, you young scoundrel," I said. "Get out of my office."

My anger, of course, has no place in this story, and I soon forgot it, trusting in the girl's nobility of soul; and a letter from Dunbar, the first he had written, roused my hopes that there might soon be an antidote for Lance. It was a long communication, written from Liverpool, which apprised me that he had obtained a first mate's license and was in a fair way soon to obtain command; but the diction and style of that letter surprised me. With all my acquirements, coming of a university education and a daily correspondence with educated people, I could not have edited that letter. It was a masterpiece of English, and I answered it, giving him the news of Miss Madison that he asked for, and advising him to appear.

But he did not appear; and four years went on—years of fruitless suit on the part of Lance, and fruitful pursuit on the part of Dunbar, as evidenced by his letters. Miss Madison remained invulnerable; Lance steadily disintegrated, becoming more masculine, more dissipated, more fixed in his reactionary philosophy of life. He resigned from the navy two months after his return and remained in the small town, except for occasional visits to New York. His father died, and with all the property in his control, he bought a schooner yacht, and invited me to a trip—which invitation I declined. Dunbar had become a first mate, and later a captain of a small bark which, in a letter, he said would sail from Honolulu for New York. I hoped he would come home, for in every letter he had written was the request for news of Ella Madison, and his assurance of a soul-born worship of her. I knew something of feminine psychology. I felt that here was the need of a strong man; for in my few talks with the girl I had not impressed her with Lance's unworthiness.

Lance continued in his reversion to type. His dissipated habits brought him into contact with men who expounded only the physical. He had a fight, in the small town, with a bartender, and actually thrashed the man—a feat I would not have accredited to him. Again he stopped a runaway horse and saved from certain death the occupants of the carriage. He bore these honors modestly, but I could not help speculating upon the question as to whether or not he was drawing upon his affinity, Dunbar, a sailor who risked his life daily in the earning of his daily bread. Dunbar's increasing refinement, as evidenced by his letters, bore out such a speculation, and it seemed that each, without knowing the other, was benefiting by the psychic association. But Miss Madison the link between the two, who was lifting Dunbar up and dragging Lance down, remained normal, uninfluenced by Lance and unremembering of Dunbar; for, in a short talk with her, I found that she had forgotten him.

Now Sheriff Madison died, and as the girl was without friends or relatives, I took her into my home as a member of the family, satisfied to have such a rare and beauteous creature under my care, and glad of my vested power to keep Lance at a distance. But it came too late; I noticed her abstraction, then saw tears in her eyes, and, long before my professional knowledge told me, I guessed that Lance had won.

There was a stormy scene when I met him, upbraided him, and appealed to his manhood, and was met by flippant philosophy, ridicule, and defiance. In that talk I caught him by the throat and only relinquished my grip as I realized that his death would not avail. He must marry her, I thought, and that thought saved his miserable life. He went out, angry at me and insistent that his position was justified by human experience.

He went on a yachting trip soon after, and before he came back I read in the New York papers of a rescue at sea. The yacht Sylph, cruising, with owner on board, had come upon the dismantled wreck of the bark Holyoke, Captain John Dunbar, and rescued all hands at the moment of sinking. A feature of the rescue was the plunging into the sea of Mr. George Lance, owner of the yacht, and his saving the life of Captain Dunbar, who had remained until the last, and who, hampered by his oilskins would have drowned in the turmoil caused by the sinking hull, but for the heroic action of Mr. Lance.

I read this to Miss Madison. She was pleased at Lance's heroism, but expressed no interest in Captain Dunbar, the last to leave his sinking ship.

Shortly after, Dunbar came home and his first visit was to me. With all my predilection to think well of him I was more than surprised, and agreeably so. I had last seen him in a cell, a convict, a jail-bird, with the prison pallor on his face and the prison flavor in his soul. He stood before me now a big, broad-shouldered, handsome fellow of twenty-eight, with dark, curly hair, a dark, sunburned face, a cheery, optimistic smile, and a voice that rang with suppressed laughter. His diction was faultless; he had read and studied deeply. He used words and phrases only at the command of educated men. Had I not known his antecedents I would have pronounced him a university graduate; yet I knew that he was John Dunbar, a self-made man, and I approved of his handiwork. I introduced him to Miss Madison. His attitude toward her was that of a religious devotee in the presence of an idol. Hers was that of a woman wearied of life and life's ideals. She did not know him—did not realize that this big, splendid man was a product of her own creation—a failure, inspired by her beautiful face and a few kind words toward effort, struggle, and victory. Dunbar was a success; he had made it so, and nothing could take it from him. But she did not know, and I could not tell her now.

In his talk with me he outlined his plans. "I'll get another ship, soon," he said, "for the owners don't count it against me that a leaky old tub started a butt in a Hatteras gale and went down. Besides, she was well insured. But, meanwhile, I've accepted command of Mr. Lance's yacht. I'll have to study up a little on yacht etiquette, and I'm all right. Say, isn't he a fine fellow?"

I did not contradict him, though I withheld enthusiastic concurrence.

"He'd made three trips in his gig," went on Dunbar, "and handled it finely in that tremendous sea, taking off my men as they jumped overboard. I stayed to the last and he made a separate trip for me, but arrived too late. She took her final plunge before I expected it, and there I was, thirty feet under before I knew it, with long rubber boots on and a long oilskin coat that I couldn't unbutton. But I did get to the surface, full of water and nearly unconscious, when I felt his clutch on my hair. Oh, he's a man—the real thing, and whatever I can do for him while I live, I'll do, and don't you forget it, doctor. I'm that man's friend for life."

I inwardly groaned and changed the subject.

"And what are your intentions with regard to Miss Madison?" I asked.

"To win her love, if I can, and make her my wife," he said, determinedly. "You say she does not remember me—the fellow in jail? Well, don't tell her, doctor. I'll tell her myself when the time comes, but not now. It might hurt me."

I promised, but could not see the future clear of trouble, for Dunbar, for Lance, and for Miss Madison.

Dunbar went back to New York, to assume charge of Lance's yacht, and I spent the next few months in fruitless argument, denunciation, and threat; but I could not move Lance, and I think I drove him to harder drinking. Then there came the time when Ella Madison, the girl I loved as my own child, asked me to accompany her on a trip to sea in Lance's yacht.

"I must disappear for a time," she said, sadly, "and I want you with me. I know I will die if you are not with me, for he is inflexible."

"I'll go, my girl," I said, grimly, "and stand by you. But, God help the scoundrel if things come to the worst."

I thought of Dunbar as I said this, wondering what he would do, when he learned that his goddess was the victim of his savior.

But we packed up—my wife, the poor, weakened, and helpless girl, and myself. We went to New York, boarded the black, shiny schooner at Twenty-sixth Street, and put to sea, Dunbar delighted at the trip with the woman he adored, and Lance drunk and disagreeable. It was an unpleasant experience in his life, rendered necessary by his very slight adherence to the conventions.

The yacht was a fine schooner of about a hundred and twenty feet length, carrying, besides her skipper, a mate and twenty men, with a cook, steward, and cabin-boy. She was well found, in stores and the liquid refreshments dear to the soul of Lance, and well able to keep the sea until this unfortunate happening was over.

I have not said anything so far of my wife, and she has small part in this story. Let it suffice that she was with me heart and soul in my interest for and love for Ella Madison, and our only desire was to help her as we could, I as a medical man, she as a woman full of human sympathy. The event came at the beginning of a gale off Cape Hatteras, when Lance was half drunk, and Dunbar excited and interested in the work of snugging down. He was on deck, and I heard his roaring orders to his men while I, with my wife, attended the poor girl below in her stateroom.

I had seen in Dunbar's eyes the suspicion that he entertained, but had not yet brought myself to the point of informing him. Yet it came unexpectedly, when, clad in oilskins, he caught me at the companionway, and said:

"What's the matter? Is anything wrong with Miss Madison?"

"Dunbar," I answered, "she will be delivered of a child in less than an hour; and its father is George Lance, who saved your life. Be careful what you do or what you say."

The man reeled as though I had struck him, then went forward, and I heard his voice, directing his mate and men. I hoped that his strength of soul would stand by him.

I went below, meeting Lance in the forward cabin. He was half-intoxicated, and I had small interest in his conversation, but he said something that I remembered.

"No need, Doctor, to preserve any evidence of this. I'll see to that all right. Just leave it to me, and she can go on and live her life, and I'll go on and live my life, just the same. It's all a matter of common sense. Understand."

I did not understand—until later, when, having left Ella Madison with a small, crying creature in her arms, I went to my berth utterly exhausted, and was aroused by my wife, who said: "The baby is missing. Where can it be?"

I turned out and peeped into Ella's stateroom. She was sleeping peacefully, but there was no sign of the babe.

"I only left her a few minutes ago," said my wife, "and the little one was beside her. It had stopped crying."

"Go to your room, dear," I said, "and leave this to me."

She obeyed me and I went on deck. The yacht was hove to, under a close-reefed mainsail, a double-reefed foresail, and the jib, with the bonnet off. Forward, the watch on deck walked back and forth in twos and threes, clad in snug oilskins and unmindful of the bombardment of spume and spindrift. The mate was amidships, looking aloft and to windward, and aft near the wheel was Dunbar, staring moodily into the storm. I waited until he stepped forward to speak to the mate, then approached the man at the wheel.

"Has Mr. Lance been on deck?" I said, nonchalantly.

"Yes, sir. He came up a short time back."

"Throw anything overboard?"

"Yes, sir. He had a bundle, and dropped it over the lee quarter."

"That's all right. Keep your mouth shut until I talk with you."

I went below, shocked and horrified beyond my powers of self-analysis. Lance had murdered the child born to the woman he had won and despised. And here on the scene was Dunbar, who had worshiped this woman as an abstract ideal, whose life had been saved by this murderer, and who was under such heavy obligations of gratitude that his course of conduct was problematical. I could not foresee the solution. I did not know what Dunbar would do.

I sought my wife and told her. She could not advise me nor help me. I hunted for Lance, and found him, locked in his stateroom.

"Let me in," I said. "I want to talk with you."

He opened the door, and I entered. He was ghastly pale, wild-eyed—drunk.

"Have a drink, Doc," he stuttered. "Of course, you know that I've queered the case—that things are all right, now, and that when we get back she can live her life and I can live mine."

"You will live your life," I said, "as a convict, sentenced to life imprisonment, unless a more merciful decree of the court shall send you to the electric chair."

"Oh, have a drink. It's all right. The evidence is out of the way. Now, I'm willing to cut her out—to have nothing more to do with her, and she can do what she likes, get married, or remain an old maid. I'm through. I've made good. Her reputation hasn't suffered, because nobody knows, except you, and I, and your wife. Well, what's the use of talking? Just keep still, and we'll go back to New York. She can go home, and the whole thing will end."

"Don't flatter yourself," I answered grimly. "There is a man on deck that you will have to deal with—a man who has loved this girl for years, who knows your position, and who will know of the crime you have committed. You are a murderer, and you will have to deal with John Dunbar."

"What have I got to do with him? He's my skipper, to do as I tell him."

"I'll see about that."

I left him and sought Dunbar, who stood on the weather quarter, alone. The same man was at the wheel, and I raised my hand warningly as I caught his eye. He nodded, as though he comprehended.

"Dunbar," I said, as I reached his side, "has the captain of a ship, or yacht, the power to put the owner of the craft in irons?"

"Yes," he answered, slowly, the words seeming to struggle through his set teeth, "if the owner violates the law in any way, or threatens by his acts the destruction of property or life."

"Then put George Lance in irons for the murder of his own child."

He started, and looked intently into my face.

"He threw the child overboard within half an hour of its birth."

"Then, Doctor," he answered, slowly, "it seems that he does not mean to marry her."

"Most certainly not. I gave up that hope long ago."

"He will cast her adrift to live this thing down as she can, I suppose."

"Yes, as he says, to live her life as she likes while he lives his."

"I will not iron him, doctor; for that would mean arrest, a trial, and publicity. Where is he now?"

"In his room, drunk and defiant."

Dunbar threw off his long oilskin coat, doffed his sou'wester, and descended the cabin stairs; I followed, and my wife, standing in the open doorway of Ella's room, beckoned to me.

"I have just told her," she whispered, "but she seems too dazed to realize it."

Dunbar, who had halted in the middle of the cabin, approached.

"May I speak to her?" he asked, quietly. We assented, and he stepped into the stateroom. The poor girl, white and wasted, looked at him as I have seen a kitten look at a huge dog, but she made no protest.

"Miss Madison," said Dunbar, gently, "do you remember the boy in the jail about ten years ago, to whom you were kind when others—excepting the doctor here—were not? Do you remember John Dunbar, who served a four-year sentence?"

She nodded, slowly and weakly, with the light of recognition stealing over her face.

"I am that boy, Miss Madison. Your kindness made a man of me. I studied and worked and saved, looking forward to the time when I might reach your level and ask you to be my wife. In all these years of absence I have not spent ten seconds of my waking life without thinking of you, your face and figure, trying to recall your voice, your gestures, and expression. I want that you should know this—that you should know how I loved you and what that love has done for me, so that you will not think that your life is a complete failure, even though your present trouble ends things for me. I am going to die. Good-by."

He leaned over, put his arms around her neck and gently lifted her; then he pressed his lips to hers, long and passionately, and, laying her down, brushed past us at the door.

"Where is he?" he asked, grimly.

"In his room," I answered. "But, Dunbar, what are you thinking of? You're not thinking of dying, are you?"

"That, and other things."

He opened the door of Lance's room.

"Mr. Lance," he said. "Come out of that."

"What do you mean by this intrusion, Captain Dunbar? This is the after cabin, and my private room, where you have no business to be. You are my sailing-master. Go on deck where you belong." Lance's voice was thick, and he spoke brokenly. But this ended it; Dunbar's face, voice, and manner sobered him.

"Come out of that room!" thundered Dunbar, "or I'll drag you out by the hair. COME!" The last word was like a trumpet-blast, and Lance followed him out into the cabin.

"Mr. Lance," said Dunbar, his face as white as a sailor's may become, and his voice low, tense, and thoroughly under command, "you saved my life, and by so doing debarred me from any action antagonistic to you while I retained that life. But you have forfeited yours. You could go back to New York, stand trial for the murder of a helpless infant, and die in the chair—which death would not atone for the suffering you would inflict upon this girl that I loved, and upon me. For she would be flouted by the world. And so, to save her from this flouting, and because you have got to die, I appoint myself your executioner, out here at sea where there are no reporters to give the facts to the world. But in killing you I give you back the life that you gave me; for that life is nothing to me compared with the happiness of Ella Madison. Come! Come on deck, and go overboard with me."

"What—what?" stuttered Lance, his eyes wide open in terror. "What are you thinking of? If you love this girl, marry her. I will stand the expense and start you in life. You can command this yacht at double your present pay, or I will secure you an interest in and the command of a ship. This seems a pleasant solution of this very unpleasant business. Come, now, what do you say?"

"Damn you!" roared Dunbar, and his fist shot out. Lance was fairly hurled by the impact on his jaw against the bulkhead, where he fell to the floor. Before he was well on his feet Dunbar had him by the throat.

"On deck with you," he said, as Lance struggled in his grasp. "Come, and we'll follow the baby."

"Dunbar," I shouted. "Stop this. Are you going to be a murderer, too? Leave this to the law. The law is adequate."

"The law will publish her shame to the world," he replied, as calmly as a man may speak while struggling with one under mortal fear of death. For Lance had roused himself to the necessity of action. He was, a tall, strong man, nearly the match for Dunbar. They fought and struggled round that cabin floor, while my wife screamed and finally fainted. But I could give her no attention; I was trying, though a man getting on to old age, to separate these two men, one bent upon death, the other fighting for life. Through the open stateroom door Ella must have heard it all.

Even as I tried, with my small strength, and the words at my command, to stop this suicide and murder, there came to me the memory of the similarity of happenings to these two men—that they were born in the same spot and at the same moment, that the dates of their departures coincided, and that they had both been strongly influenced by the same woman, one to be uplifted, the other to be dragged down. Was it to happen that both should die at the same time? I felt, rather than believed, that the laws of astrology were as nothing when opposed to the human will, and I resolved to stop that struggle. I rushed on deck, and called the mate. He came, the inquiry in his face apprising me that he had heard the sounds from below, and was wondering.

"Call all hands," I commanded. "The captain is half insane and is bent upon jumping overboard with the owner. Separate them."

"Not much," he said. "I've nothing to do with their troubles, but I've got my living to make. Both have power to fire me, and no matter who wins, I'd get it in the neck."

"Men, come aft here," I shouted to the sailors. The men forward came toward me, but were stopped by the mate.

"Go back," he said. "This is none of your funeral nor mine. Let the owner settle his own affairs."

They obeyed him, and drew away. Of course, they did not know. I ran aft to the companion. Dunbar and Lance were just at the upper step. Dunbar was speaking, quietly, softly, yet intensely upon the matter in hand—the absolute necessity of their both dying. He had one hand on Lance's throat, the other upon his hair, and he was dragging him bodily out of the companion.

"Dunbar!" I shouted, "stop this. You are insane. Put him in irons and take time to think. Then you will not want to do this. Think, Dunbar."

He did not answer. His grim, determined face did not change nor soften. He was the master of the other and was using his power. Slowly, while Lance struggled and shrieked for help, he dragged him over toward the rail.

"Drop your wheel," I said to the helmsman, "and help me to stop this murder and suicide."

"Can't leave the wheel, sir," the man answered. "Get some of the other fellows."

The other fellows were under control of the mate, careful of his job. I was in despair, and in my despair I threw myself upon Dunbar, demanding that he desist. He struck me down with a blow, and while I was in a half-comatose condition, I saw a white-clad figure emerge from the companion, and approach the contestants. It was Ella, in her night robe, pale and weak, but determined.

"John," she said, as she laid her hand on the shoulder of Dunbar, "John Dunbar. Stop. If you do this I will die, too. Do you want to kill me? Stop, or you will kill me. Stop, John Dunbar, and think of me, the woman you say you loved."

Dunbar released his hold on Lance, and while the terror-stricken scoundrel rushed to the companion, he turned toward the girl, his face twisting with the conflicting emotions of his brain. I staggered to my feet, reached her side and supported her.

"John Dunbar," she continued, "you are too big, and strong, and brave, to do this thing—to kill yourself so that you may kill another. Live, so that I may live, too. God will care for him."

Dunbar shook like a man with the ague, and it was some time before he could control his voice in answer.

"I can live," he stammered, "for you. But, is it possible? You love him."

"I do not. He killed my child—his child."

Dunbar stiffened up and looked around.

"Mr. Wright," he called to the first mate. "Put the owner in irons and lock him in his room."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the officer.

And so, with the help of four husky, able seamen, Mr. George Lance, owner of the yacht Sylph, was ironed and confined by order of his sailing-master, charged with the crime of murder.

We returned to New York. Ella, collapsing in my arms after her declaration to Dunbar, was put to bed by my wife, and slowly recovered her strength. Dunbar, somewhat changed by what she had said, grew tranquil, but non-committal. My wife recovered her equanimity, and expressed hope for the future, in which hope I joined her; but Lance, with his wrists linked by handcuffs, and his soul tortured by deadly fear, reviled us all whenever his opened stateroom door gave him opportunity.

There is little more to this story. We anchored, handed Lance over to the harbor police, and went home to await the trial. Dunbar, whose testimony was not needed, secured command of a ship and went to sea. Ella remained in seclusion and was not dragged into the trial when it came off; for Lance, on the evidence furnished by the man at the wheel, my wife and myself, was easily convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. But there were the usual appeals and retrials, and, pending the final disposal of the case, and with regard to Ella's future, I moved my goods and chattels to a far-away city, there to build up a new practice in a community that knew nothing of the trial.

But John Dunbar followed us, and, considering the preliminary reference to astrology that appeared in this story, it is but fitting to close with the statement that on the day Dunbar married Ella Madison, Lance entered the penitentiary, there to remain for the rest of his life.

[THE EQUATION]

Captain Bill Flanders walked down East Twenty-third Street toward the Yacht Club dock, tired, mentally and physically. Back and forth from the big steam yacht which he commanded, to ship chandler, boss carpenter, boss painter and boss rigger, he had traveled, night and day, for four weeks; but at last the work was done, and the yacht, shining like a piece of cabinet work, waited at anchor off the landing for the owner and his daughter, who, with other guests, were to make the Mediterranean cruise.

Bill had not slept for the last two nights, nor bathed nor shaved for the last four. He was irritable, cranky, and when he came upon a crowd of half-grown hoodlums egging a mongrel dog on to a small black kitten in the clutches of one, Bill gave way. He spared the dog, for the dog was palpably not in sympathy with the project, but he mercilessly punished the rest. First, he grabbed the kitten, and stowed the wee creature in his pocket, then he went for the gang, and, with fists and boots, so afflicted them that they fled, howling and swearing, from his vicinity. He sped them with stronger profanity, and when the last rowdy had disappeared around the corners or into saloons, Bill went his way with the kitten purring gratefully under his big but soft hand.

Bill felt better for the experience. Bill was a bachelor, whose life's experiences had been sadly devoid of sentiment. He was, or had been, a "bilge midshipman," as they say in the navy—that is, a student at Annapolis who had failed to pass the final examination, and had then gone to sea as he could, simply for the love of the sea. He had put in one voyage before the mast in a Yankee ship, and learned self-control; had sailed in English ships, and learned to eat anything edible not named in the Board of Trade allowance; had tried Norwegian, German, Italian, Scotch, and Russian craft, and learned the fundamentals of the Brotherhood of Man; and then, waking up, he had taken to American yachts, and soon risen to command. He was a blond giant, smooth-shaven and gentle of speech, except when aroused; then his face grew dark, and his voice took on the accents of a fireman's trumpet.

It was late in the evening; he hailed the anchor watch, and the dingey put off and took him aboard. He saw that all was well, and turned in, first feeding the kitten and stowing it in his berth. In the morning the little black mite was still with him, and he fed it again, then shut it in his room while he attended to business. And it may be mentioned here that, as the days went on, the kitten grew plump and playful and lovable, while Big Bill Flanders' big heart grew bigger as it infolded the pet.

But the business of that morning was the cleaning up of the yacht, and the taking aboard of the owner and guests. They came, at ten o'clock, and Captain Bill and the steward received them at the gangway. The owner was the conventional wealthy man, dignified and severe, who spoke sternly to his sailing-master, politely to his guests, and smiled only upon his daughter, a person who invited and demanded smiles. The abashed steward smiled, as he took her bundle of shawls from her; Big Bill smiled, as he sent forward a thundering order for men to lift the baggage out of the boat; and the cabin-boy smiled, as he opened the companion door for her. She was about twenty-one, with dark hair and eyes, and of medium height and build, beautiful, as men value beauty, but with the additional charm of presence that we cannot name except as personality. The friends of such people smile with them, laugh with them, frown with them, and suffer with them, and each thinks it emotion of his own. She had smiled upon Bill, and he went forward, smiling himself, and happier than he had been for years—for all the years since he had hoped for his commission, and failed to pass the test. He spared a few moments to the kitten, fondling, stroking, and caressing it, then tucking it snugly beneath his blanket against the time when he would come again.

In bringing this kitten aboard, Bill was guilty of disobedience; the owner had told him explicitly that the big yacht was to be kept clear of cats. But as the owner had given no reason for this embargo, he had considered it merely the whim of the moment, expressed by an irritable old man, and forgot it quickly.

Bill conned the big steam yacht down the river, through the Narrows, and out to sea by the Ambrose Channel; then, just a little tired, and able to enjoy a smoke, he was about to call the mate to the bridge, when Miss Mayhew appeared. She climbed the steps, rigged out in a hooded mackintosh—for there was a Scotch mist in the air—and with her was one of the guests—a tall, well-built, intellectual-looking fellow named Pearson, a lawyer, as Bill knew by the steward's gossip, and a devoted attendant on Miss Mayhew.

"You are the captain, aren't you?" ventured the girl. "Do you know, Captain Flanders, that I've never met a real captain in my life, until now, though I've read of so many? Have you ever led a cavalry charge?"

"What?" gasped Bill. "Why, Miss Mayhew! No, I'm a seafaring man, not a soldier."

"There are several kinds of captain, Miss Mayhew," interposed the lawyer, smiling. "There is the captain of a battleship, we'll say, or of a cruiser, a destroyer, or the captain of a merchant ship, a North River sloop, a mud scow, a tug, or a canal boat; then we have captains in the army, who might lead cavalry charges and we have captains of militia—tin soldiers, some call them—and captains of industry, captains in the Salvation Army, captains of police, and captains of boy soldiers in the parochial and industrial schools."

"And where, and how, do you classify me?" said Bill, his eyes opened wide, and his voice tense and restrained.

"You?" said the lawyer. "Why, under the rules of the New York Yacht Club, you are not a 'captain,' but a 'mister.' You are Mister Flanders, not Captain Flanders."

"I am?" stuttered Bill, in a suppressed fury of rage. "Yes, you're right. Under the rules of the club I am mister, while the owner is captain, but in the minds of my crew I am called captain of this ship, and away from soundings, under the law, I am captain, with power, backed by the law, to put a recalcitrant guest in irons if he gets too fresh. Get off this bridge instantly, or I'll call my men; and if you resist, I'll have you in irons."

"You will?" asked the smiling Pearson. "Well, all right; put me in irons, and I will deprive you of your license."

"You will not!" stormed Bill. "We're off the three-mile limit, and on the high seas. Get off this bridge, or I will confine you for mutinous insubordination. Go, and go quickly, or I'll call the boatswain."

"Gentlemen, Captain Flanders, Mr. Pearson," interposed the girl, anxiety and apprehension in her face. "Please do not quarrel. Why should you?"

She looked appealingly at Bill, and his rage left him. Yet it took a moment or two before he could speak sanely, then he said:

"Of course not. Mr. Pearson, I apologize for my share in this."

"And I apologize for mine," responded the lawyer; "but I think it best, Miss Mayhew, that we go down now. Good afternoon, Mister Flanders."

He smiled sweetly as he spoke, and turned his back; the girl smiled, too, but from a different motive, as Bill could readily perceive. There was trouble in her face—embarrassment, shame, and sympathy—and something else which Bill could not analyze.

"Don't mind," she whispered, then followed her escort down the steps.

Bill called his first mate, gave him the course, and went to his room abaft the pilot house. Here he lit his pipe, and lay down—all standing—in his berth; but not to sleep, only to think of the bright face peeping out of the mackintosh hood, and the troubled smile, and the whispered admonition. He thought, too, of the blackness of lawyers, and dozed off profanely reviling them to be wakened by the purring and caresses of the kitten. Bill petted the small thing, and forgot Mr. Pearson, but remembered the troubled smile and the whispered words.

After that the girl came many times to the bridge, and always without escort of father or admirer. There were plenty of these, and Bill took the measure of all, as he glanced aft occasionally, and saw them dancing attendance upon her. There was a little slim fellow, named Arsdale, whom the steward described as an artist; a big, portly gentleman, named Muggins, who was a famed short-story writer—and Bill, as he looked at him, wondered why he himself could not write short stories and be famous—and a magazine editor on his vacation, a fine fellow, as men go, one who had especially commended himself to Bill by his tact, his appreciation of the big fellow's inborn qualities, and by his deprecation of his own. "I'm only an editor," he had said, "a critic of other men's work. I'd give my job if I could do something original, if I could write something, or do something, or paint something, or kill something. I have tried the last, but never succeeded; the authors I tried to kill got new life from other editors, so—what's the use?" This man's name was Elkins, and Bill liked him, until he saw Miss Mayhew smiling on him; then he classed him in with the rest. A man in love is not reasonable, and this was Big Bill's condition, as he was forced to remind himself when the gossipy steward informed him that, to the best of his understanding, Miss Mayhew was an adopted daughter, and in no way likely to inherit the vast wealth of the father—stocks and bonds, steamship lines, railroads, and such things. As a rich man's daughter, she was out of his reach, and, as an honorable man with a full supply of self-respect, he could not make an advance. But as a ward, a poor dependent, she was on his level, and the big soul of the big boy rejoiced. He loved her, and he would have her. So he told himself, joyously and courageously.

Another man among the guests worried Bill, until he learned that he was the family doctor; he worried him by his assiduous attentions to the girl, even against the presence of his own wife in the party, and it was the owner himself who set the matter right. Doctor Calkins, it transpired, had been a member of the family, practically, since the girl was born. So, with his rivals all placed and classified, Big Boy Bill grew tranquil. But he still kept his eye on Pearson.

And so the big yacht charged across the Atlantic, with Bill on the bridge or in his room with the kitten, the male contingent of the guests attending upon Miss Mayhew, and Miss Mayhew herself seemingly indifferent to their attentions, manifesting a strong desire for Bill's society on the bridge. She came, as often as she could, to talk with him, to scold him for imagined masculine peccadilloes, and to smile upon him. And Bill went under.

He knew, as all men know under such conditions, that the small, sweet girl loved him as the little kitten loved him, just because he was big, and strong, and protective. And while he could not, under the circumstances, manifest his response to the girl, he took it out of the kitten when off duty; he would grab the little thing, bring it up to his lips, kiss it, and fondle it, and hug it—all of which brought response from the cat in the shape of scratch marks on Bill's face; for cats are not psychologists; they know nothing of the workings of the male human mind.

But still the cat was fond of Bill, as manifested by purrings and kittenish advances, and Bill was no less fond of the cat, in spite of the scratches on his face. He gave the small creature the caresses that he would have given the girl that he loved, had he have been allowed to. Yet there came a moment when he was perilously near to being allowed to.

She joined him on the bridge, when his first mate was asleep, the guests aft in deck chairs, and the father and owner below in his room; she had brought her fancywork—mysterious to Bill, for he saw nothing but scissors, needles, and an expanse of white cloth, all of which he knew nothing about.

There was a half gale of wind blowing; the awning was furled, the weather cloths stretched along the bridge railing, and the deck chairs of the guests placed in snug positions under the lee of the houses; there was a lively sea rolling, which prevented any great activity of mind or body in the guests, and no one seemed to care that the owner's daughter came to the bridge. Bill brought her a chair from his room, and incidentally aroused the kitten from sleep; the kitten purred, and, receiving only one pat and stroke, followed her big master to the door of the room. There she stood, looking out on the stormy sea, and, no doubt, jealous of the other kittenish creature in the mackintosh, whom Bill was seating in the chair.

The small fluffy lump of darkness saw her lord and master apparently petting another creature, and came out on the bridge, shivering with cold, yet animated by a purpose of protest. She crept up to the pair, out of sight of the man at the wheel in the pilot house and sprang on to Bill's shoulders, purring contentedly, and giving him a tentative dig of admonition with her sharp claws. Bill reached up, to pet her and bring her down—possibly to introduce her to the girl. But this was not permitted. Miss Mayhew screamed, stood up, and backed away, her eyes wide open in terror and dismay; then Bill, dimly understanding that the cat was an interloper, took it down, and tossed it toward the door of his room. Then the girl, uttering incoherent little cries, of terror, flung herself into his arms and the big fellow infolded her, kissing and comforting her, and promising protection from danger which he did not sense or understand. The man at the wheel was busy, the guests more or less asleep; no one saw but the slighted kitten. Bill kissed the frightened little face again and again, and the outraged kitten acted. With one leap she reached Miss Mayhew's shoulders, and, spitting and purring her hatred and love, she separated the two. The girl, gasping and choking, shrank back, struck the small creature a blow that sent it flying three yards away, and went insane. She turned on Bill in a fury of rage, and, while she uttered no word that could not be printed in a modern novel, yet there was enough of invective, threat, and menace in her attitude to make the big man back away from her, shocked and horrified beyond conception. The girl followed him, waving her scissors, tightly clutched in her hand, her eyes blazing, her face distorted in furious rage, and her small body quivering with the emotions that racked it.

"You cowardly dog!" she screamed. "You dared to play this trick on me? If God will help me, I will kill you."

She lunged at Bill with the scissors, and he dodged. He could not speak in protest or argument; he was too surprised and shaken. All he could do was to run to the door of his room. She followed part way, and then paused, her eyes still blazing, and her face distorted; yet she seemed to be trying to control herself.

"Don't ever, while you live," she said calmly, "speak to me again, or attempt to."

"Very well, Miss Mayhew," answered Bill gravely. "I'm sorry, but I do not understand."

He turned into his room, as the best place for him, and noticed the black kitten darting out. Then he heard a scream from the girl, and turned to look. She was making for the bridge stairs, her scissors still tightly clutched, and the wee, black cause of the trouble chasing her. Bill caught his pet, and shut it in with him, while he smoked, and thought, and deduced, with the logic of a poor man, on the never-solved problem—the inscrutability of women.

In half an hour he was aroused by a shout, and went on deck. His men were tumbling out of the forecastle; stewards, cooks, and guests were scrambling forward, and a glance down from the head of the steps showed Bill the cause. Miss Mayhew lay prone on the deck, the scissors still gripped in her small hand, but the points driven into her side, and a pool of blood drifting down to the scuppers from the wound. Bill jumped clear of every step, and, landing beside her, picked her up. She was unconscious, and her eyes were closed. It took an effort of strength, but he drew the scissors out of the wound, and looked helplessly into the face of the doctor.

"What happened?" asked the latter. "Well, never mind what happened. She has fallen down the stairs and wounded herself with her scissors. Carry her aft. We must stop this effusion of blood. Heavens"—he looked at the deck—"she has bled a quart already. Aft with her quickly."

Bill carried the limp and bleeding form back to the cabin, and, having laid it gently on the bed in her stateroom, was moved to go. He was sailing master; the agonized father was there, the doctor, a member of the family and acting the part; the doctor's wife, a motherly and practical old lady, and a group of quiet, gentlemanly, and questioning rivals, whom Bill had no love for and who invited their own destruction by the looks they gave him. Bill went to the bridge, called his mate, then, capturing the steward on his way forward to the galley, ordered him to report, as he valued his life, on the condition of the sick girl. The steward promised, and Bill waited on the bridge.

The steward went aft, and Bill watched him come up on the run and race forward. Bill again cleared the bridge stairs at a jump, and met him.

"Dying, captain," gasped the steward. "Dying from loss of blood."

Bill went aft—he never remembered whether he walked or ran—and bolted down the stairs, shoving aside the small Arsdale, the big Muggins, the athletic Parsons, and even the gentlemanly Elkins, all of them white in the face, as they hovered near the stateroom door, and burst into the room, where the grief-stricken father, the anxious doctor, and the weeping Mrs. Calkins hovered over the quiet, unconscious form on the bed. The rivals followed him in, but did not attempt to get between him and the girl. The doctor looked around at them, while Bill leaned over and raised the girl's head in the palm of his hand. He choked, but did not speak.

"Nothing but transfusion of blood will save her," said Doctor Calkins. "Who will volunteer?"

"I will," stuttered young Arsdale.

"You won't do, young man," said the doctor, coldly. "You're not big enough, and need all the blood you have for yourself."

"Then I'm the man," said Muggins, the author. "Heavens, what an experience! What a story I can make of it!"

"You won't do, sir," repeated the doctor to this aspirant. "Your blood is impregnated with alcohol, and Lord knows what. I would as soon inoculate her with vitriol." Mr. Muggins left the room.

Mr. Pearson drew back, very pale in the face, evidently impressed with the thought that he was expected to offer himself to the sacrifice; but no one seemed to notice, and Mr. Elkins, the editor, faced the doctor.

"I have mentioned to the captain," he said, "my wish to do something, be something, make something, before I die. I am a healthy man, Doctor Calkins, and I offer myself."

The doctor looked him over approvingly.

"It will take a full quart of your blood. You may not survive."

"Take it," said Elkins firmly. "I will run the chance."

Bill looked up, dazed and shaking. He had dimly recognized the drift of the talk, but now grasped the fact in its entirety that a man—another than himself—was ready to die for this girl that he loved. It was preposterous, unthinkable, and impossible. He laid the girl's head back on the pillow, and motioned Mr. Elkins out of the room. Mr. Elkins went quickly and quietly. There was that in Bill's face that induced him to obey the gesture.

Pearson and Arsdale followed as quickly, stumbling somewhat in their haste, and even the stern old father drew away from Bill.

"Does she need my blood?" asked Bill grimly. "I've plenty to spare. Take it all."

"You are needed to command this boat," said the doctor.

"I am not. My two mates can navigate. Get ready quickly, or she may die while you're talking."

Bill threw off his coat and rolled up his sleeve, showing an arm as big as an ordinary leg. The doctor rushed for his instruments, and while he was gone the owner asked brokenly of Bill how it happened.

"I do not know, sir," he answered, resolved not to describe the scene to her disadvantage. "I did not see her fall. I think nobody saw her fall."

"God grant that she lives!" said the old man, all the austerity gone from his face. "I can do nothing, willing as I am, for I am old and feeble; but you are young and strong. You see, there is much at stake beside by own grief and suffering. She is my daughter, and the real owner of this yacht, and every bond, and share, and mortgage that I control. Should she die, I would die myself—from poverty and want, while her relatives would obtain control. Still," and the old man stiffened up, "why should I speak of this? She is my daughter. I love her, for she is all I have left. Save her life, and while I live I am at your command."

"The hell you say!" said Bill. "I thought she was your ward."

"My daughter by my second wife," said the old gentleman, with dignity. "My first wife, with all her relations, is still alive and fighting me."

"I think," said Bill reflectively, "that I understand. Well," and here the doctor appeared with his appurtenances, "you don't love this little girl any more than I do, and I'll do my part."

"Lie down beside her quickly," ordered the doctor. Bill did so.

"Can you stand pain?" asked the doctor of Bill. "Or do you want an anæsthetic?"

"Go ahead," growled Bill, between his teeth. "Work quickly."

"I am going to sever a vein in both your arms, and connect them by this tube. Miss Mayhew is unconscious, and will feel no pain. But you will."

"Go ahead," yelled Bill. "What do I care for pain? Use your surgical skill, and save her life, or, by God, I'll toss you overboard. Quickly, now. Go ahead, before she dies."

"I will," answered the doctor grimly, as he picked up his lancet.

Bill felt pain; he felt that his arm was being torn from his shoulder, as the doctor severed a large vein, and dragged the upper end out from the bleeding wound. He gritted his teeth, however, and closed his eyes tightly, while the doctor ligatured the vein and bound its end around the tube; then, shivering in every muscle of his body, he waited while the same operation was performed on the arm of the girl. Then the ligatures were removed, and Bill slowly went to sleep, the pain and distress, love of the girl, and interest in life leaving him as the somnolence increased.

He awakened a few years later, as he thought, lying in his own berth abaft the pilot house, his arm bound to his side, and the black kitten nestling upon his chest. He looked at the little creature, and an ungovernable hatred overcame him. He could barely lift his free arm, but with this arm and hand he brushed the kitten off to the floor. Then he tried to pull himself together, but did not succeed; things were obscure, he could not remember, and all he felt was hatred of the cat, now glaring at him from under the chart table. There was a nautical almanac in the berth, and Bill flung it at the cat; but she dodged, and ran out on deck. Then she came back in the arms of Miss Mayhew, or, rather, in one arm, for the right was strapped to her side, as was his left; she was not exactly rosy of face, still there was color in it, and a soft light in her eyes, and a sweet smile on her lips, that robbed Bill of his resentment toward the cat. She fondled the small creature, and came toward his couch; then, bending over him, she deposited the kitten on his chest and kissed him on the lips. Bill choked and gasped.

"You mustn't mind," she said, rosy now, "if I kiss you. The doctor told me. You gave me most of your blood, and I lived. I was well in a day."

Before Bill could formulate an answer the father came in.

"Well," he said cheerfully, "you've waked up, have you? Good! We had our doubts about it; for it took three days. We're almost to Gibraltar, as the mate says."

"That's good," said Bill wearily, "but—is Miss Mayhew all right?"

"Got a hole in her side," answered the father, "and a hole in her arm; but, tell me, you folks. Something happened, and I want to know."

"It was all my fault, daddy," said the girl. "This little cat frightened me, and I think I went crazy again."

"I see," said the father, his face clouding. "I told you, Mr. Flanders, to have no cats on board. Why is this?"

"Why," said Bill, "I'm sorry now, of course, but I found the brute being tormented by a gang of toughs, and brought it with me. I never dreamed that there would be any unpleasant consequences."

"But I knew," said the owner warmly. "This little girl of mine was marked by her mother, who was frightened into insanity by a mad cat. She has gone crazy several times at the sight of a cat."

"But not any more," said the smiling girl. "Come here, kitty, and let me love you." She picked up the kitten, and fondled it. Then the doctor appeared, and looked them all over with a stern, scientific eye.

The girl placed the kitten on Bill's chest, close to his chin, and smilingly bade him pat it. But Bill, with a furious, though not profane, exclamation, struck his former pet from him. The girl picked it up, and consoled it, looking down on Bill with mild disapproval.

"Please pardon me," he said weakly, "but I hate the thing. I cannot stand it."

"Don't worry, young man," said Doctor Calkins. "You'll come around all right, and be as merciful to dumb animals as you have been, while our little girl here is relieved from the obsession of her life. It has never before come into my experience, but I have read about it in my studies—transfusion of blood carries with it transference of psychic qualities. This girl, in taking into her veins some of your blood, has taken your love of cats—I know all about it, because I talked with the mess boy—and you, in giving your blood to her, took something of her obsession. But you will both get over it. Come, Mr. Mayhew, and leave these people alone with the cat."

They went out, and the girl sat beside the weak and helpless man, stroking his face and caressing him for an hour before he spoke a vital word.

"Say," he said, at last. "Tell me, what is your first name?"

"Kitty," she answered.

[THE TWINS]

My acquaintance with them began, I may say, about fifteen years before their birth; for I had played marbles with their father, made mud pies with their mother, thrashed the former through his school-days, and loved the latter from the beginning to the end—which is not yet. Finally, I had officiated as best man at the wedding.

The twins were as like as two peas, and to preserve their identity the usual expedient was tried of decorating them with ribbons of different hue. But when, at three years of age, they were detected in the very natural act of swapping ribbons, I, as the family physician, was called in; then Jack's identity was fixed with a tattooed dot of india ink on his left arm, and Jim's with a corresponding dot on his right. Their mother was mostly concerned with their pain and protesting squalls, their father with my wonderful ingenuity, and I with the rebellious, yet imperious, thought that, according to the eternal fitness of things, I should have been the father of these two beautiful boys.

Their father was about my age, twenty-five, and a weakling; one who, as a boy, could never catch a ball nor throw one straight; who never learned to swim, and preferred girls for playmates; who, as a youth, could not dress himself without assistance; who never, in his whole lackadaisical life, had an original thought or took the initiative in any proceeding; and why that splendid, healthy-minded, dark-eyed girl of seventeen should choose him out of a host of suitors was beyond my comprehension at the time. Later, I understood; somewhat weakly sexed at that age, but largely endowed with the maternal instinct (she played with dolls until within a year of her marriage), she pitied his helplessness and married him to mother and protect him. And from this pair, so utterly diverse, Mother Nature produced two perfect specimens of humanity, and rested. After their arrival the parents drifted apart, and from sheer incompatibility were divorced when the boys were seven years old. They went to their original homes at opposite sides of the town, each taking a twin; for the asinine judge, unable to decide in favor of either, had, Solomon-like, so conditioned the divorce.

Their grief was heart-rending—equaled only by that of the mother, as I, in my professional relation to each home, had full opportunity to judge. But time softened this grief in all of them, and brought about in the mother a state of mind exceedingly valuable and gratifying to me. In a year from the divorce she became my wife. So far I had observed the development of the twins as a physician, noting that the measles, mumps, croup, and other childhood ailments came to both at the same time, and, as a physician, ascribing it to bodily contagion. But now, still a physician to each, I took note of other concurrent happenings that spoke of mental contagion as well. I was called to Jim late one afternoon by the agitated father, and found him in a strange mental condition, crying and laughing, and again storming in an ecstasy of rage at the house-dog, a gentle, harmless collie and a former pet, against whom he had conceived a violent hatred. He had attacked and nearly killed him with a club.

When I reached home that evening I was regaled by the joyous Jack with an account of his successful battle that afternoon with a mad dog that had attacked him. It was a large, black mongrel, and he had brained it with his ball club. I sounded his emotions. Frightened? Of course; who would not be with a huge mad brute, frothing at the mouth, charging at him? But he had staggered the animal with the first blow, and then had come his courage, his anger, and his furious desire to kill, and save his life. Yes, he had cried, afterward, and was much ashamed of the weakness. But I reassured him on this point, convinced him that strong, brave men sometimes cried under extreme excitement, and in my desire to make the most of the incident in his development, almost overshot the mark. His self-respect became abnormal, and neighboring dogs and small boys suffered, until he was stopped by an experience more salutary than would have been the strapping which his mother and I were seriously contemplating. He attacked another dog, but a sane dog of small size and attending to his business. This dog met the assault bravely and, though suffering keenly from Jack's first blow and unable to injure any living thing larger than a rabbit, offered a strong protest of growls and barks, the moral effect of which was to send the small boy fleeing for home with the small dog snapping at his heels. The neighbors rejoiced, and it was a month before Jack recovered from the humiliation. He did not understand, nor did I until the following day, when his father informed me on the street that the collie, recovered in mind and body, had revenged himself by attacking and biting Jim, who was badly frightened and needed my attention. I could not learn that there was concomitance of time, but I knew that the twins, a mile apart, shared each other's emotions.

After a fruitless attempt to get legal transfer of Jim to my own household, I fell back on my growing faith in this sympathy of mind, trusting that a careful training of Jack might have a corresponding influence upon Jim. But in this I hoped too much. No such sympathy is ever as strong as daily and personal contact, and the direct and weakening example of that father's life and words worked powerfully upon the character of the boy. His individuality lessened, and as though this lessening were an invitation, the apparently fortuitous incidents and influences of his life became such as to lessen it still further. He seemed to be looking for trouble, and would attempt feats that he failed to perform, while Jack attempted such as were just within his increasing powers. A boy that Jack had pummeled came around and took revenge on Jim. He would yield to pressure that Jack would resist.

And so they grew farther and farther apart in face, form, and disposition, Jack into a tall, straight, handsome and high-minded young gentleman, Jim into a shifty, cowardly, stoop-shouldered and cad-like sort of a youth, without friends, ambition, or ideals, whose backwardness in study brought him into the lowest class of the town's one high school as Jack entered the highest. In this year of schooling they met for the first time since the separation, but they met as strangers. They knew they were brothers, of course, but carefully avoided reference to the fact, and soon avoided each other. Between them there was no outward sympathy nor community of interest, the unwise but cast-iron pride of the mother finding expression in Jack's attitude, and the cowardice of the negative father in Jim's.

Jack graduated with honor, and, confronted with another four years of study at college, yet ardent, ambitious, anxious to begin life's battle as a man, chose a career that satisfied both conditions—a life in the navy. He arranged matters himself, secured an appointment to the Naval Academy, and left us. And on that day, Jim, friendless in school and stubborn, was dismissed from school for negligence in his studies. Then, as though his evil star were now at its zenith, his father, having lost all his inherited property in unwise speculation, took him away, where I could not learn; but a year later we read the list of lost in a coasting-steamship wreck, and in this list were the names of these two.

I now had to deal with a half-crazed woman, who spoke little and did not weep, but whose strained face and whitening hair told of the strength of that misplaced pride and outraged mother-love, suppressed for so many years. Nothing that I could say or do availed against the aroused craving for the neglected boy. She resisted my oft-repeated suggestions that Jim was gone, and that there was nothing to do but to make the best of it. She refused to be resigned, for she could not bring herself to believe that he was dead. She insisted that he was alive, and that some day he would come back.

This continued through the years, while her hair became whiter and her voice nearly silent, while Jack finished his course and sea term, to be then retired against his will because of the preponderance of officers in a wooden navy too small for them, and while my practice and my health left me under the strain of caring for the queenly woman I loved. Then Jack, a born free-lance who would have entered any navy in the world had a war been on, did the next best thing for him; he secured command of a large, new merchant ship, and made a successful voyage, perhaps the youngest and probably the best educated master in the merchant marine. When he returned my nerves were as bad as his mother's, my practice was gone, my future uncertain; and so we accepted his invitation to make a voyage with him, I with the listlessness of all neurasthenics, my wife with an avidity which surprised us. She brightened at once.

And now this story really begins.

II

She was a two-thousand-ton, double topgallant and skysail yard ship—one of the larger, slower type that succeeded the old Cape Horn clippers, but a ship that even a naval officer might feel proud to command; and Jack was certainly proud of her. And as we—his mother and myself—watched him pacing the poop-deck as sail was being made, giving an occasional quiet order to the helmsman or sending a brazen roar forward to the mate on the forecastle, we were frankly proud of him. Six feet tall to an inch, straight as a man may be, with a chest almost as deep as his shoulders were broad, sunburned and brown-eyed, with only a well-kept mustache to relieve the boyishness of his face, he presented a picture that brought light into the eyes and a smile to the face of that mother as she stood beside me. But a contrasting look of pain followed, and I knew the thought behind was of the other boy, of whom we never spoke.

The first mate was a huge, hairy, brutal sort of man, uneducated beyond the mechanical formulas of navigation, but with a large and healthy conception of his own value to the ship and her people. The second mate was like him to a lesser extent—not quite so big, nor brutal, nor profane, and with less of the art of navigation.

At eight bells of that first evening out the men were chosen into watches by the two mates much as boys choose sides in a ball game, and my wife and I drew amidships to witness the scene. They were an unkempt lot in the moonlight, mostly foreigners, and clad in greasy and tarry garments of nondescript pattern and shape. Each called out his name as he was chosen, moving to starboard or port, according to the watch he now belonged to, and when the job was half done Jack, smoking a cigar, joined us and critically scanned his crew.

"Relieve the wheel and lookout," said the mate, when the last man was chosen. "That'll do the watch."

"Wait!" said Jack sharply, tossing away his cigar and stepping toward the dispersing men. "I've something to say to you."

They halted and drew together.

"This is my second voyage in the merchant marine," he continued. "The last was my first. Before that I was in the navy, with the power of the law and the Charlestown prison behind me in every order I gave to a man. As a consequence of this condition no man-o'-war's man ever refuses to obey an order, and few of them ever get to that prison. But I brought such ideas with me when I took command of this ship. I spoke kindly to my men and treated them well. I forbade my mates to bully or strike them, and even ironed my second mate for ignoring my wishes. I took sick and injured men aft and nursed them. But I found that I had made a mistake. Merchant sailors can be jailed as easily as man-o-war's men, but they don't know it. Knowing nothing, they fear nothing until it comes to them. Orders were disobeyed on that voyage, and each man was his own boss; ropes were never coiled up without an argument, gear was rove off wrong, earings were passed farm-fashion, canvas was lost, marlinespikes, capstan-bars, and draw-buckets went overboard, tar-pots were dropped from aloft on a clean deck, and a paint-brush came down on my head. Discipline went to the dogs, and I nearly lost my ship. Now there'll be none of that here. As I won't have time nor inclination to appeal to the law if you make trouble I mean to forestall it. I've shipped mates that'll break your heads on the first provocation, and they have my instructions to do it. So watch out. You'll get plenty of grub while you deserve it, but when you don't it'll be all hands in the afternoon and the government allowance. That'll do."

"That's all right, Cappen," said a big Irishman in a voice of rage. "This is a Yankee ship, an' ye needn't ha' said all that. But I tell ye, if ye'll pick out able seamen yerself in the shippin'-office, 'stid o' lettin' a shippin'-master gi' ye barbers an' waiters that don't know port from sta'board ye'll ha' no throuble wi' yer min. Luk at this ye've gi'n us for a watchmate." He seized a man standing near, swung him at arm's length, and flung him, spinning on his feet, full against the first mate. That worthy, shocked out of his better judgment, instead of rebuking the Irishman, drew back his mighty fist and struck the staggering man in the face, sending him reeling back toward the place he had come from. He slipped, stumbled, and fell, his head striking the corner of the main hatch. They he lay quiet on the deck.

But a strange thing happened—strange and inconsistent with regard to Jack's just-uttered declaration of his position. No sooner had the mate struck the man than Jack, with a muttered curse, launched himself toward his first officer, and knocked him against the fife-rail, where he clung, choking and clucking. Jack struck him twice, once in the face, once in the body. And now a stranger thing happened. It all occurred so quickly that I could hardly take note, shaky of nerve as I was and hampered by the distressed woman on my arm; but Jack, having struck the mate, and before the still erect victim of the mate and the Irishman had stumbled, had immediately bounded toward the Irishman. But as the luckless fellow's head struck the hatch combing, Jack brought up, and with a low, inarticulate whimper and a face like that of a frightened child looked this way and that, then sped aft toward the poop steps. We followed, while the second mate dispersed the men, and found Jack in a strange condition of terror, unnatural to him, or to any man of his type. His agitated mother endeavored to soothe him, but between her motherly admonitions to Jack came wifely admonitions to me to attend to the poor man who had been so brutally maltreated.

So I went forward, passing on the way the two mates, the one assisting the other. As I passed, the second mate called out that the other's jaw-bone and some ribs were broken, and that my services were needed; but, feeling enough of indignation to make the brutal first mate the last on my list of patients, I went on, and found the mistreated sailor in the port forecastle, where he had been carried by his shipmates. He was sitting on a chest, just recovering his senses, and looking about in a dazed manner out of swollen and blackened eyes. As the men parted to make way for me Jack's mighty voice sounded from amidships: "Weather main-brace, here. Where's the watch? Where's the second mate? Attend to your yards, sir." Obviously, Jack was himself again.

"I didn't mean to hit the mate wi' him, sorr," said the big Irishman deferentially, "an' it was a dom shame for the mate to slug him like that, even if he was no sailor. But the skipper's a brick. Be-gob, he'll 'tind to that bunco mate."

"Are you hurt much?" I asked of the victim. He looked into my face, then, rising, burst forth:

"Doctor, doctor, take me away from here. Take me out of this place. They hit me and curse me because I don't know things. I don't know why I am here—I don't know where I am." The broken voice became a wail. "I'm on the water again and I'll drown, I know I'll drown. Oh, doctor"—he seized my arm—"I'm Jim; don't you know me, doctor?"

"Jim?" I queried. "Jim who?" and turned him to the light.

"Look, doctor. You did this, they told me, when I was a baby." He pulled up the right sleeve of a ragged, filthy shirt, and showed me a dot of india ink just below the elbow.

"For God's sake, are you Jim, the twin brother of Jack? We all thought you were dead—drowned with your father."

"He was drowned, doctor. I floated on a piece of board and was saved. I went crazy for a while, and then—I never could get along. I couldn't get work, and things got worse and worse, and then I took to the road, and then I came to New York, and—I guess I got drunk, and got here."

"Shanghaied, that's what ye were," grunted the Celt.

I looked closely at Jim's face. Aside from the facial angle and the color of his eyes there was no resemblance to the brother who, at seven years of age, had been his counterpart. A badly kept beard added to the discrepancy, no doubt, but the whole atmosphere of the man was different. There was a slight reminder of Jack in the lower tones of the voice, but its usual note was a whine, and in his whole bearing was the slinking aspect of a vagrant of the worst kind. Certainly, I could not take this human wreck into the presence of that mother and brother.

"You must stay here for a while, Jim," I said firmly. "You must not come near the other end of the ship unless I give you permission, and I will see that you are protected and cared for. Understand? Stay here with these men, and I will see you every day. What is your name?" I asked the Irishman.

"Limerick, sorr—aboard ship."

"Limerick, you seem to be a man, and a square one. This is an old friend of mine—and of my family—but you can understand that he must stay here. See that he is well treated, and I will make it right with you."

"I will that, sorr," answered Limerick promptly, "though I belong in the other watch an' ought to be on deck now. I don't wonder ye're ashamed o' him, sorr. I'm ashamed meself. Just the same I'll break the sconce o' the first mon that lays hands on him. I'll do that for ye, sorr. I know a gintleman, an' ye're one, or ye wouldn't be here in this fo'c'sle."

I went aft and joined Jack and his mother on the poop, forgetting the mate's need of my services in the mood I was in.

"Dad," said Jack, addressing me by the name he had called me since I had become his stepfather, "you're a physician. Tell me what ails me. I'm all right now, but I went for the mate for doing just what I had told him to do, and then went into a blue funk over it—frightened out of my senses. But what at? I'm not afraid of any man aboard."

"How is the poor man that was struck?" asked my wife anxiously.

"He's all right," I answered promptly, understanding now her instinctive concern, and inclined to smile at Jack's palpable resentment of it.

"But what's the matter with me?" he demanded sharply.

"I don't know, Jack," I said. "I'll have to think it out."

His mention of the mate had recalled to me the plight he was in, and I went to him, finding that the second mate's diagnosis was correct. Two ribs and his jaw-bone were smashed as though from the kick of a mule. I bound him in plasters, and stoically endured his mumbled profanity; then, first seeing my wife to her berth in the after cabin, and thoroughly exhausted by the exciting experiences, I took a sleeping-draught to quiet my nerves and went to my own berth in the forward cabin.

But, perhaps because of the intensity of the strain upon my nervous system, perhaps because of my strong interest in the problem, the sleeping-draught merely threw me into a logical, inductive frame of mind that kept me awake all night, thinking it out. And it was daylight before the problem took shape. After years of separation the twins again shared each other's emotions.

III

With the problem still unsolved, however, I went to sleep, and awakened at eight bells of the afternoon watch. Going on deck, I found a gale of wind blowing out of the southeast, the ship hove down under the three lower topsails, spanker, spencer, and foretopmast staysail, and liquid hills of greenish-gray bombarding the weather-bow and occasionally climbing aboard. Jack, clad in yellow oilskins and sou'wester, stood on the poop in a fleeting patch of sunlight, trying to get an afternoon sight with his sextant as the sun peeped from behind the racing storm-clouds. Jim was also on the poop, but on the lee side, scurrying forward along the alley in advance of the irate second mate, who was profanely criticizing Jim's bad taste in coming to relieve the wheel without knowledge of steering or of the compass. Jack, busy with the sextant, did not witness the scene, nor hear the profanity; but I, having a personal and domestic interest in the matter, met the officer, returning after a final kick at Jim, and softly but intensely informed him that such language must cease within hearing of my wife, or I would deal with him as man to man. He apologized, in his way, and I then gave him the reasons I had given Limerick for keeping Jim out of sight, and secured his coöperation. Limerick was at the wheel, scowling in sympathy with me, and he whispered as I passed that it would not have happened had he been forward—that the men of the other watch had driven Jim aft to relieve the wheel before they had learned his status.

I joined Jack. He seemed himself, showing no sign of the night's agitation; yet he looked a little worried.

"Couldn't get a sight, dad," he said, swinging his sextant at arm's length, and smiling, rather sadly, I thought. "But the Long Island coast is about ten miles under the lee. How'd you like to drown at the end of a cable to-night?"

"Why," I asked, "is there any danger?"

"We're on the wrong tack, I think; but I expected it to veer to the east. It hangs right on from sou'-sou'east—dead on to the beach, and as it is it don't make much difference which tack we're on if we hit. If it shows the slightest sign of hauling to the west I'll wear ship and try to clear Montauk. If it don't, it's the anchors."

"Why not wear ship now?—whatever that is," I answered.

"Couldn't clear it anyway with the wind this way, and I'd only lose a full mile to leeward. Our drift under this canvas is quartering, and about three miles an hour."

"Is there no other recourse than wearing ship?"

"Clubhauling, if the wind shifts too late to wear. You see, wearing is putting a ship on the other tack by squaring away before the wind and then rounding to. Clubhauling is going about head to wind with the help of the lee anchor. It's about the most difficult operation in seamanship. We did it once in the Monocacy, but few merchant skippers learn the trick."

All this was unintelligible to me at the time, and I went down to my wife. I found her as comfortable as a woman may be in her first storm at sea, and then paid a professional visit to the first officer. Then I went forward on the reeling main-deck to see and encourage the unfortunate Jim. On the way I thought seriously of taking Jack into my confidence, but gave it up when I considered that the shock and mental agitation might not be well for him with his ship in danger. Then I thought of the alternative—could I not arouse a little courage in Jim, so that if a critical moment arrived Jack would not be obsessed with his cowardice, as he was the preceding evening? It was worth trying—at least worth thinking of. In any event Jim would be none the worse for a little bracing up.

I found him shivering in his wet garments, crouching from the blast of cold rain and spindrift under the weather-rail near the fore-rigging.

"Doctor," he sobbed, "take me away from these fellers. They hit me and kick me, and I'm afraid. I haven't a friend here but you."

"Jim," I asked kindly, "do you really believe me to be your friend? Have you full confidence that I can help you?"

"Yes, yes, doctor. You were always good to me, in the old days. And you married mother. Where is she, and Jack? Jack never cared for me, but I'd like to see mother 'fore I die."

"You shall see her sometime, Jim, but not yet—not for a long time, perhaps. You are worn out and want sleep. You want dry clothes and a good, long sleep, and you'll feel all right when you wake up. Stay here and when I beckon to you, come."

I had made up my mind. Going aft, I found my wife in the forward companionway, where she had been watching me. Her first question was of the poor fellow forward, and I said what I could to quiet the instinctive mother-love that she herself could not analyze. I told her that the man needed only a little care, which I was giving him. Then, when I had led her aft to her quarters, I sought the cabin steward, adjured him to silence, and arranged for exclusive possession of the forward cabin stateroom that adjoined my own. Going on deck, I imposed the same condition upon the second mate (who was beginning to respect me), and beckoned to the expectant Jim. He came on the run, and I soon had him in that room, with his wet rags exchanged for a dry suit of my own, and no one the wiser but the second mate and the steward, both of whom considered him a sick man taken aft for treatment. Which was more or less the truth.

Giving Jim a stimulant, I put him into the berth and covered him, for he still shivered from the chill of the storm. Then, holding his hand, I began a gentle, soothing flow of words in which I assured him that I was his friend, that I would so continue, that he was in no danger while I was with him, but that he must go to sleep, and rest, and that when he wakened he would feel braver and stronger, like his brother Jack, whom he surely must remember. In a few moments his eyelids had ceased to flutter, and soon after they closed under the steady, monotonous lullaby of my voice; but he was not yet asleep, and I continued, enjoining upon the weary, homeless, and desolate waif again and again—speaking more emphatically as his breathing grew heavier—that he must be like Jack, as he was when they were little boys together and shared the same impulses; that he must hark back to that time, and rouse up the strong, brave soul, common to each, which had developed in Jack, but which in him had been suppressed by years of continued defeat. Strongly insisting upon this toward the last, I finally left him, having actually talked him to sleep.

On deck I found Jack really worried. "If it would only shift," he said, "one way or the other. But here it is, hanging on out of the same quarter, and blowing harder. The storm-center is inland, and coming right at us. See the land yonder?"

A dim line of yellowish brown showed faintly through the dense blanket of gray to leeward—the only visible border between sea and sky. Two hours more would bring us perilously close.

Supper was served, and I ate, hurriedly and ravenously, my first meal in twenty-four hours; then I prepared my wife for what might come, saw that she was dressed warmly, and brought her on deck, where Jack supperless and anxious paced the deck abaft the house and watched the wind and compass. Forward, all hands, under the second mate, worked at the two chain cables in the lessening light of the evening, hauling them up from the lockers and ranging them ready for use. Occasionally, in the intervals of work, the men would look keenly aft and to leeward at the approaching line of coast. Every face wore a look of anxiety; all knew of the danger.

When the cables were ranged a quiet order from Jack brought a cast of the lead. Twelve fathoms was the finding.

"Lord grant we hit close to a life-saving station," said Jack, looking fondly at his mother. "No boats could live a minute in this sea. We're not far from the storm center. It's got to shift six points at least to clear us, now. I'll get ready to clubhaul, anyway."

An order to the tired but very efficient second mate resulted in two strong hawsers being brought up from the forepeak, coiled one each side on the poop abaft the house, and the ends led forward outside of all rigging to the hawsepipes in the bow, into which they were passed. Then another sounding was taken, showing ten fathoms of water.

"About half an hour more," said Jack to the second mate. "Fake your braces down for going about, and have the carpenter stand by at the windlass with a top-maul and a punch to slip the chain at any shackle." The officer stared in amazement, but went forward to execute the orders. Evidently, he knew as little of their portent as did I.

He reported in time, "All ready for stays, sir," and we waited. There was nothing more to do, it seemed, with the ship blowing almost straight on to a lee shore. Again was the lead cast, and nine fathoms was the result called out.

"All hands on deck, and stand by on the poop," roared Jack through his hands. The men trooped aft and crowded the weather alley.

A tall, unkempt figure with face tied up in cloths lumbered up the poop steps and approached Jack. "I b'long on deck, Cappen," he mumbled. "Can I be any good?"

"No, sir," answered Jack kindly, but sharply; "you cannot; but stay on deck and be ready for swimming."

The injured mate bowed his head and, first looking at the compass, then painfully aloft at the wind-vane, seated himself on the wheel-box. His chance of swimming was poor; he could hardly stand.

The steward came up, muffled to the chin in a long overcoat, and the sight of him brought to my mind poor Jim, lying asleep in a cabin berth. Down the after companionway I rushed, but was hardly clear of the stairs before I felt the ship heel still farther under a furious blast of wind, then straighten nearly upright; and over and above the sound of rattling canvas came Jack's thundering roar: "Keep full. Hard up your wheel. Stand by for stays. Down off—" Something had interrupted the order. I heard my wife scream, but I hurried into the forward cabin after Jim, just in time to see him leave the stateroom and dart out through the forward door.

I followed him out, but he was not in sight on the main deck, nor was he among the men floundering down the poop steps to stations. So I mounted to the poop; and there, prone upon his back in the alley, was the unconscious form of Jack, with blood upon his face, and his mother bending over him.

"The wind shifted, and the mizzen royal-yard shook out of her," said the second mate from near the wheel, "and something came down and hit him on the head."

Lifting my wife to her feet, I examined him hurriedly, but found no cause for alarm. He was simply stunned by some falling object. "Let him lie where he is, and he'll come to directly," I said, and, leaving him to his mother, I joined the second mate to ask of Jim.

But a voice from the top of the house interrupted my query—a voice like the blast of a speaking-trumpet, strangely like Jack's. And there was Jim beside the mizzenmast, bareheaded and erect, his stoop-shoulders squared, his eyes staring straight before him into the horizontal rain and drift from the combers. "Ready about," he had said in that borrowed voice. "Hard alee!"

My wife screamed again, stood up, and stared at the figure on the house, and in a bound I had reached her.

"It's your boy Jim," I said in her ear, "but keep quiet. He's asleep." She knew what I meant, and stood still, staring with wide-open, hungry eyes at Jim, with an occasional downward glance at Jack.

"Get down off that house," sang out the second mate angrily.

"Let him alone," I shouted, "and do what he orders. Do you hear? Obey his orders to the letter. They will be correct."

I hardly knew this myself, but the second mate believed me. He motioned to the helmsman, who ground the wheel hard down. Forward, the forecastle men had let go the foretopmast staysail sheet, and this sail flapped furiously as the ship came slowly up to the wind. I hastened to the compass and looked. Though I could not have named the points, I could see that the wind was now blowing from the southwest, and that the ship had been heading nearly straight for that line of sand. I went back to my wife, and Jim turned his expressionless face and sleepy eyes toward the second mate, who had nervously followed me.

"Go forward," Jim commanded; "cockbill and stand by the lee anchor to let go at the word; then stand by with the carpenter to make fast the spring-line to the chain forward of the windlass, and to slip the chain at the first shackle abaft. And send two men aft to attend this line at the quarter-bitt."

"Aye, aye, sir," answered the astounded officer, hastening to obey.

Limerick was one of the men sent aft to the spring-line, and his amazement exceeded that of the other. "Goin' to clubhaul her," he said to me, "an' he don't know the compass, he's only a barber man an' no sailor. It beats my goin' to sea."

With my arm about my wife I watched the somnambulist, ready to speak to him if I thought the occasion warranted it, ready to prevent others from speaking; for the sleepy mind of Jim—or the soul of the unconscious Jack, if you like—might obey an unwise or misleading word, even now.

Slowly and more slowly the great ship came up against the pounding of the southerly seas, wavered, and stopped with the weather leech of the maintopsail just lifting.

"Let go the lee anchor," thundered Jim. The anchor was dropped, and the chain rattled out of the hawse-pipe.

"Maintopsail haul," came the next order from Jim in the same vibrant voice. The lee main- and weather cro'-jack braces were cast off, and the after yards came around with a swing and a crash that threatened to take them out of her; but they held, and the opposite braces were tautened.

"Is Jim a sailor, too?" my wife whispered.

"No," I answered gently. "He is doing Jack's work for him. Thank God for your boy to-night. He is saving our lives."

Slowly the ship's head sagged away from the wind; then it stopped and a tremor went through her. The anchor had bit, but was dragging.

"Pay out on that chain," roared Jim to the forecastle, then to Limerick he said quietly, "Catch a turn with that spring and stand by to slack away."

"Very good, sorr," answered Limerick, as he took a turn with the line around the bitt. "Oh, he's a navy officer, all right, sorr," he said joyously, but softly to me. "I've been there an' I know 'em."

Again the ship's nose drew up into the wind under the strain of the still dragging anchor, and when head to it, with the foretopsail aback and tending to throw her still farther, Jim called out: "Hang on to your chain. Make fast the spring to the chain, and knock out the shackle-pin." Then he waited a moment or two, until the heaving ship unmistakably pointed to the southward of the wind's eye, and shouted: "All hands on the forebraces. Fore bowline. Let go and haul. Slip the chain." Then quietly to Limerick: "Handsomely on that spring when the strain comes. Don't part it."

"Aye, aye, sir," laughed Limerick. "I've been in the service, sorr."

"Not a word to him," I said, bounding toward Limerick. "Not a word. He knows what he is doing."

The end of the chain had rattled out of the hawse-pipe and under the tension of the line to the quarter the big ship was paying off to the southward, while the men slowly hauled the foreyard around. When it finally filled and was steadied, and the ship brought up as high as she would lay, the last of the spring-line slipped out of Limerick's hands and went overboard. And now the big first mate, who had quietly watched the whole operation from the wheel-box, approached and studied the compass.

"The wind is hauling all the time," he said through his swollen jaws, "and we'll have a fair wind to the open sea. But who is that man? He kept her off the beach. She'd 'a' hit in a few minutes more."

"He's captain of the ship," I answered.

But Jim was not acting like a captain now. He ran to the monkey-rail at the side of the house, and partly climbed over to descend. Then he went back and resumed his position at the mizzenmast. Then he made another attempt, succeeded, and, gaining the alley, sped forward to the steps and went down them. A groan from Jack, followed by his mother's cry of sympathy, apprised me of the reason. Jack was recovering consciousness, and after assuring myself that he was in his right mind, I left him, still dazed and stupid, in the care of his mother, and leisurely followed Jim, finding him just where I expected to—sound asleep in the stateroom berth. I wakened him, and he sat up, blinking at me.

"Lordy, what a dream, doctor. Mother and Jack—oh, I forget," he said sleepily. "And something hit me on the head—here." He felt of the spot on his head where Jack had been struck.

"Come out on deck, Jim," I said, and he followed me.

"How do you feel now, Jim?"

"Fine, doctor, but where's this boat going, I'd like to know?"

"Feel afraid of the water, now?"

"Not a bit. Why, it can't hurt anyone, can it—unless you fall into it?"

"Afraid of those men forward, Jim?"

"No, I'm not." His face took on a look of defiance. "Why, doctor, I could lick most o' that crowd, couldn't I? I feel different, somehow. But that dream, doctor, about mother and Jack. That dream meant something. Where are they, and how are they?"

"Come below, Jim."

This is not a story of sentiment, so that reunion will not be described. This story is a question, with a large interrogation point. The question is: What is the human soul? Is it an entity, or a possible merging of entities? Is it a collection of memory clusters, any of which may assume an individuality, or is it a series of mental planes or concentric spheres? Jack is Jack and Jim is Jim, and there is a separate ego to each. But what part of Jim's soul left him to obsess Jack during the fracas forward when Jack was awake, and why did it not come again before Jack was struck down, and when he was but normally disturbed over the ship's peril. And how much or how little of Jack went into Jim under my suggestion to the latter to be like him, which waited until Jack was unconscious before acting, and which left him when Jack awoke to claim it?

We are sailing south with a crew and a first mate that think Jim a fugitive from justice, protected by the skipper, and with a second mate who thinks me the devil and Jim my familiar. There is a white-haired, happy woman growing young in her aroused mother-love; and there is a former very promising hobo developing surprising qualities of mind and seamanship under mine and Jack's tutelage. But from none of these can I get any light. I am only a village practitioner, and I submit the question to others: What is the human soul?

[THE BROTHERS]

It is popularly believed that twins grow up in mutual love and loyalty—and, when properly reared, this is not only probable, but almost imperative—but these two grew up in mutual hatred and antagonism; even though in face, form, brain, mind, and soul they were as alike as the proverbial peas in a pod. They received the same limited education in the same schools and classes, and up to the period of this story were never apart; not because either so chose, but because of the common influences of their environment, which decreed the same paths and channels of thought and initiative.