. Falk faced
them, the possessor of the only fire-arm on board, and the second best
man--the carpenter--was lying dead between him and them.

"He was eaten, of course," I said.

He bent his head slowly, shuddered a little, drawing his hands over his
face, and said, "I had never any quarrel with that man. But there were
our lives between him and me."

Why continue the story of that ship, that story before which, with its
fresh-water pump like a spring of death, its man with the weapon, the
sea ruled by iron necessity, its spectral band swayed by terror and
hope, its mute and unhearing heaven?-the fable of the Flying Dutchman
with its convention of crime and its sentimental retribution fades like
a graceful wreath, like a wisp of white mist. What is there to say that
every one of us cannot guess for himself? I believe Falk began by going
through the ship, revolver in hand, to annex all the matches. Those
starving wretches had plenty of matches! He had no mind to have the ship
set on fire under his feet, either from hate or from despair. He lived
in the open, camping on the bridge, commanding all the after deck
and the only approach to the pump. He lived! Some of the others lived
too--concealed, anxious, coming out one by one from their hiding-places
at the seductive sound of a shot. And he was not selfish. They shared,
but only three of them all were alive when a whaler, returning from her
cruising ground, nearly ran over the water-logged hull of the Borgmester
Dahl, which, it seems, in the end had in some way sprung a leak in both
her holds, but being loaded with deals could not sink.

"They all died," Falk said. "These three too, afterwards. But I would
not die. All died, all! under this terrible misfortune. But was I too to
throw away my life? Could I? Tell me, captain? I was alone there, quite
alone, just like the others. Each man was alone. Was I to give up my
revolver? Who to? Or was I to throw it into the sea? What would
have been the good? Only the best man would survive. It was a great,
terrible, and cruel misfortune."

He had survived! I saw him before me as though preserved for a witness
to the mighty truth of an unerring and eternal principle. Great beads
of perspiration stood on his forehead. And suddenly it struck the table
with a heavy blow, as he fell forward throwing his hands out.

"And this is worse," he cried. "This is a worse pain! This is more
terrible."

He made my heart thump with the profo