ike that aboard here, but from what Chips Akers
told me before he died, after the loss of the _Southern Cross_, I'm not
so sure this devil's-admiral talk is all folderol. Chips couldn't tell
much before he went under, but the _Southern Cross_ was boarded by the
Devil's Admiral sure enough--didn't they find a sextant out of her in a
store in Shanghai?

"Ships that go down in typhoons don't have their chronometers pop up in
Shanghai a year later, I'm tellin' ye. There ain't nobody ever saw this
here Devil's Admiral, sure enough, that lived to tell it, but ships don't
always go down in deep water and never a boat got off or a life-preserver
or a spar or a door found on the beach.

"Thar's been bloody work in the last three or four years in these
waters--look at the _Legaspi_; never a man jack out of her, and sailed
from Manila, as we did, for Hong-Kong, and never heard of. Steamer she
was, too, right in the steamer-lanes. They say the Devil's Admiral got
her, and I more'n half believe it."

"Sally Ann! Sally Ann!" said Captain Riggs. "I guess I better go down,
Mr. Harris, and look this thing over and get it off yer mind, or ye'll
be fretting yerself and losing sleep with such yarns running wild in
yer top-piece. I don't like this night prowling a mite, but take the
bull's-eye along, and never a bit of light until we are in the storeroom.

"I don't want the crew hugging our heels on this trip below, 'cause ye
may be right about it, at that. Be sure the slide is shut in that
lantern, and call the boy to watch for us. Be sure that glim is doused--I
don't want anybody to know about this."

I slipped off the ladder and clung to the superstructure out of the range
of the light which spurted from the open door as Harris came out. He went
aft for Rajah, and when he returned in a minute Captain Riggs was
standing at the head of the fore-deck ladder waiting for them. Harris
whispered something, and I saw the three figures descend to the fore-deck
and heard them enter the companionway to the lower deck. I followed them.

CHAPTER VIII

MR. HARRIS HAS A FEW IDEAS

Clutching the iron hand-rail of the ladder leading to the fore-deck, I
went down as quickly as I could. For half a minute I stood on the wet
plates of the deck, drenched by the spray which swept the head of the
vessel every time she lurched forward into the seas. Above me I could
make out the dim shape of the bridge and superstructure, and I could hear
the wi