his seat.

"Luck?" he said, derisively. "The luck o' Father McQueen bes the
protection o' the holy saints above. An' my luck bes the strength o' my
heart an' my wits, Nick Leary. I saves a woman from a wrack an' brings
her into my own house--an' ye names her for a mermaid an' a she-divil!
Maybe ye holds wid Dick Lynch 'twas herself kilt the t'ree lads in the
cabin--an' her in this house all the time, innocent as a babe."

Leary made the sign of the cross quickly and furtively.

"Nay, skipper; but the divil was in that wrack," he said. "The lads got
to fightin' over the gold, skipper, an' Dick Lynch slipped his knife
into Pat Brennen. Sure, the divil come ashore from that wrack. Never
afore did them two pull their knives on each other; an' now Pat Brennen
lays bleedin' his life out. The divil bes got into the lads o' Chance
Along, nary a doubt, an' the black luck has come to the harbor."

"The divil an' the black luck bes in their own stinkin' hearts!"
exclaimed Nolan, violently.

"Aye, skipper; but they says it bes her ye brought ashore put the curse
on to us--an' now they bes comin' this way, skipper, to tell ye to run
her out o' yer house."

"What d'ye say?" cried the skipper, springing from his chair. "Run her
out, ye say?"

He trembled with fury, burned the air with oaths, and called down all
the curses known to tradition upon the heads of the men of Chance Along.
He snatched up a stout billet of birch, green and heavy, wrenched open
the door, and sprang into the outer gloom.

Nick Leary's story was true. The mutineers had consumed the brandy, come
to hot words over the sharing of the gold, dropped their dead and
wounded, and commenced to curse, kick and hit at one another with clubs.
Then Dick Lynch had put his knife into a young man named Pat Brennen, a
nephew of the loyal Bill. Panic had brought the fight to a drunken,
slobbering finish.

"There bes four strong lads kilt in one day!" some one had cried. "The
black curse bes on us! The divil bes in it!"

Full of liquor, fear and general madness, they had come to the opinion
that the strange young female whom the skipper had saved from the
fore-top and carried to his house was such an imp of darkness as had
never before blighted the life and luck of Chance Along. She had
bewitched the skipper. Her evil eyes had cast a curse on the wreck and
that curse had been the death of their three comrades. She had put a
curse on the gold, so that they had all gone