detect the first pitching of her hull, the settling of the deck
under his feet, even as he could hear the half-tones of the menacing
voices from out of the shadows. He was aware, too, that a despairing
multitude were massing on the decks above him.

Up there, he knew, they were preparing to meet the end in a hundred
different fashions. Up there would be those who smiled and those who
cried, those who joked or moaned, who prayed or blasphemed, those who
were going with pity in their hearts and consumed with bitterness
others; forgiving whoever it was that had brought it on, or wishing, the
others, that they had the negligent ones to coldly and calmly wring
their necks before they went themselves.

Cadogan, having found his coat, laid it on a bitt near by while he
should launch his little raft. He balanced it on the rail, inserted a
hook under one of his lashings at each end, folded his blankets on top,
and, a boat-falls in each hand, paid out carefully, slowly. He could not
have lowered a human body more tenderly. Easily, gently, he felt it
settle on the bosom of the sea. He took a turn of his falls around the
bitt, and, always with one eye peeping sidewise into the shadows,
reached for his coat. In the pocket of that coat was the photograph of
his beloved.

"You've everything fixed nicely, have you, matie?"

Cadogan had had his eye out for him, and was expecting some such
salutation; and the revolver within two feet of his head was also not
unexpected. A man could not attend to everything at once.

"Everything nice, yes," responded Cadogan, now with his coat in his
hand.

"I'm glad o' that, matie, because, you see, I'm needing it."

"Would you take that from a man after all the work he put in on it?" He
was kneading the coat into a ball in his right hand. With his left hand
he was taking in a hole or two in his belt.

"You _are_ a soft un! And a swell toff, too. You'll 'ave to st'y aboard,
matie. I'm needing that tidy little floatin' thing you've moored below,
and I'm plannin' to take it."

"Well, why don't you take it?"

"No larkin'. I'm fightin' for my life."

"I've been fighting for more than my life, or yours, and----"

His right arm had been hanging loosely down by his side. He snapped his
right wrist against his hip. The coat, in a tight ball, was jolted into
the man's face, just as Cadogan's left arm shot up and caught the man's
pistol wrist. His open right hand followed the coat and gripped the
m