e and then another at Da Costa which sent the Portuguese
tumbling into the scuppers.

"Let be!" croaked Huldricksson; his voice was thick and lifeless as
though forced from a dead throat; his lips were cracked and dry and
his parched tongue was black. "Let be! Go! Let be!"

The Portuguese had picked himself up, whimpering with rage and knife
in hand, but as Huldricksson's voice reached him he stopped.
Amazement crept into his eyes and as he thrust the blade back into
his belt they softened with pity.

"Something veree wrong wit' Olaf," he murmured to me. "I think he
crazee!" And then Olaf Huldricksson began to curse us. He did not
speak--he howled from that hideously dry mouth his imprecations. And
all the time his red eyes roamed the seas and his hands, clenched and
rigid on the wheel, dropped blood.

"I go below," said Da Costa nervously. "His wife, his daughter--" he
darted down the companionway and was gone.

Huldricksson, silent once more, had slumped down over the wheel.

Da Costa's head appeared at the top of the companion steps.

"There is nobody, nobody," he paused--then--"nobody--nowhere!" His
hands flew out in a gesture of hopeless incomprehension. "I do not
understan'."

Then Olaf Huldricksson opened his dry lips and as he spoke a chill ran
through me, checking my heart.

"The sparkling devil took them!" croaked Olaf Huldricksson, "the
sparkling devil took them! Took my Helma and my little Freda! The
sparkling devil came down from the moon and took them!"

He swayed; tears dripped down his cheeks. Da Costa moved toward him
again and again Huldricksson watched him, alertly, wickedly, from his
bloodshot eyes.

I took a hypodermic from my case and filled it with morphine. I drew
Da Costa to me.

"Get to the side of him," I whispered, "talk to him." He moved over
toward the wheel.

"Where is your Helma and Freda, Olaf?" he said.

Huldricksson turned his head toward him. "The shining devil took
them," he croaked. "The moon devil that spark--"

A yell broke from him. I had thrust the needle into his arm just
above one swollen wrist and had quickly shot the drug through. He
struggled to release himself and then began to rock drunkenly. The
morphine, taking him in his weakness, worked quickly. Soon over his
face a peace dropped. The pupils of the staring eyes contracted. Once,
twice, he swayed and then, his bleeding, prisoned hands held high and
still gripping the wheel, he crumpled to the d