t with cords and knots hanging loose. Then Da
Costa reached down his head, took a leather end in his teeth and with
a jerk drew the thong that noosed his left hand tight; similarly he
drew tight the second.

He strained at his fetters. There before my eyes he had pinioned
himself so that without aid he could not release himself. And he was
exactly as Huldricksson had been!

"You will have to cut me loose, sair," he said. "I cannot move them.
It is an old trick on these seas. Sometimes it is necessary that a man
stand at the wheel many hours without help, and he does this so that
if he sleep the wheel wake him, yes, sair."

I looked from him to the man on the bed.

"But why, sair," said Da Costa slowly, "did Olaf have to tie his
hands?"

I looked at him, uneasily.

"I don't know," I answered. "Do you?"

He fidgeted, avoided my eyes, and then rapidly, almost surreptitiously
crossed himself.

"No," he replied. "I know nothing. Some things I have heard--but
they tell many tales on these seas."

He started for the door. Before he reached it he turned. "But this I
do know," he half whispered, "I am damned glad there is no full moon
tonight." And passed out, leaving me staring after him in amazement.
What did the Portuguese know?

I bent over the sleeper. On his face was no trace of that unholy
mingling of opposites the Dweller stamped upon its victims.

And yet--what was it the Norseman had said?

"The sparkling devil took them!" Nay, he had been even more
explicit--"The sparkling devil that came down from the moon!"

Could it be that the Dweller had swept upon the Brunhilda, drawing
down the moon path Olaf Huldricksson's wife and babe even as it had
drawn Throckmartin?

As I sat thinking the cabin grew suddenly dark and from above came a
shouting and patter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt,
violent squalls that are met with in those latitudes. I lashed
Huldricksson fast in the berth and ran up on deck.

The long, peaceful swells had changed into angry, choppy waves from
the tops of which the spindrift streamed in long stinging lashes.

A half-hour passed; the squall died as quickly as it had arisen. The
sea quieted. Over in the west, from beneath the tattered, flying edge
of the storm, dropped the red globe of the setting sun; dropped slowly
until it touched the sea rim.

I watched it--and rubbed my eyes and stared again. For over its
flaming portal something huge and black moved