longer. "Can you not drop his body overboard, William?" she
asked.

Clayton rose and staggered toward the corpse. The two remaining
sailors eyed him with a strange, baleful light in their sunken orbs.
Futilely the Englishman tried to lift the corpse over the side of the
boat, but his strength was not equal to the task.

"Lend me a hand here, please," he said to Wilson, who lay nearest him.

"Wot do you want to throw 'im over for?" questioned the sailor, in a
querulous voice.

"We've got to before we're too weak to do it," replied Clayton. "He'd
be awful by tomorrow, after a day under that broiling sun."

"Better leave well enough alone," grumbled Wilson. "We may need him
before tomorrow."

Slowly the meaning of the man's words percolated into Clayton's
understanding. At last he realized the fellow's reason for objecting
to the disposal of the dead man.

"God!" whispered Clayton, in a horrified tone. "You don't mean--"

"W'y not?" growled Wilson. "Ain't we gotta live? He's dead," he
added, jerking his thumb in the direction of the corpse. "He won't
care."

"Come here, Thuran," said Clayton, turning toward the Russian. "We'll
have something worse than death aboard us if we don't get rid of this
body before dark."

Wilson staggered up menacingly to prevent the contemplated act, but
when his comrade, Spider, took sides with Clayton and Monsieur Thuran
he gave up, and sat eying the corpse hungrily as the three men, by
combining their efforts, succeeded in rolling it overboard.

All the balance of the day Wilson sat glaring at Clayton, in his eyes
the gleam of insanity. Toward evening, as the sun was sinking into the
sea, he commenced to chuckle and mumble to himself, but his eyes never
left Clayton.

After it became quite dark Clayton could still feel those terrible eyes
upon him. He dared not sleep, and yet so exhausted was he that it was
a constant fight to retain consciousness. After what seemed an
eternity of suffering his head dropped upon a thwart, and he slept.
How long he was unconscious he did not know--he was awakened by a
shuffling noise quite close to him. The moon had risen, and as he
opened his startled eyes he saw Wilson creeping stealthily toward him,
his mouth open and his swollen tongue hanging out.

The slight noise had awakened Jane Porter at the same time, and as she
saw the hideous tableau she gave a shrill cry of alarm, and at the same
instant the sailor lurched forward a