before that maniacal charge--in which the cuddy
passengers had by this time joined--and were seen no more.

As for Leslie, the nearest approach to happiness that had been his for
more than seven years came to him now with the conviction that he was at
last face to face with inevitable, kindly Death. He had endured seven
years of physical misery and mental torment because he had too much grit
to resort to the cowardly expedient of taking his own life; but now,
_now_ fate--he no longer believed in the existence of such a being as
God--fate had taken pity upon him and, through no act of his own, he was
going to be relieved of his intolerable burden. For he knew that, with
that fighting mob of raging maniacs struggling madly round the boats,
escape was a sheer impossibility, and that in a few minutes--or hours,
at the outside--for he was a strong swimmer--he would go down inanimate
into the dark depths, and his load of disgrace and humiliation would
fall from him for ever.

So, serene and contented in mind, he stood well back beyond the outer
fringe of that frantic, swaying, cursing crowd, and cynically watched
its proceedings. The scene upon which he gazed was precisely what he
had expected from the moment when those three ill-omened lights had
burst through the fog and told him that the _Golden Fleece_ was a doomed
ship. Here was selfishness supremely triumphant, beating down and
eradicating in a moment every nobler instinct of humanity. It was
"Every man for himself" with a vengeance; women and children were struck
out of men's way with horrid curses and savage, murderous blows; men
were fighting together like furious beasts; knives were out, blood was
flowing freely, and the air was clamorous with shrieks, groans, and
imprecations; the whole accentuated and made still more dreadful by the
loud clash of dangling wreckage aloft, and the awful creaking and
groaning of the riven hull as it writhed upon the low swell to the
gurgling and sobbing and splashing sound of the water alongside and
under the counter; the weird and horror-inspiring effect being still
further intensified by the hollow moaning of the night wind over the
heaving surface of the deep. The struggling crowd was no longer human,
save in shape; it had become a mob of senseless, raging demons!

Blind, insensate selfishness! Yes; that was the motive that dominated
every individual in that seething crowd. Had they but kept their heads
and listened to p