of the chiefs. The moon,
almost down, had flushed blood-red, violently streaking the gray, smooth
surface of the bay with her reflection. The tide was far out, rippling
quietly along the reaches of wet sand. In the pauses of the conference
the vast, muffling silence shut down with the abruptness of a valve
suddenly closed.

How it happened, just who made the first move, in precisely what manner
the action had been planned, or what led up to it, Wilbur could
not afterward satisfactorily explain. There was a rush forward--he
remembered that much--a dull thudding of feet over the resounding beach
surface, a moment's writhing struggle with a half-naked brown figure
that used knife and nail and tooth, and then the muffling silence again,
broken only by the sound of their own panting. In that whirl of swift
action Wilbur could reconstruct but two brief pictures: the Chinaman,
Hoang's companion, flying like one possessed along the shore; Hoang
himself flung headlong into the arms of the "Bertha's" coolies, and
Moran, her eyes blazing, her thick braids flying, brandishing her fist
as she shouted at the top of her deep voice, "We've got you, anyhow!"

They had taken Hoang prisoner, whether by treachery or not, Wilbur did
not exactly know; and, even if unfair means had been used, he could not
repress a feeling of delight and satisfaction as he told himself that in
the very beginning of the fight that was to follow he and his mates had
gained the first advantage.

As the action of that night's events became more and more accelerated,
Wilbur could not but notice the change in Moran. It was very evident
that the old Norse fighting blood of her was all astir; brutal,
merciless, savage beyond all control. A sort of obsession seized upon
her at the near approach of battle, a frenzy of action that was checked
by nothing--that was insensible to all restraint. At times it was
impossible for him to make her hear him, or when she heard to understand
what he was saying. Her vision contracted. It was evident that she could
not see distinctly. Wilbur could no longer conceive of her as a woman
of the days of civilization. She was lapsing back to the eighth century
again--to the Vikings, the sea-wolves, the Berserkers.

"Now you're going to talk," she cried to Hoang, as the bound Chinaman
sat upon the beach, leaning his back against the great skull. "Charlie,
ask him if they saved the ambergris when the junk went down--if they've
got it now