e: terrifically destructive. You shall
judge. There was the schooner, naked as your hand. Possibly I might have
thought it a hallucination but for what came after. Darkness fell again. I
supposed then that Handy Solomon's crew were managing--or mismanaging--the
_Laughing Lass_ without the aid of their leader, whom I had satisfactorily
buried. I hoped they would come ashore on the rocks. Yes I was
vengeful ... then.

"Of a sudden there sprang from the darkness a ship of light. You have all
seen those great electric effects at expositions. Someone touches a
button ... you know. It was like that. Only that the piercingly brilliant
jewelled wonder of a ship was set in the midst of a swirl of vari-coloured
radiance such as I can't begin to describe. You saw it from a distance.
Imagine what it was, coming close upon you that way--dead on, out of the
night. A living glory, a living terror...."

His voice sank. With a shaking hand he fumbled amid his cigarette papers.

"It came on. A human figure, glowing like a diamond ablaze, leaped out
from it; another shot down from the foremast. I don't know how many I saw
go. It was like a theatric effect, unreal, unconvincing, incredible. The
end fitted it."

Darrow's eye roved. It fell upon a quaintly modelled ship, hung above the
door.

"What's that?" he cried.

"Fool thing some Malay gave me," grunted Trendon. "Pretended to be
grateful because I cut his foot off. No good. Go on with the story."

"No good? You don't care what happens to it?"

"Meant to heave it overboard before now," growled the other.

Someone handed it down to Darrow.

"If I had something to hold enough water," muttered he, "I'd like to float
it. I'd like to see for myself how it worked out. I'd like to see that
devil-work in action."

He spoke feverishly.

"Boy, fill the portable rubber tub in Mr. Forsythe's cabin and bring it
here," ordered the captain.

"That will do." said Darrow, recovering himself.

He floated the model in the tub.

"Now, I don't know how this will come out," he said. "Nor do I know why
the _Laughing Lass_ met her fate under Ives and McGuire, and not before.
Perhaps the chest lay open longer ... long enough, anyway. We'll try it."

From his pocket he took a curious small phial.

"Is that what Dr. Schermerhorn gave you?" asked Slade.

"Yes," said Darrow. He set it carefully inside the little model and
slipped a lever. Slade quietly turned down the light.

A faint glow sho