that was dragging behind, and even as I
looked the last man disappeared with the painter in his hand. At the
same moment I became aware of a strange noise. Down in the bowels of
the lorcha a weird, gentle commotion was going on, a multitudinous
'gluck-gluck' as of many bottles being emptied. A breath of hot, musty
air was sighing out of the hatch. Then the sea about the poop began to
rise,--to rise slowly, calmly, steadily, like milk in a heated pot.

"'By the powers,' I shouted, 'the old tub is going down!'

"It was true. There, upon the sunlit sea, beneath the serene sky,
silently, weirdly, unprovoked, the old boat, as if weary, was sinking in
one long sigh of lassitude. And we, of course, were going with it. A few
yards away from the stern-post was the jolly-boat with the crew. I
looked at them, and in my heart I could not condemn them for their sly
departure; they were all there, _arraiz_, wife, children, and crew, so
heaped together that they seemed only a meaningless tangle of arms and
legs and heads; the water was half an inch from the gunwale, and the one
man at the oars, hampered, paralyzed on all sides, was splashing
helplessly while the craft pivoted like a top. There was no anger in my
heart, yet I was not absolutely reconciled to the situation. I searched
the deck with my eyes, then from the jolly-boat the _arraiz_ obligingly
yelled, '_El biroto, el biroto_!'

"And I remembered the rotten little canoe lashed amidships. It didn't
take us long to get it into the water (the water by that time was very
close at hand). I went carefully into it first so as to steady it for
Miller, and then, both of us at once, we saw that it would hold only
one. The bottom, a hollowed log, was stanch enough, but the sides, made
of pitched bamboo lattice, were sagging and torn. It would hold only
one.

"'Well, who is it?' I asked. In my heart there was no craven panic, but
neither was there sacrifice. Some vague idea was in my mind, of deciding
who should get the place by some game of chance, tossing up a coin, for
instance.

"But Miller said, 'Ah cain't affawd to take chances, seh; you must git
out.'

"He spoke calmly, with great seriousness, but without undue emphasis--as
one enunciating an uncontrovertible natural law. I glanced up into his
face, and it was in harmony with his voice. He didn't seem particularly
scared; he was serious, that's all; his eyes were set in that peculiar,
wide-pupiled stare of the man contempla