, it warn't a girl, or the fellow wouldn't have handled her so
rough. Besides, sir, he wore--the lad, I mean--a jacket and cap like you
or me."

"That doesn't mean anything. I tell you it was a girl--I'm sure of it!"

"Well, sir, you're wrong; for when they got out five fathom or so they
stopped--to listen, maybe. You were back in the cockpit by then, and I
guess the fellow must have let up on the young-un; for, all at once,
he--the lad, I mean--raked a match along the gunnel, for to take a
smoke, d'you see! My word, but the way he was grabbed this time would
have shocked you. I couldn't see it, but you could hear the youngster
gurgling. That shows it warn't a girl, sir!"

"What shows it? Because you think she wanted to smoke? Girls do, Gates!"

"They do that, sir, and I'm not gainsaying it; but they do it sociable,
arfter dinner, setting 'round the cockpit, as you might say. It's seldom
any of 'em has such a mortal craving for tobacco as to have to take a
suck at a little cigarette every time a man chokes her by the throat. My
word, no! It's the male sex that wants the weed under those
conditions--not a girl, sir!"

But I was seeing an entirely different version of the affair, so far as
the smoking went; and Gates would have seen it, too, if he hadn't been
so excited. She had not wanted to smoke, at all, but to signal us! I
knew it! I was never more sure of anything in all creation!

"And besides, sir," Gates now added, "no one would push his fingers into
a girl's throat like----"

"Stop," I cried, for I could not listen to more of this. If ever I
wanted to kill it was then. I wanted to get my own fingers on that
scoundrel's throat as he had dared touch hers; and in my heart I swore
by all the gods, by all the stars and moons and other things in the
heavens and under the sea, that I would strangle out his miserable life
by inches, or leave my bones to bleach on the shore of her unknown
island. Wherever it was, I would find it; wherever she was, I would find
her!--and God help him when he came my way! It was a classy oath, and I
felt a lot better for it.

"Now, sir," Gates's voice began to tremble with passion as he held up a
black thing that had been tucked under his coat, "this invention I took
off our rudder post when I rowed 'round to see what they'd been up to.
It's a dirty bomb, fixed to start us off for Davy Jones's Locker
sometime tonight, sir!"

"You're sure it can't start us off now?" I asked, taking