the _Nettie_ it proves that he must have come
and got it!" he cried. "He boarded the old _May_, but it was not for
this that he came!"

"What, then?" asked Hardy.

"To damage the schooner so that she would break down under the strain
of the next race," flared Code, facing Nat dramatically. Burns only
clenched his jaws tighter on his cigar.

"You don't believe this, perhaps, squire, but listen and I'll tell you
how the old _May_ sank." And once again he described the crashing
calamity aboard the overloaded boat as she struggled home to Freekirk
Head with the last of her strength.

"You, squire, you've sailed your boats in your time! You know that
never could have happened even to the old _May_ unless something had
been done. And something _was_ done! Burns had weakened the topm'st
and the mainstay!"

All eyes were fixed on Nat, but he did not move. He was very pale now,
but apparently self-possessed. Suddenly, with a hand that appeared
firm, he removed the cigar from his mouth and cast it on the floor.

"That," he said with deadly coolness, "is a blasted fine plot that you
have all worked out together. But every word of it is a lie, for the
whole thing is without a single foundation in fact. Prove it!"

"I'll give you a last chance, Burns," said Elsa in a level voice that
contained all the concentrated hatred that Code had detected in her
before. "Dismiss these charges against Code."

"Never!" The word was catapulted from him as though by a muscular
convulsion. "He murdered my father, and he shall pay for it!"

Without a word Elsa rose from her chair and walked back into the
adjoining room. A moment later she reappeared, leading a beautiful
girl who was perhaps twenty years old.

The effect was electric. The people in the little group seemed frozen
into the attitudes they had last assumed.

Only in Nat Burns was there a change.

He seemed to have shrunk back into his clothes until he was but a
little, wizened man. His face was ghastly and clammy perspiration
glittered on his forehead in the lamplight.

"Caroline!" he cried in a hoarse voice that did not rise above a
whisper.

"Yes, Caroline," said Elsa, her black eyes flashing fire. "You had
forgotten her, hadn't you? You had forgotten the girl who loved you,
that you drove away from the island! You had forgotten the girl that
gave you everything and got nothing! But that has come back upon you
now, and these people are here to see it. Even your father,