e took another step. She pulled the trigger. There was a bright
flash, a loud report.

[Illustration: "Lower that pistol!"]

Dave, however, had been watching that trigger finger. As he saw it
stiffen he dropped suddenly almost to his knees, the bullet passing over
his head and embedding itself in woodwork across the cabin.

Darrin sprang up unharmed. His cap had caught a powder burn; that was
all. He gripped the woman's wrist in a hand of steel. With his other hand
he coolly took the pistol away from her, then dropped her wrist.

Bursting into a fit of hysterical weeping the woman drew back,
endeavoring to close the cabin door. But Darrin's foot across the sill
defeated her purpose.

"You are a brute!" she panted, frantically trying to close the door.

"At least," he assured her, "I have saved you from a crime that would
have cost you your own life. Look out, please, for I am going to throw
your door wide open."

"You--you coward!" she panted, and struggled to close the door.

"Stand back! I am sorry to have to use force, but you compel it."

As she refused to give ground Darrin gave the door a push that forced her
back, crowding her against a berth. Then he stepped into the little
cabin.

In a lower berth lay a middle-aged woman whose piercing black eyes
snapped as she surveyed the young naval officer.

"You are a wretch, to intrude here!" cried the older woman.

"One must often do disagreeable things in the line of war duty," Darrin
answered, gravely. "For one thing, I must place you both in arrest. Then
I shall be obliged to have your cabin searched."

"Oh, if I but had a weapon!" cried the older woman.

"If you had, and were quick enough," Dave assured her, "you might succeed
in killing me, but that would not affect our duty here, for there are
other officers at hand. Madam, I perceive that you are fully dressed, so
I must ask you to rise and leave this cabin, for a few minutes, at
least."

"I shall not do it," she snapped.

"Then you will oblige me to call my men in, and they will remove you,
using no unnecessary violence, you may be sure, yet employing force just
the same."

"You coward!"

The younger woman, too, started in to berate him, but Dave remained calm.

"Will you, at least, not leave the room until I have risen?" demanded the
older woman.

Darrin, who had a notion that the women wanted to conceal or destroy
something, nodded his assent, but signed to two of the seamen to enter.