he axe?"

"Gone," I said patiently. "It was stolen out of the captain's cabin."

He eyed me over his glasses.

"That's very strange," he commented. "No stains, no axe! You fellows
have been mighty careful to destroy the evidence, haven't you?"

All that long day we made our deliberate progress up the river. The
luggage from the after house was carried up on deck by Adams and
Clarke, and stood waiting for the customhouse.

Turner, his hands behind him, paced the deck hour by hour, his heavy
face colorless. His wife, dark, repressed, with a look of being always
on guard, watched him furtively. Mrs. Johns, dressed in black, talked
to the doctor; and, from the notes he made, I knew she was telling the
story of the tragedy. And here, there, and everywhere, efficient,
normal, and so lovely that it hurt me to look at her, was Elsa.
Williams, the butler, had emerged from his chrysalis of fright, and was
ostentatiously looking after the family's comfort. No clearer
indication could have been given of the new status of affairs than his
changed attitude toward me. He came up to me, early in the afternoon,
and demanded that I wash down the deck before the women came up.

I smiled down at him cheerfully.

"Williams," I said, "you are a coward--a mean, white-livered coward.
You have skulked in the after house, behind women, when there was man's
work to do. If I wash that deck, it will be with you as a mop."

He blustered something about speaking to Mr. Turner and seeing that I
did the work I was brought on board to do, and, seeing Turner's eye on
us, finished his speech with an ugly epithet. My nerves were strained
to the utmost: lack of sleep and food had done their work. I was no
longer in command of the Ella; I was a common sailor, ready to vent my
spleen through my fists.

I knocked him down with my open hand.

It was a barbarous and a reckless thing to do. He picked himself up
and limped away, muttering. Turner had watched the scene with his cold
blue eyes, and the little doctor with his near-sighted ones.

"A dangerous man, that!" said the doctor.

"Dangerous and intelligent," replied Turner. "A bad combination!"

It was late that night when the Ella anchored in the river at
Philadelphia. We were not allowed to land. The police took charge of
ship, crew, and passengers. The men slept heavily on deck, except
Burns, who developed a slight fever from his injury, and moved about
restlessly.

It seem