ken might sit up, very
feebly. The sailors in the fore-peak, with a chorus of startled oaths,
leaped from the bunks, and fled to the deck. Zeke followed.

Clinging to a stanchion, the mountaineer could distinguish vaguely, in
the faint lights of the lanterns, the bows of a three-masted schooner,
which had sheared through the port-side of _The Bonita_. The bowsprit
hung far over the smaller ship, a wand of doom. The beating of the
waves against the boat's side came gently under the rasping, crunching
complaint of timber against timber in combat. The schooner's sails
flapped softly in the light breeze. Zeke, watching and listening
alertly, despite bewilderment, heard the roaring commands of a man
invisible, somewhere above him, and guessed that this must be the
captain of the schooner. He saw the crew of _The Bonita_ clambering
one after another at speed, up the anchor chain at the bow of the
destroyer. He realized that flight was the only road to safety. But,
even as he was tensed to dart forward, he remembered his treasure of
money under the bunk pillow.

On the instant, he rushed to the fore-peak, seized the wallet and the
black bag, and fled again to the deck. At the moment when he
reappeared, a gust of quickening breeze filled the schooner's sails.
The canvas bellied taut. The grinding, clashing clamor of the timbers
swelled suddenly. The schooner wrenched herself free, and slipped,
abruptly silent, away into the night and the mist. Ere Zeke reached
the rail in his leap, the schooner had vanished. For a minute, he
heard a medley of voices. Then, while he stood straining his eyes in
despair, these sounds lessened--died. The mountaineer stood solitary
and forsaken on the deck of a sinking ship.

Finally, Zeke spoke aloud in self-communion. The words rang a little
tremulous, for he realized that he was at grips with death.

"Hit's what I gits fer fergittin'," was his regretful comment. "I
reckon, if so be I'd ever got onto thet-thar schooner with this-hyar
damn' bag, she'd 'a' sunk, too. Or, leastways, they'd have chucked me
overboard like Jonah, fer causin' the hull cussed trouble with this
pesky black bag o' mine."

Zeke perceived that the doomed vessel was settling by the head. He
surmised that time was short. Nevertheless, he took leisure for one
duty he deemed of prime importance. With all his strength in a vicious
heave, he cast the black bag from him into the sea.

"I hain't superstitious," he remarked, su