at
never happened.

"There were but seven of us now, three Germans, two Dagoes, the Jap,
and myself. I talked with that Jap. He was an educated man, highly
trained in one of our universities; but he couldn't tell me anything,
he said. It was all mysterious and horrible--this quiet taking off of
men while they slept. As for poisoning, of which he knew he was
suspected, it was absurd. There was no poison on board, to begin with;
and why should he, a landsman, seek to poison the men who could take
the ship and treasure to port? What could he do alone on the sea? This
was logical, and as he was a small, weak, and confiding sort of
creature, I exonerated him in my mind from any suspicion of choking the
victims.

"That night the two Dagoes, Pedro and Christo, passed into the land
beyond. There were the same little marks, but nothing else. Weiss,
Wagner, and Myers, the three Germans, got nutty about this time, and
talked together in their lingo while they pumped; and when they were
alone they talked to themselves. I confess that _I_ got nutty. Who
wouldn't, with this menace hanging over him? I walked around the deck
when I was off pump duty, and I remember that I planned a great school
where ambitious young sailor men could study medicine, and escape the
drudgery of a life 'fore the mast. Then I planned free eating-houses
for tramps, and I was going to use some of my wealth to investigate the
private life of a Sunday school superintendent, who, when I was a kid,
predicted that I would come to a bad end. You see, we never can judge
of our own mental condition at the time. It's only when you look back
that you can take stock of yourself. The result of this mental
disturbance upon me was insomnia. I couldn't get to sleep; but I kept
track of the ship, and worried the three Dutchmen and the Jap into
trimming sail when necessary.

"We'd got up to the latitude of the Bermudas, I think, and I was
beginning to hope that the curse had left us; for we had passed through
three nights without a man dying. But on a stormy morning, when the
gaff topsails were blown away, and we four men--for the Jap was useless
on deck--were trying to get a couple of reefs in the mainsail, Wagner
suddenly howled out a lot of Dutch language and jumped overboard. I
flung him a line, but he wouldn't take it, and passed astern. The poor
devil had taken the national remedy for trouble. Did you ever notice it
in Germans, even the best? When things go wrong th