ill
hearing the long blasts of distress from the steamer which was gone,
still hearing the screams of the men who were drowned. Then, when all
were gone who could tell, Spearman turned the tug to Manitowoc.... Now
again the priest's voice became audible to Alan.

Alan's father died in the morning. All day they stayed out in the
storm, avoiding vessels. They dared not throw Stafford's body
overboard or that of the engineer, because, if found, the bullet holes
would have aroused inquiry. When night came again, they had taken the
two ashore at some wild spot and buried them; to make identification
harder, they had taken the things that they had with them and buried
them somewhere else. The child--Alan--Corvet had smuggled ashore and
sent away; he had told Spearman later that the child had died.

"Peace--rest!" Father Perron said in a deep voice. "Peace to the dead!"

But for the living there had been no peace. Spearman had forced Corvet
to make him his partner; Corvet had tried to take up his life again,
but had not been able. His wife, aware that something was wrong with
him, had learned enough so that she had left him. Luke had come and
come and come again for blackmail, and Corvet had paid him. Corvet
grew rich; those connected with him prospered; but with Corvet lived
always the ghosts of those he had watched die with the _Miwaka_--of
those who would have prospered with Stafford except for what had been
done. Corvet had secretly sought and followed the fate of the kin of
those people who had been murdered to benefit him; he found some of
their families destroyed; he found almost all poor and struggling. And
though Corvet paid Luke to keep the crime from disclosure, yet Corvet
swore to himself to confess it all and make such restitution as he
could. But each time that the day he had appointed with himself
arrived, he put it off and off and paid Luke again and again. Spearman
knew of his intention and sometimes kept him from it. But Corvet had
made one close friend; and when that friend's daughter, for whom Corvet
cared now most of all in the world, had been about to marry Spearman,
Corvet defied the cost to himself, and he gained strength to oppose
Spearman. So he had written to Stafford's son to come; he had prepared
for confession and restitution; but, after he had done this and while
he waited, something had seemed to break in his brain; too long preyed
upon by terrible memories, and the ghosts of