danger in the line of rescue, kept close guard. He knew
better than to make a false move from too great haste, and swam round
cautiously, seeking for a place to board. The heat from that floating
mass of belching flame was terrific, and more than once, as a gust
brought down a cloud of fumes over him, the boy thought he would
suffocate.

At last he saw, trailing over the quarter, a wire rope, one of the stays
of the after derrick, and he made ready to climb. The stay evidently had
been melted through at the derrick head, but the heated end had fallen
in the water and cooled. Up this the swimmer swarmed, though the frayed
wire drew blood from his hands and legs at every point he touched it. At
last he reached the bulwark, grasped it and jumped aboard.

With a sharp cry of pain he leaped back to the rail again.

The deck was burning hot!

In spite of the spray that now and again came spattering over the
derelict, the heat had been conducted throughout the craft. Not having
thought of the possibility of a heated metal deck, Eric was barefoot. Of
what use was it for him to be on board unless he could find out whether
any one were there! The decks were empty. The steamer had sunk too deep
for any one to be below, and live. There was only one place in which a
survivor might still be--the sole remaining deck-house.

Thither the wireless aerial led! There, if anywhere, was some deserted
creature, author of the unread message that had sparked across the sea.
There, and there only--and between Eric and that deck-house lay the
stretch of red-hot deck, a glowing barrier to attempted rescue.

Surely it was beyond attempt!

Like a flash came to the boy's remembrance the old ordeal for witchcraft
in which a man had to walk fifty feet over red-hot plowshares, in which,
if he succeeded without collapse, he was adjudged innocent. At once Eric
realized that some must have survived that awful test if the ordeal was
of any value. What man had done, man again could do! It was at least as
good a cause to save some man or woman from a fearful death as it was to
save oneself from penalty of witchcraft.

Daring all, he leaped down from the rail on to the superheated deck.

In spite of his stoicism, the boy could not repress a cry of agony, that
rang cruelly in the ears of his comrades in the boat. They had seen his
figure outlined black against the red glare of the burning craft, and
exulted. At the boy's cry, they shuddered, and more t