ow. If he'd had the sense of a jelly-fish he'd
have--Here! Sit still! You'll upset the boat, you fool! What--What are
you going to do with that oar?"

"I'm going to crack you over the bean with it if you don't take back
what you said about Captain Trigger," said the steward, very earnestly.
"Take it back, do you hear me?"

"My God, would you murder me for a little thing like that?"

Mr. Nicklestick aroused himself from the torpor of despair.

"Take it back, Mr. Landover,--please do. If he misses you, he'll get me
sure, it's so dark, and so help me God, I got nothing but the deepest
respect for Captain Trigger. He's a vonderful man, steward. Don't make
any mistake. You hear me say he is a vonderful man? Veil,--"

"Oh, shut up, Nicklestick," grated Landover, crouching down behind the
gentleman addressed.

The steward sat down. "I'd do it in a minute if it wasn't for the women
an' children in this boat."

"I intend to have every officer on that steamer arrested for criminal
negligence the instant I set foot in New York," boomed the banker. "I
call upon every one of you, my fellow-passengers, to testify to the
utter lack of precaution taken by the men in charge of that ship. And
what effort are they making to bring help to us now? By gad, if I was
in command of that vessel I'd be shooting wireless calls to every--Great
Scott! What's that?"

"That's a rocket, you blamed old fool!" roared the steward.

"Good God!" gasped the exasperated banker. "Are we having a celebration
with fireworks?"

The dull, hapless occupants of the lifeboats watched with fascinated
eyes the first of the giant rockets that whizzed and roared its way up
from the deck of the ship, an endless arrow of fire piercing the night.
A loud report, the scattering of a hundred stars, and then--denser
blackness than before.

Morning came. Up out of the east stole a sickly grey. It turned slowly
into pink, and then suddenly the sea once more was blue and smiling.
In the heart of the dancing cordon lay the weirdly camouflaged Doraine,
inert, sinister, as still and cold as death. No smoke issued from her
stacks to cheer the wretched watchers; no foam, no spray leaped from her
mighty bow. She was a great, lifeless thing. Waves lapped gently against
her sides and fell away only to come back again in playful scorn for the
vast object that had rent and baffled them so long. On high fluttered
the Stars and Stripes, gay in the presence of death, a sprightly