Obosky and her dancers; bejewelled Jewesses
and half-clad emigrants; gentle women unused to toil and women who were
born to it; the old and the young--all of them, without exception,--rose
from the depths of despair and faced the rigours of the day with
unflinching courage, gave out of a limitless store of tenderness all
that their strength could spare.

And through a neglected, abandoned field of pearls and gold and precious
stones, limped unchallenged the tireless figure of "Soapy" Shay,
diamond thief, a bloody bandage about his head, an exalted light in
his pain-stricken eyes. His one-time captor lay stark and cold in the
gruesome line in the bow of the boat. It was "Soapy" Shay who staggered
out of the rack and smoke with the burly, stricken detective in his
arms, and it was "Soapy" Shay who wept when the last breath of life
cased out through his tortured lips. For of all the company on board the
Doraine, there was but one whom "Soapy" knew, but one who called him by
name and shared tobacco with him,--and that one was William Spinney, the
man who was taking him back to a place where mercy would not be shown.

After the sun had set and the decks were dark and deserted except for
the men employed in the gruesome business, the dead were lowered into
the sea, swathed in canvas and weighted with things that were made to
kill,--shells from the gunners' hoard. Swiftly, methodically, one after
the other, they slid down to the black, greedy waters, sank to the
grave that is never still yet always silent, to the vast, unexplored
wilderness that stretches around the world. The thin little missionary
from the barren plateaus of Patagonia and the plump priest from the
heart of Buenos Aires monotonously commended each and every one of them
to the mercy of God!

The sun came up again in the morning over a smiling, happy sea that
licked the sides of the Doraine with the tenderness of a dog.

CHAPTER V.

The plight of the hapless steamer could not be disguised. Even the most
ignorant passenger knew that the wrecked engines could not be repaired
or compounded. They knew that the Doraine was completely paralysed. The
power to move at will was for ever lost, the force that had driven her
resistlessly along the chosen path was still. The powerful propellers
were idle, the huge stern-post wrenched so badly that the rudder was
useless. She was adrift, helplessly adrift. Of what avail the wheel
and a patched-up rudder to