make it fast with two
turns. In a moment the boat came softly nestling against the steamer as
a kitten may nestle against its mother.

The man, who seemed to be the sole occupant, stood up, resting his hand
on the rail of the _Minnie_. His head came up over the rail, and he
peered into Cartoner's face.

"You!" he exclaimed.

"Yes," answered Cartoner, watching his hands, for there was a sort of
exultation in Kosmaroff's voice, as if fate had offered him a chance
which he never expected.

Cable came aft and stood beside Cartoner.

"I want to go to sea this tide," he said. "Where is the other man?"

"The other man is Prince Martin Bukaty," was the answer. "Help me to
lift him on board."

"Why can't he come on board himself?"

"Because he is dead," answered Kosmaroff, with a break in his voice. And
he lurched forward against the rail. Cartoner caught him by one arm and
held him up.

"I am so weak!" he murmured, "so weak! I am famished!"

Cartoner lifted him bodily over the rail, and Cable received him, half
fainting, in his arms. The next moment Cartoner was kneeling in the boat
that rode alongside. He slowly raised Martin, and with an effort held
him towards the captain, who was sitting astride on the rail. Thus they
got him on board and carried him to the cabin. They passed through it to
that which was grandly called the captain's state-room. They laid him on
the locker which served for a bed, while Kosmaroff, supporting himself
against the bulkhead, watched them in silence.

The captain glanced at Martin, and then, catching sight of Kosmaroff's
face, he hurried to the cabin, to return in a minute with the inevitable
decanter, yellow with age and rust.

"Here," he said, "drink that. Eat a bit o' biscuit. You're done."

Kosmaroff did as he was told. His eyes had the unmistakable glitter of
starvation and exhaustion. They were fixed on Cartoner's face, with a
hundred unasked questions in them.

"How did it happen?" asked Cartoner, at length.

"They fired on us crossing the frontier, and hit him. Pity it was not
me. He is a much greater loss than I should have been. That was the
night before last. He died before the morning."

"Tut! tut!" muttered Captain Cable, with an unwritable expression of
pity. "There was the makings of a man in him," he said--"the makings of
a man!"

And what Captain Cable held worthy of the name of man is not so common
as to be lost to the world with indifference. He stood refl