"Thank you for saying that. I wish you were able to read all my

thoughts as accurately."

His right hand went to the pocket in which he had placed the revolver.

The stock appeared to have a peculiar clamminess as his fingers closed

around it. Though he was proud of the iron nerve which had won him

repute in his profession, he almost prayed now that it might not fail

him at the last. What a horror, to be compelled with his parting

glance to see this bright and gracious woman crumple up on the deck!

"But I know you are a brave man," she said with a confidant smile. "It

demanded a higher courage to pass undaunted through the ordeal of the

storm than to face these ill-armed Indians. Please don't think I am a

warlike person, but it makes my blood boil to find that there are

wretches who regard our distress as their opportunity to murder us and

pillage the ship. What have we done to them? If they are poor and

hungry, and they would only come to us in a peaceful way, Captain

Courtenay would give them all the stores he could spare."

Christobal heard ominous sounds from the fore part of the vessel. The

revolver shooting had ceased, for the convincing reason there were no

more cartridges. Courtenay's double barrelled gun was being fired as

quickly as he could reload it, and the sharp snap of one of the rifles

in the Indians' possession was recognizable as coming from the poop,

the remaining marksmen having preferred to fire wildly from their

canoes. But Christobal knew that a deadly struggle was in progress on

the fore deck. Tollemache, Frascuelo, and three Chileans were engaged

in a hand-to-hand fight with nearly a score of savages; the doctor

could distinguish the cries of the combatants, the irregular stamping

of boot-shod feet.

He wondered why the girl, with her acute senses, did not grasp the

significance of the yells and trampling on the deck, until it occurred

to him, with a quick pang, that she was listening for one voice alone;

owing to her ignorance of the desperate nature of the conflict raging

overhead she had ears for nothing further.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. She turned and looked at him. There

was a gravity in his eyes, which startled her.

"Elsie," he said, "you believe in the efficacy of prayer, don't you?

Well, then, pray now a little. I shall be glad to think, when this

time of danger has passed, that we owed something to your invocation."

It was in his mind that he must shoot her within a few seconds, and the

immeasurable agony of the thought reflected itself in his face. He had

no notion that she would give his words a more direct significance than

he intended them to bear. But a strange, hoarse yell of triumph, the

war-cry of an Alaculof leader who had hauled himself to the bridge and

found it undefended, warned her in the same moment that all was not

well with the defense.




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