# The Popular Magazine/Volume 7/Number 3/Adventurers Extraordinary

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Extracted from The Popular Magazine, January 1907, pp. 1–60.
How a little company of Americans found strange adventures in the China Sea and by a desperate plan thwarted a gigantic plot against the welfare of the United States.
Adventurers Extraordinary
By George Bronson-Howard Author of “Norroy, Diplomatic Agent,” “The Girl of the Third Army,” Etc.
(A Complete Novel)
ou who look for romance might gaze and gaze again upon the spectacle of four men and one girl in bathing-suits, and, unless your imagination be highly developed, there would seem to be no chance for a romance growing out of the mere fact that they were in bathing-suits. Yet, if they had not been, this series of adventures would not have befallen them; for in that case they would——
But, after all, you are not quite ready for what befell. Simply to say that they were in bathing-suits, and that they were four men and a girl does not convey any idea. of their personalities to you. And unless you are interested in them, you hardly care whether they were in bathing-suits or in kimonos. To be brutally frank, two of them did not look well in that abbreviated attire. There was Pursey Ochs, for instance, who was ridiculously stout—not fat, mind you! only stout—a sight of whose calves inspired instant and respectful admiration to the exclusion of other portions of his rotundity. There, too, was Schlauss Hyman, A. B., M. D., B. Sc., (and some other things which elude our memory) who was, not to put too fine a point on it, skinny; and a spectacle of whose large head and features on his insignificant frame was somewhat amazing. Also——
It would appear that fate wishes to have them in the sea before their time; so to circumvent that stern lady, we will forget all about those same bathing-suits for the moment and antedate the donning of them by some little time—say a few hours. At the particular moment in question Pursey Ochs, Schlauss Hyman, and Hopworth K. Dreen sat in the smoking-room of the P. M. S. S. Sultana and discussed matters appertaining to the human soul, what was best to eat, and Miss Dorothy Gordon. They also spoke of other things, many other things; and they included Mr. J. B. Brent among the things. They did not like Mr. Brent overwell.
The men had never met before they boarded the boat at San Francisco; but Schlauss Hyman and Pursey Ochs had heard much of one another, for they were both very well-known men. Mr. Ochs edited the Daily Star, of St. Louis, and had become a national figure in the last presidential election because of the verbal vitriol hurled by him at one of the candidates. Mr. Ochs was an iconoclast, and never happy unless he had something to smash. He was a young man, hardly more than thirty, and had won his way upward from the ranks by sheer force of personal magnetism and ability. He was, as has been before stated, stout. He acknowledged this, but denied indignantly that he was fat; and, after all, he should know.
Schlauss Hyman was in his own little niche of fame through having successfully operated on a semi-billionaire's daughter when the specialists of America and Europe had given her up for lost. At that time no one had heard of him; afterward he made it generally known that he could be seen by appointment only, and even that kept him very busy.
When Dreen recalled himself to them, they remembered him, too; for Hopworth K. Dreen had been somewhat famous through the sporting-pages of the newspapers of some five years before, when the gridiron of Old Eli resounded with his name, yelled from thousands of throats. He had been half-back on the eleven at the time. That was his day. After he left college he was surprised that people forgot him so quickly. That was his grievance. His father had left him many thousands of acres of cattle-grazing country in Wyoming; and he spent some of his time upon them, interfering with the foreman and the manager.
He was a large-framed, handsome fellow with a crop of auburn curls that fell over his forehead, which, to tell truth, was none too high and receded a trifle. He was very proud of his enormous strength, and was forever calling attention to it. His nose was quite Grecian in its chiseling, his mouth much too small, and his eyes were gray, large, and luminous. He was a very vain young man, with an idea that women were made for the sole purpose of admiring and loving him.
His was the chief grudge against Mr. J. B. Brent, for Mr. Brent had, to a certain extent, removed the fair flush from the last idea. Mr. Dreen did not like Mr. Brent at all.
“Oily beggar,” said Mr. Dreen. “But some women have such mighty poor taste!” He was referring to Miss Dorothy Gordon. The remark was called forth by looking through the port-hole nearest him and seeing Miss Gordon and Mr. Brent passing, arm in arm, Brent talking and Miss Gordon listening with flattering intensity.
“Whats that?” asked Pursey Ochs, clicking his tongue against the butt of his cigar and getting it into a corner of his mouth. He was never known to touch his cigar with his fingers after once placing the weed in his mouth. He closed one eye to keep the smoke out of it, and looked at Hopworth K. Dreen. “What say?” he asked.
“Nothing,” replied Mr. Dreen sulkily. He picked up a book which Ochs had laid face downward on one of the little card-tables. Carelessly he turned over the pages.
“And so,” continued Pursey Ochs, still speaking to Doctor Schlauss Hyman, “this gentleman came up to see me, full of beer and bad intentions. Also with a long blacksnake whip. Says the office boy to him: 'Mr. Ochs ain't in.' Says the gentleman: 'Don't lie to me, I know he is in; and, what's more, when I find him, I'm going to cut him into ribbons with this here whip I got.' On hearing those cheerful words, I guess you think I walked out into that anteroom and boldly bade him defiance. You guess wrong, doc. I climbed into my spike-tail, turned my cuffs to the clean side, and shinned down the fire-escape. That's what I did. And they do say that the gentleman beat up the assistant city editor under the impression that he was J. P. Ochs. Either that or the assistant city editor went on a bat and fell into a tar-barrel. Only those two things would account for his blackened condition.”
“Say,” broke in Hopworth K. Dreen, always mindful of his good manners and with fine consideration for the conversation of others, “this book any good, Pursey?”
Ochs, not in the least angered, smiled genially upon him. “I was coming to that,” said he. “I'd have been there if you'd given me another minute. The book—oh, that! You mean 'The Wild Places'? I have been reading it, and have been boring myself extremely. It's the story of some civilized men suddenly dumped into uncivilized conditions. It's the story of the triumph of muscle over brains. It's puerile.”
Mr. Brent, entering at that moment, smiled. When he smiled his nostrils quivered upward derisively. It was not really a smile at all, it was a sneer. There were few things which made Mr. Pursey Ochs forget that he was an impartial critic and one who allowed personal feelings to influence him not at all—Mr. Brent's sneer was one of these few.
“Why does it bore me? I'll tell you,” continued Pursey Ochs, becoming suddenly very earnest. “Because it tells of a condition of things that doesn't interest me. Because we're living in a civilized age. Because the story doesn't touch vitally on our lives. Besides, it's melodramatic and crudely written. It has no literary style. It—— May I ask what amuses you, Mr. Brent?”
For Brent, lazily contemplating his cigarette, had sneered again.
“Nothing much,” yawned Brent. “I was only remembering. that several critics have spoken rather highly of the style, the construction, and the drama of the book.”
“Oh, well; opinions differ, of course. But leaving out the question of the book's literary value, I repeat my former statement that it has no vital interest for one living in this age. I take no interest in stories of brute force. I stand in no danger of preserving my life with my fists. If I did, I'd hire some burly ruffian, some roustabout to do my fighting for me. What is physical strength to a man of this age? A man in the professions or the higher trades—the civilized man of the better type—has no need for physical strength. Then, too, the book is greatly overdrawn, too highly colored.”
Mr. Brent smiled broadly.
“If you asked me why I smiled then,” he stated lazily, “I'd say I was amused by your talking about a subject of which you know nothing. What do you know of the conditions the writer pictures? Eh? Nothing. And if it doesn't appeal to you, think of the thousands who've gone through similar experiences, who have lived in the wilds, who know men as they are without the gaudy trappings, the hypocrisies of the little civilizations. You've lived among that sort of thing all your life, and you don't know anything about anything else. A few months in that atmosphere”—he tapped the book—“would do a lot for you, Ochs!”
He sauntered out again on the deck quite as lazily as he had entered. Two girls, turning a curve, ran into him. He drew back, bowed urbanely, smiled, and they sat down, one on each side of Brent, while he talked to them. The three men in the smoking-room had watched this little proceeding. Pursey Ochs drew a long breath, then whistled.
“Well, of all the corrosive-sublimated nerve!” he ejaculated, with something like admiration. “If a large-boned, heavy-fisted, rough-speeched, hairy man had said all that to me I'd have listened with some respect. But that!” He gazed out again, his eyes fixed Brent. “Why, he's the most perfect representative of all that's effete in Eastern civilization.”
And indeed, looking at Mr. J. B. Brent, one was inclined to agree with Pursey Ochs. Brent was slim, his hands and feet were small, and his waist hardly more than twenty-eight inches. He had the appearance of the supercivilized, the overnice. He was so minutely shaven that his round, full face had the appearance of being without hirsute growth. His hair was carefully cut, not a single strand out of place, the whole appearance being that of extremely careful grooming. His eyes were, for the most part of his time, half-covered by the lids so that his eyelashes touched his cheek. It was in this attitude of profound languor he was most to be found. His lips, being half the time parted in his cynical smile, gave the impression of a loose jaw and a chin none too strong. But when those lips closed, the jawbones came into sudden prominence and the chin jutted out stubbornly. Then, too, when he raised his eyes, there was a glint in their brown depths that was quite disquieting to the man upon whom they looked in anger,
He was in white flannels now, which fitted his slim form at every bend and curve, seemingly molded upon him. All in all, the casual observer would have adjudged him a dandy without any particular strength of character, and dismissed him altogether. Miss Dorothy Gordon, however, was not one of the casual ones. She came up now, having previously descended from the upper deck. Immediately she hastened toward him.
“The captain says 'can do,'” she said, as she halted before Brent and his two fair companions. Brent arose and inclined his hand toward the seat he had vacated. The girls looked on Miss Gordon with animosity.
She was a slim, graceful girl, maybe four seasons out. First of all, she was bewitchingly feminine. All her actions, everything she said, her very unconscious gestures impressed that upon the mind of the man who beheld her. Much of her charm was in her easy grace of movement, more of it in the glory of her pale-gold hair.
So she stood now before Brent, her short skirts blowing about her in the slight tropical breeze, a few strands of her hair fluttering loose and catching the sunlight. The other girls, noting Brent's abstraction, got up and continued their constitutional.
“He says it's all right, and he's glad we're to have such a perfectly delightful day for it,” she said. “So in just about half an hour he's going to bring the ship around—or is it 'bring it to'?—some fearfully complicated thing like that. Anyhow, he's going to stop it, and lower the net from the ship, so as to protect us from sharks, or anything horrid; and we're to swim inside the net and have a time—such a time! My aunt doesn't want me to go; but I think she's so foolish about those thing's. Anyhow, they're going to lower a boat, and when we get tired we can climb in. We're only to have half an hour, so you'd better hurry and get on your bathing-suit, Mr. Brent, or you'll miss some of the time. You know it's a regular thing to do this on mail steamers when enough of the passengers ask, but they seem to be such a stupid lot this trip——”
By this time Messrs. Ochs, Hyman, and Dreen were standing near-by. “Don't you want to go swimming?” she asked brightly, and informed them as to the method. “Or are you afraid to go down in that awful-looking ocean?”
“Not much,” replied Dreen.
“I should say not,” snorted the eminent surgeon, Doctor Hyman.
“Huh!” derided the editor of the Daily Star.
“Well, then, all of you hurry and get on your bathing-suits and come along. I want you to, anyhow. It looks so selfish for just Mr. Brent and me to be swimming, and some of these mean-minded people on board will say the captain didn't have any right to stop the ship if just we two are swimming. So you do it, too. I shall be angry if you don't.” She turned her eyes on Dreen. “I know you'll be a good swimmer,” she said, “and you must look just fine in a bathing-suit. Oh!” she smiled a little and looked away. Dreen's chest swelled an inch, and he cleared his throat.
“Hurry!” admonished Miss Dorothy, and walked off toward the entrance to the saloon.
When Brent came on deck in his bathing-suit, he was greeted with quite a few admiring looks from the feminine portion of the passengers. Brent's slim form and rather delicate look were quite belied by his appearance in the short jersey, open at the chest, and leaving the shoulders and arms bare. His skin, while very white, showed beneath it curves and ridges of muscle; and when he leaped to the accommodation bridge, which had been let down, and the muscles were brought into play, the spectators noted this fact. The majority of the passengers were crowded on the larboard side along the taffrails of the saloon and boat-decks, watching Dorothy Gordon and Hopworth Dreen, who were already in the water below and were performing various aquatic feats for their audience.
Brent descended the accommodation ladder and joined them, the sailor detailed to keep a lookout for the swimmers making way for him on the lower steps. One of the ship's boats had been swung from its davits, and was moored to the ladder by a rope. The long, wide, wire enclosure had been securely fastened to an adjustable crane above and secured by several stanchions; There seemed positively to be no danger in the indulgence of one's desire for a swim. The day was a typically tropical one and the water tepid. Overhead was the blazing sun of mid-afternoon, its rays so charged with heat that some of the tar in the boat-deck had run.
They were very near the equator in truth, for the Sultana, after touching at the Japanese and Chinese ports, had left Hongkong a day behind, and had but two days to go before the vessel would reach Manila, its final destination. Miss Dorothy Gordon and her aunt were en tour, with the idea of circling the globe; and intended to take a peep at the Philippines on the way. Doctor Schlauss Hyman had been designated by the United States to inspect the hospitals of the Philippine civil government, and make a detailed report on the same (for which the United States Treasury would disgorge a very large fee, and all his expenses). J. Pursey Ochs, dissatisfied with the varying reports he had heard as to the Philippines, was on a little tour of inspection himself for the benefit of the Daily Star; while Hopworth K. Dreen was traveling for the want of something better to do. Brent had given no information as to himself or his reasons for going to the islands.
The five people in question were all splashing about and making considerable spray and noise. Ochs, breathing fatly, was taking good care not to get more than a few feet from the boat, at which, every few minutes, he clutched spasmodically. Dreen and Brent were swimming abreast with Dorothy Gordon, each one endeavoring to outdo the other. These three were excellent swimmers, Miss Dorothy having as strong a stroke as it was reported she had a firm bridle-hand for a cross-country jump. Pursey Ochs was hopelessly bad, and Schlauss Hyman seemed to take but little interest in the sport. He had come down chiefly to show that he was not afraid of the “awful ocean.” So had Ochs.
To this day not one of the five can tell you how the thing happened. The sun was shining and giving out intense heat. The clouds were bluey-white, and sailed lazily through an endless vista of ultramarine. All was peaceful, hot, and languid. The following minute held in it sudden cries of warning. All at once the sun hid itself, the sky darkened, then went almost into inky blackness. The waters surged and trembled. A rod before the ship danced a whirling spiral column, increasing in height as it approached, sizzling like a miniature geyser.
“Typhoon!” people cried instinctively. The sailor on the steps yelled a warning. “Quick! Climb aboard! For God's sake, lady, come quick!”
Dreen and Brent suddenly seized Dorothy Gordon, and by sheer strength pulled her toward the ship. Something crashed. They clutched for the nearest solid thing. All was in intense blackness. Their fingers encountered the side of the ship's boat. They clutched and held on. The waves dashed over them.
“Hold tight!” cried Brent, and there was something like anguish in his tones. “Hold tight!”
Dorothy Gordon, coughing out the black water, caught the side of the boat. Brent's arm encircled her like a vise. For all her terror and fright, she felt a curious feeling of safety. Dreen had taken his arm away, appalled for the moment by the intensity of the thing. Something parted, and the boat raced away over the seething sea. The great fog-horn of the Sultana was shrieking out something; the shrieks became less and less distinct. They had little time to think of things like sounds. Their arms were strained to the sockets; and had not Brent. held her so tightly the girl might have lost her grip.
They seemed to be on some enormous springing board that sent them hurtling hundreds of feet in air, only to be dashed down with the same startling velocity. The water was in their noses, their ears, their mouths. Half-stifled groans and sputtering from the other side of the boat told them that there were others in their plight; and Brent, cool-headed now that he knew what had happened, recognized the tones of Pursey Ochs and Schlauss Hyman. Ochs was cursing steadily and fluently whenever the water gave him a chance, his curses ending half the time in shudders and coughing out of water. Hyman was spitting out water and praying rapidly, using long prayers from the Torah, which had come back to him in this his time of need.
But Brent had little time to speculate on what the other men were thinking or doing. He had his arm about Dorothy Gordon, and the strain upon him was severe. The others were holding on with both hands, and were consequently better off than he who had only one hand to support his weight and part of Miss Dorothy's, also. The palm of this hand was lacerated and bleeding, for he had, unwittingly, caught one of the boat's tholes and dared not release his hold for a second. His knuckles seemed to be bursting out of their skin covering, and his muscles were growing very weak and sore. Only the stern will of the man kept his hold secure.
“Keep your nerve, little girl,” he shouted over and over again, above the raging tumult of the elements. “It can't last much longer. Keep your nerve. Don't faint now or do anything like that. I'm going to see you through this.”
He did not say all this at once. It came in jerky, spasmodic sentences whenever he could free his mouth of the acrid water. And once he heard her answer in a low quavering sort of tone: “I'm not going to faint. Please hold on yourself. Please hold——”
Above, the black sky lowered threateningly, and the water, equally black, hurled itself against them as a mighty general sends out troop after troop to carry an enemy's position. The tempest shrieked and stormed in their ears. Some fluttering sea-birds screamed pitifully, and, folding their wings, sank to the level of the sea, where they flew just above the waves. One with a broken pinion sank into the water and was carried high on a foam-crested wave, almost as high as he had flown.
Such a time is interminable. They did not measure it in minutes, or hours, these unfortunates clinging to the boat; but held on to life grimly, hoping for respite, hoping against hope. The boat was full of water; only its air-tight chambers prevented it from sinking. Now, when a wave caught them, they went below water each time, and came up gasping for air and taking great mouthfuls of it while they might. They could no longer hold themselves to the level of their chins. It was all they could do to hold on at the full length of their arms.
And then, of a sudden, the wind died down and became a mere rustling zephyr. Little by little, as a millpond which has been disturbed in its placidity by the heaving-in of a great rock, the waves ceased to rush and roar, and began to lick the castaways gently, almost lovingly, as would pet dogs. The sky showed patches of rosy-red and baby-blue. Once again they noted that it was warm.
And then a sunbeam filtered through the clouds. A sea-mew shrilled out a joyous note. All was again the world of sunshine.

### II.

Naturally, the first action of all of them was to release one hand, put it to their eyes, and get them free of their saline encrustation. Then they blinked at one another. Dorothy Gordon, following the impulse of womenkind, put her hand to her hair.
“Salt water is so bad for it,” she complained.
Brent looked at her, admiration and tenderness swelling his breast and making him forgetful of his pain. “Well,” he gasped, “you are a plucky kid, you certainly are!”
He shifted his lacerated hand from the boat-thole and caught weakly at the side with the other. The salt water getting into his cuts made them very raw, and they smarted and pained.
He looked across at Pursey Ochs and Schlauss Hyman, who were hanging on dejectedly, their heads down, breathing rapidly in short, painful pants. Dreen had his head against the side of the boat, and convulsive shudders shook his frame.
“Well,” said Brent, “the first thing to do is to get into the boat. Miss Dorothy, suppose you climb in and try to bail out some of that water. At any rate, go first.”
She gave a weak, little laugh, and attempted to raise herself into the boat, but promptly lost her hold and went back to the full length of her arms. Her head went under water.
“I can't,” she gasped, as she came up. “You'll have to do it, Mr. Brent.”
Brent caught the sides of the boat. The pain was fearful. He set his teeth, took a long breath, and drew himself steadily up until his shoulders were on a level with the boat-tholes, then let loose and floundered in. The boat trembled visibly. Brent got far in and found that he was standing in water up to the middle of the lower part of his legs.
“Have to get this water out somehow,” he said; and began to rummage into the locker. He found what he desired, a tin bucket bailer, and immediately set to work dashing the water out of the boat. His first bucketful fell on Hopworth K. Dreen.
“Say, what the devil are you doing?” inquired Mr. Dreen, with acidity.
“Bailing the boat. And, say, Dreen, don't forget that Miss Gordon's along with us.”
Dreen raised his head for the first time and surveyed Dorothy, then looked away at the horizon. He was rather a simple-minded young man, and could not exactly puzzle out what he ought to say under the circumstances.
“Fearful weather, wasn't it?” he finally evolved, turning to her.
His remark was greeted by a hoarse laugh. Mr. Pursey Ochs' stout, but no longer rubicund, countenance was in his direct line of vision across the way.
“What do you think this is?” asked Mr. Ochs, with bitter irony. “A picnic-party caught on the lake with the Sunday-school teacher waiting on the shore with the ice-cream?”
“Oh, you shut up!” was Mr. Dreen's surly response. “Nobody's talking to you, anyhow.”
Dorothy Gordon noted that the voices of both men were slightly changed; that they lacked an indefinable something that they had once had. She could not explain what it was.
Schlauss Hyman looked up wearily, his beard and mustache soaked into, respectively, a triangle and a horizontal line.
“You look like a drowned rat, doc,” Dreen informed him, with a malicious grin.
“Puppies generally know rats when they see them, so you ought to know,” replied Hyman viciously, as he surveyed Dreen with his gimletlike eyes, now brighter than ever with pain, suffering, and mental anguish.
“And now what do I look like?” Dorothy was intent in getting the subject off a disagreeable turn, and she tried to smile bravely, although her arms pained her more than she had ever imagined anything might.
“Oh! you look all right,” responded Dreen bruskly.
“Sure you do,” added Mr. Ochs.
“Like a mermaid,” murmured the doctor, surveying her, his eyes getting soft again. “And you are a very brave young lady, Miss Gordon.”
“Sure you are,” confirmed Mr. Ochs.
“Of——”
“This is no Greek chorus,” broke in Brent impatiently. “My arms are pretty tired. Get into the boat here, Dreen, and bail the rest of it out.”
Mr. Dreen resented the tone. “I don't feel like bailing,” said he. “And when you want me to do a thing, you ask me civilly, Mr. Brent.”
Dorothy noted that Brent's jaws came together with a vicious snap. She had never shared the common opinion of Brent, and had always known of the existence of that strong chin and jaw; but never before had she seen the man look so sinister. It was but for a brief second or two, and the girl's heart almost stood still; then he reached out a hand to Pursey Ochs and bade him to his duty.
But Pursey Ochs asseverated strongly that he was unable to drag himself into the boat. Besides, he pointed out, with great sense and judgment of equilibrium, that the removal of his weight from that side of the boat would doubtless cause an upsetting.
“Take Hyman, there. He don't weigh more than a pound of candles. Haul him in.”
The little doctor cast a look upon Mr. Ochs that was by no means a pleasant one; but he said nothing, only with a great tug raising himself to the boat-tholes, where he hung, red-faced and unable to get farther. Brent, with the last of his strength, aided him into the boat, then sat down heavily, his face in the throes of pain. But almost as he sat down he got up again, remembering Dorothy Gordon.
“Come,” he said, getting down on his knees and stretching out his hands. “Hyman, go on the other side of the boat so as to balance it. Now, Miss Dorothy, help all you can, for I'm feeling rather weak.”
By dint of their combined efforts she was pulled into the boat and sat down on one of the seats, Brent doing likewise. She looked at her pink palms now corrugated into little ridges from holding on to the sides, and, horror of horrors, found they were stained with blood. She put her hands over the side and washed them off, finding to her joy that she was not cut. A puzzled look came into her face. Suddenly she took Brent's palms in hers, and saw their fearful condition.
“Oh, Mr. Brent!” she wailed. “Your poor hands, your poor hands!”
He shrugged his shoulders, keeping the pain from his face. Looking away from her, he saw that Dreen was rocking the boat by attempting to clamber in.
“Don't do that,” commanded Brent sharply. “You and Ochs are balances for one another until we get the boat bailed out. Stay where you are——”
Dreen eyed him venomously. “Who are you, to give orders?” he snarled. “I'm tired of hanging on here—aren't you, Ochs?”
But Ochs, weak and flabby as he was, possessing little strength, and in considerable torture, was above quarreling with the things that had to be.
“Forget it,” he advised. “Stay where you are.”
The owner of great ranch-lands in Wyoming thought otherwise, and said so.
“If you try to get in this boat until it's bailed, I'll knock you flat back into the water,” said Brent coldly. Dreen surveyed the situation, found that Brent had the master-hand, and sank back.
“When we get somewhere—on dry land or on a ship—I'll fix your business, Mr. Brent,” he growled.
The girl meanwhile had taken the bailing bucket from the exhausted Hyman, and was throwing out the last few bucketsful of water. Hyman sat down, groaning, and his eyes stared away to the horizon.
“No sign of the Sultana,” he said.
“No.”
“What's become of her? What are we to do?” The surgeon's tones were despairing.
Brent shrugged his shoulders.
“There aren't any oars, any provisions, any water—there's nothing at all!”
Brent repeated the shrug, adding, in a whisper: “It would be better not to alarm the girl too much, Hyman.” He supplemented the words by a look which meant that Hyman would understand. The little surgeon ceased to speak, but his eyes were all the more eloquent.
“Naturally,” Brent began, in an even tone, “the Sultana had all it could do to take care of itself in a typhoon. For any one to have attempted to rescue us would have meant certain death to them. Those typhoons come very seldom, but when they do, there's no human power can withstand them. We may be fortunate to be off the Sultana. She may be at the bottom of the sea now. Anything that offers any resistance is bound to suffer badly. We and our little boat were simply carried before the storm. We may be fifty or a hundred miles from where we were when the storm began. The Sultana may be more than that, and probably is, in an opposite direction. But for all of that, we're——”
They were interrupted by a sudden cry from the girl.
“Look—ahead. Land! Land!” she cried, her voice half-doubting but wishful of being joyous.
Every one of the four stared in the direction of her outstretched finger. Rising out of the sea, its white sands glittering in the fading sunlight of late afternoon, was undoubtedly land of a sort which seemed suddenly lifted into prominence as the fog-bank before them rolled away.
“Land!” said each one.
Pursey Ochs and Dreen had received permission to clamber into the boat by this time, and, weak and bedraggled, crouched in the stern. Dorothy Gordon at the bow was on one knee, her eyes fixed on the green and silver of the Promised Land.
“It's an island,” she said.
The tide was bringing them rapidly in. They could see now that the island was one mass of palms, herbage, and ferns. The rocks that rose on either side of the landing-place were green with verdure. A little brook trickled down between these great rocks, making a miniature waterfall like a silver cord suspended in mid-air. Behind the rocks and on the wooded slopes grew cocoanut-palms, dragon; camphor, and sandalwood-trees.
Looking over the side of the boat as it drifted over the sand-bar, they could see the rocks at the bottom of the translucent green water, the little fishes, lizards, and leeches disporting themselves in its depths, and near the course of the boat the pale-pink of a coral reef.
Their reflections were cut short by the grinding of the boat's keel on the sand. Brent leaped out in water up to his waist, and, unmindful of his hands, seized the hawser and dragged at it. The others were quick to follow his example, and they dragged the boat high and dry on the dazzling white sands, considerably above the high-water mark as indicated by the conch-shells and mollusks.
Then they turned and surveyed one another. Four men and a girl on an island without food or the means with which to procure it, and with no attire save only the bathing-suits in which they stood.
They were silent for some time; then Brent spoke.
“It's getting on toward evening,” he said. “We've got to get some sort of shelter, and we've got to have something to eat. I vote on a tour of exploration. This island ought to be inhabited. It's got a good harbor, and it's a beautiful. place. The chances are that it is inhabited, and I think we'd better find out.”
There was sound sense in what he said, and, although each and every one of them felt too tired to move a step, they knew the dangers of the unprotected tropical night, with its sudden chills, its fever mosquitoes, its creeping things, and other unpleasant details. Something like a road had evidently been blazed up the wooded incline, and to this Brent turned his footsteps, the others following.
The stones and flinty rocks, the thorns, the sticking cactus all hurt his feet; but Brent knew that the thing must be done. They passed through a wilderness of orchids, sweet and sickly, and blazing at them the colors of the rainbow; parrakeets screamed at them from overhead, and monkeys chattered volubly and eyed the newcomers with disfavor.
The air was very sweet, too sweet, with the odors of the Far East, sandalwood, camphor, ylang-ylang. Brent, who knew the tropics, knew that that very sweetness spelt poison sometimes, and that he put his foot among the flowers and shrubbery at the risk of his life, for each and every one of the beautiful plants might conceal a reptile or a poisonous insect.
Human beings had evidently been this way before. The pathway was a proof of this. And when they reached the crest of the hill, they no longer doubted. For there, set in the center of a circle of palm-trees, was a very complete bungalow, built after the most approved Hongkong fashion, shingled, not thatched; with a wide veranda and colonial pillars before the door; with a brick chimney and a weather-vane, dormer-windows in the attic, and other evidences of either European or American construction. Other palms and trees had been cut down to make a garden about the house, which was laid out in beds and had neat graveled walks. But for all of that, the place had the look of desolation.
Brent dashed forward and climbed to the veranda. There was an electric bell-button, and this Brent pushed. He heard the buzzer resound throughout the house. The others joined him on the steps. There was a silence, in which all held their breath. But no response came from within. Brent, angered, hammered upon the door with the back of his hand. Again they waited, but the silence was as enduring as before. Then Brent put his hand upon the bronzed knob and turned it. The door opened easily, and Brent stood gaping.
“Do you think we'd better go in?” asked Dorothy Gordon.
“Yes,” replied Brent, without further uncertainty.
“Its a devil of a thing to go into somebody else's house without by your leave,” grumbled Hopworth K. Dreen.
“Never you mind about that, my boy,” was Ochs' contribution. “We may be able to get a drink—and something to eat.”
Brent stood back and motioned for Dorothy to enter. She did so. The others followed. The late afternoon sunlight, trickling through the palms outside, cast a greenish-golden light into the place.
The door opened in a sort of reception-hall, which had a fireplace in the center. It was furnished with a long table on which lay some books and magazines, a number of straight-backed rattan chairs, two rockers, and a lounging chair, all of green wickerwork. There was a combination writing-desk and bookcase in one corner, the bookcase having diamond-squared panes behind which glinted the titles of more books.
Brent picked up some of the volumes on the table. There were two on military tactics in Spanish, and one in German, a volume of Guy de Maupassant and another of Paul de Kock in French, an American “best-seller” of the previous year, and, paradox of para-doxes, an English edition of Harrison Ainsworth's most impossible attempt, “The Lancashire Witches.” Of periodicals there were many, among which Brent noted the Paris Figaro; the Matador and La Reina, of Madrid; the Kladderadatsch, of Berlin; the Army and Navy Journal, of Washington, D. C., and several other American magazines of the fictional order; one literary journal, and a copy of the Manila weekly, the Sunday Sun. Such a peculiar assortment was indicative of only one thing, a very cosmopolitan taste.
Brent looked up and saw that Ochs, Hyman, and Dreen had gone to explore more distant parts of the house. His eyes fell on Dorothy Gordon, who was standing near the window reading what seemed to be a letter, a flush of excitement on her cheeks. He moved a step closer, almost oblivious of the fact. It was at that moment she turned.
“I found this on the mantel,” she said. “Over there.” She pointed to the slab above the fireplace. “It was unsealed, and I opened it. I don't quite understand. It seems to be some sort of a letter from the people who built this place to the people whom they expect to occupy it.”
She held out the letter. It was written in English, but in a curious, stilted verbiage, while the hand that traced the letters was evidently more accustomed to drawing ideographs. The letter began with a formal “To,” and then followed the names of six men. Brent saw no further. He read them slowly, and with a curious persistency reread them aloud:
“Señor Don Ambrosino de Araza y Tagliono.
Herr Froehlich von Klingen.
Señor Don Bernardo Esperaso.
Mr. Charles Carr Conkling.
Señor Leon Aorto.
Mr. Moses Greenbaum.”
There was a sharp ejaculation from Brent, and the paper fluttered to the table.
The girl drew a step closer, and put her hand on his arm. “What's the matter, Mr. Brent?” she asked anxiously. “I hope nothing's gone wrong.”
He laughed harshly. “You heard those names?” he demanded, his eyes suddenly hard.
“Yes.” Her heart was fluttering. She felt that some grim evil was impending.
“They mean nothing to you?” he asked again; but before she could answer, Dreen came into the room followed by Hyman, Ochs lumbering up in the rear.
“Say, this house is all to the good!” shouted Dreen. “There's a kitchen and cooking-range. There's some prime food in the ice-box, and all the canned stuff we could eat in three months. There's lots of good whisky, and some champagne and cigars and cigarettes, and——”
“Up-stairs there are eight bedrooms, all gotten up in extremely good taste,” broke in Hyman. “And a supply of clean underlinen and pajamas in each; and, hanging up in the closets, are no end of uniforms, white and khaki cloth, with gold insignia on them that I've never seen before. There are half a dozen suits of each. This place must belong to some army officers. Look here!”
For Brent's inspection he handed him one of the tunics which he had discovered. It had red piping down the seams in front, and an imitation cuff of thin red braid, which Brent saw was detachable. The piping ran along the upper and lower seams Of the collar, and to each side of the collar was fastened gold insignia, which turned out to be palm-trees in miniature, with the letters “R. F.” on either side.
“It looks like a Philippines Constabulary uniform, all except the insignia,” said Brent, examining it closely. “But it isn't.”
“What is it, then?” demanded Dreen importantly.
“Republicas Filipinas,” responded Brent, rather pale. “Which means the Republic of the Philippines; that's what those letters stand for.”
Pursey Ochs laughed. “But there isn't such a thing,” he objected.
“Not now,” said Brent ominously. “But listen to this! Here's a letter that Miss Gordon found on the mantel. It may explain a good many things to us. Listen to these names!”
He read them slowly. Pursey Ochs gave a quick staccato exclamation after hearing each one of them.
“You recognize them, too, Ochs?” asked Brent, looking over the paper at him. “But as the others don't, I'll explain. These six men, three Filipino mestizos (half-castes), a German smuggler, a Jew contractor, and one nondescript cutthroat—English, American, just as you like—form what is known as the 'Philippine Junta,' and their nest is in Hongkong. There most of the schemes that bring about revolutions in the Philippines are hatched. These men give it out that they intend to make an independent republic out of the Philippines. Let's read the rest of the letter now. It's addressed to these six men. Listen:
“The house, excellencies, is built and well provisioned. No man who built the house knows where he builded, nor for what purpose. The arsenal contains ten thousand rifles from the Tokio Government Arms Manufactory, and three hundred thousand rounds of ammunition. There are also ten thousand uniforms of khaki for the common soldiers, and several hundred of all sizes for the officers, together with the many thousand of the gilt insignia. In the arsenal there are also ten Maxim rapid-firing guns, with a quantity of our Shimose explosives and shells. The canned stores will also be found there.
“Enclosed is a requisition blank, which you will please check from goods delivered, to see that all is as rendered.
“The battle-ship cannot be sent; but a merchant vessel formerly of the Maru Line has been armored, and is being sent south at this writing. She will carry, ostensibly as passengers, as many recruits for the cause as possible. She will be commanded by Captain Rolf Arundsen, who has been of service to us before, and of whom you have doubtless heard.
“Your cause is being agitated in Tokio, and ere long will bring forth more results.
“The Maru boat will carry more rifles, heavy guns, and shells.”
Brent looked up. “You realize what that letter means, gentlemen?” he asked seriously.
“I've got a blamed good guess,” responded Pursey Ochs.
Dreen, Hyman, and Dorothy Gordon all looked equally puzzled.
“Tell them, Ochs,” commanded Brent.
“Well,” began the fluent one, a little hesitant now and groping for words, “it looks like these disreputable gentlemen in Hongkong have drawn a full house for once, and are keeping the fact remarkably still. Opponent, being quite unaware of the extremely good hand held, is lulled into security, and when he wakes up he is a forlorn hope with deuces and trays.”
“Speak plainly, man,” said Brent sharply. “This poker stuff is all very well for a humorous monologue; but we're down to hard-pan now, and have got to do some remarkably quick thinking. Ochs has got the thing straight all right enough in his mind. This island is to be the rendezvous from which an invasion of the Philippines will be directed. This house, those buildings to the back, were built for the purposes for which the Junta intended them by Japanese workmen. These stores were furnished by Japan; also the arms and ammunition. Japan is secretly back of the whole affair. Can't you see that?”
“I must confess I don't understand, for one,” complained Doctor Schlauss Hyman.
“Then you're an ass,” was Brent's uncompromising assertion. “People, we've stumbled into one of the biggest situations of the age, and you're slow to catch on to the fact. Listen! I've been out in this country before. I know the Philippines, China, and Japan, the whole Orient, as well as the average man who has lived out here. I know Japan wants these same Philippines. She has an idea of extending her island empire right down along the coast of Asia. She wants the Philippines; but not badly enough to go to war with us for them. But by instigating a rebellion, and putting the United States to great losses, she can then go to the United States, and say: 'See here, those islands are no good to you. You have trouble with them right along. You are our friend. We will buy the islands from you, and put down the revolt ourselves.' Now, public feeling is pretty strong in the States about these same islands. People back there would object to any more lives being lost, and public pressure would be brought to bear which would make us accede to Japan's offer. Japan would promptly send down her army and wipe the rebellion off the map. She would then proceed to Japanize the islands, and all would be well. Oh, she's done that sort of thing before. That's the sort of a nation she is.”
He paused, out of breath. Dorothy Gordon was looking at him, her blue eyes glowing, a high color on her cheek, her hands clasped.
“Now, don't you see,” he continued, “how craftily Japan has done this? She sends all her arms and ammunition down here direct, builds the house, fixes everything, then clears out. Meanwhile word has been sent to the conspirators in Hongkong that the work has been completed. They have no doubt some sort of a ship at their disposal, manned by their own dependents, and they immediately set sail for the island to await the coming of the ship from Japan with the recruits. The mercenaries manning this ship have no doubt scoured every port in the Orient for available timber, and have, say, five hundred to a thousand white mercenaries who will do whatever they are told if they are paid enough and the prospects for loot are good. The ship then proceeds to this island, and the recruits are whipped into shape for a descent on the Philippines. If word is once spread in the islands that a full-fledged revolution is in sight, there'll be no holding those little brown devils back. I haven't the slightest doubt that the brown constabulary will desert and join the rebel standard. Say Japan had provided for some thirty thousand rifles. They can get that many Filipinos who understand the art of war. What chance would our few poor regiments have against them? None whatever. And the United States ten thousand miles away! Why, I tell you that within two weeks the Philippines would become in truth the Republicas Filipinas as sure as my name is Brent. You understand now, perhaps, the seriousness of the situation? The Philippines have been ripe for a big insurrection for a long time, but they lacked the money and the leaders with which to carry it on. Planned out as this one appears to be, there's small chance of failure, unless——”
“Unless?” echoed Dorothy Gordon, her face uplifted as one who hears the notes of a battle-cry afar.
“Unless we take a hand to prevent it. We are five of us here. Five of us, good Americans all, I hope. We were blown here by accident, or maybe by Providence, who knows? And I for one intend to try to prevent these arms here”—he waved his hands toward the back of the house—“from ever reaching the Philippines, or, for that, the ship either. Are you with me?”
“Yes,” came in Dorothy Gordon's clear treble. “Yes,” too, from Schlauss Hyman.
Pursey Ochs looked on with a somewhat sarcastic smile. “Granting, of course, my dear Brent, that what you say has some truth in it, I'm rather inclined to think we've bitten off a little more than we can chew. How in the mischief can we prevent anything?”
“I think it's all silly rot myself,” announced Hopworth K. Dreen. “You've got a great imagination, Brent. You ought to write fiction.”
Hopworth K. Dreen did not know just how much he hurt himself with Dorothy Gordon because of that remark. She flushed angrily, and cast a look toward Mr. Dreen, which he would not have appreciated had he seen it.
As for Brent, the sudden feverish excitement of the moment had left him, and he looked somewhat shamefaced, as all Anglo-Saxons do after having laid bare their secret souls to some other person.
“Well,” he said bruskly, almost gruffly, “we'll see what comes. You say there are uniforms up-stairs. I guess we'd better try to get into some of them. These wet things aren't doing us any special amount of good.”
He made off toward the stairway, and the others followed him.

### III.

There was considerable comparing of uniforms before the castaways decided which ones they would be most able to wear. It transpired that the uniforms tagged with the name of Don Ambrosino were a near fit for Brent; Von Klingen's much the same size as Ochs', and Señor Aorto's fitted Dreen passably well, although a trifle short in the legs, while that of Mr. Moses Greenbaum was an almost perfect fit for Doctor Schlauss Hyman.
Fortunately for Miss Gordon, Charles Carr Conkling proved to be a very small man, hardly more than a boy in size, and having an extremely small waist, and so when she had slipped into the tunic and trousers, she found herself tolerably well fitted. They had searched in vain for some women's garments, but had found none, and Dorothy Gordon was far too much the true woman to make objections to what could not be helped.
When she came down-stairs, she found, that it was growing dark, and, seeing a light gleaming in the back part of the house, she went toward it, and was amused by the spectacle which the lamp afforded her. Three of the men, all in uniform, were in the kitchen. Brent was opening a tin of corned beef with a carving-knife; Pursey Ochs, kneeling on some paper to prevent soiling the knees of his white trousers, was coaxing some wood into a blaze. A great pile of it, freshly chopped, had been discovered in the box, and visions of something to eat had impelled the three men to violent measures.
“Can you cook?” asked Schlauss Hyman, looking up from the ladling out of tomatoes from a can into a dish.
“Not very well,” she admitted, somewhat shamefacedly, and then her eyes brightened a trifle; “but I can make some fine coffee. I know I can do that.”
Brent's eyes were upon her, and she avoided their gaze. Hyman, pouring the last of the tomatoes into the dish, had seized upon the coffee scoop, and was bringing forth the same laden with the brown berry, which he placed in the nickel grinding-machine. Pursey Ochs had arisen from the floor ere this, and was contemplating with some pride, and many heaves of exhaustion, the blaze which crackled and sputtered.
“I'm going to do the cooking,” said Brent. “I know how, well enough.”
“Indeed, then, you are not,” she said suddenly and with spirit, producing from behind her back a jar of cold-cream which she had found in the medicinal-chest, and some linen bandages. “Your poor hand is simply torn to bits, and I'm going to bind it up for you; and if I can't cook well enough, we'll have a cold supper, so there!”
“Oh, nonsense!” he responded, the roughness in his voice being, as any one might see, assumed. “You——”
But she already had his lacerated hand, and with many little “Ohs” of pity, was daubing on the cream and applying the bandages. As she worked, she told the story of how he had come by the hand.
“Hm!” grunted Ochs, who never admired openly. “Any man would have done as much, Miss Gordon. I wish I had the chance.”
“So do I,” murmured Schlauss Hyman,
But Dorothy was in no mood to have the feat depreciated. “You might have wanted to, you know,” she admitted, “but you are not strong enough to hold on by one hand and hold me by the other. You know you're not, either of you—are you?”
“Oh, pshaw!” muttered Brent. “Don't make so much out of it, my dear girl. It wasn't because I wanted to do anything wonderful, but because I would have rather drowned than see you go under. That's the way any man feels. It wasn't a question of strength.”
“I should say not,” put in Dreen, from the doorway. “It was easy enough to do——”
“I noticed you took your hand away, Mr Dreen,” she said with sudden acidity. Pursey Ochs grinned. Schlauss Hyman laughed irritatingly.
“Well, what if I did?” demanded Dreen hotly. “I knew you were strong enough to hold on by yourself. Why, you've got as firm a wrist and hand——”
“Let it drop,” growled Brent. “Too much palaver—Dreen, you took a mighty long time to dress. Don't you suppose you've got some duties devolving upon you? You've got to work, my son, if you want to eat——”
Dreen looked at him, an angry light in his eyes. Then he squared his shoulders, and with side glance at Dorothy, who was preparing the coffee, he looked squarely at Brent.
“I want you to understand, first, last, and all the time, that I'll do what I please, and that I'll take no orders from you, Mr. Brent. Is that thing settled?”
“Not by any manner of means,” responded Brent quietly. “We'll settle it after we've made our meal. Until then you can help or not, just as you choose.”
Dorothy Gordon turned one eye from the coffee-pot to Hopworth K. Dreen. “I hope you are not going to make any trouble, Mr. Dreen,” she said.
Dreen's face was very red. “Trouble! I'm not making trouble, Miss Gordon. But I won't have Brent domineering over me. Who is he, anyway, to give orders, and expect me to obey?”
“We will discuss the matter after we have eaten, Dreen,” said Brent again; and this time there was something threatening in his tone. Dreen, with a half-choked word, stalked out of the room.
The castaways were very hungry, and it was a question of food far more than the cooking of it. So they lingered only while Dorothy made the coffee and opened a tin of biscuits before making preparations for eating.
The table in the dining-room had been covered by a white linen cloth by Brent; and he had garnished it with knives, forks, and plates. The discovery had been made that there was no butter, so a jar of honey had been opened and placed in the center of the table. After some stumbling about in the darkness outside, fearful of snakes and creeping things, but trying to appear sublimely unconscious of the fact, Schlauss Hyman had discovered a well, and the water from this had served to make the coffee, and to fill the water-bottle in the center of the table. Ochs came in bearing a platter of cold corned beef and toasted Saratoga chips, returning to fetch the biscuits, while Dorothy herself bore in the nickel-plated coffee-pot, and placed it at the head of the table.
Had it not been for Dreen they might have had a rather jolly supper-party. But that gentleman chose to adopt an attitude which threw the merriment of the party into repose for the while. He complained bitterly because there was no hot food, no fresh bread, and no butter. He took it as a personal affront because there were no vegetables. Schlauss Hyman wearily indicated the tomatoes.
“I mean something solid,” responded Dreen sulkily.
“You,” said Pursey Ochs, “are making a triple-plated, seven-boiler expansion, fourteen horse-power ass out of yourself.”
“You mind your own business,” was Mr. Dreen's somewhat childish retort.
“As I'm unfortunately linked in business with you at the present time, that's exactly what I'm doing,” responded Mr. Ochs; and promptly proceeded to tell a tale of a cub reporter he had once employed, and who, he said, reminded him of Dreen. The story was a joke on the cub reporter, and Dreen resented the invidious comparison.
He grew hot and flushed, and banged with his fist on the table. “You cut that out, Ochs, or I'll——” he began; but Brent was already on his feet.
“Dreen, you'll remember two things. One of them is that you're at the table, another that Miss Gordon is here; and if you can't remember them, I must request you to leave.”
“Is that so?” inquired Dreen, his ugliest look upon him. “Well, here we are, man to man, the whole lot of us. There's nobody to stop us from doing what we choose, and I choose to do as I please. How's that? Now, if there's a bigger man than me, let him say I sha'n't do what I choose. And let him prove he's a bigger man.'
“Remember,” said a very quietly, but with an ominous snap of the jaw, “that these things had better be settled when Miss Gordon is not here.”
“No,” said the girl. “I'm one of you. I've got on men's clothes. I've ridden cross-country as well as many men. I can row a boat better than some, and box as well as others. So just remember that I'm one of you—and, collectively, forget that I'm a girl. I think with all of you, that Mr. Dreen's conduct is disgraceful. If we were elsewhere, we should simply keep out of his way. As he's here, we have to accept him; but I for one don't care for his conduct.”
Dreen eyed her, his jaw somewhat fallen.
Brent took up the conversation. “Let it be as Miss Gordon has said. We are without organization, without a leader. There must be a head for everything; a person or persons responsible for the law being kept. Were we in the medical field, I should say for a leader Doctor Hyman; in newspaperdom, I should nominate Mr. Ochs; on the football-field, Mr. Dreen; at a hunt, Miss Gordon. But in the uncivilized wilds we come to my domain. I can do some things that none of you can do. I have been a soldier, and other things, among them an explorer. I am, perhaps, the strongest man in the lot. As the matter has been precipitated, I nominate myself for your leader, and request a seconding.”
“I second it,” voted Dorothy Gordon promptly. “All in favor, say aye.”
“Schlauss Hyman and Pursey Ochs eyed one another, then looked at Miss Gordon, who was watching them expectantly.
“Aye,” said Doctor Hyman.
“Aye,” repeated Mr. Ochs, although his expression seemed to betoken a mental reservation.
Hopworth K. Dreen arose from the table. His chair grated on the floor.
“Well, not much,” he said. “Not much.”
Brent arose also, and faced him. He was a few inches shorter than the other man, and his shoulders were not nearly as broad. But there was a settled sternness to his jaw and chin that the sullen obstinacy of Mr. Dreen did not match.
“There's only one thing to do, then,” said Brent quietly. “I've taken Miss Gordon's word that she doesn't want us to remember that she's a woman in these circumstances. So I tell you, Dreen, that, as the rest have chosen me for a leader, you've got to accept me. If you refuse——”
“I do refuse,” growled Dreen.
“Then I'll have to thrash you,” was Brent's quiet comment. “I suppose if you're thrashed, you'll acknowledge me—eh?”
Mr. Dreen surveyed him carefully, beginning at the points of Brent's canvas shoes and ending at his eyes. He laughed ironically.
“If you can thrash me, you're welcome,” he said. “I don't quarrel with men who can do that. When do you want to begin?”
“Now,” was Brent's prompt reply. “We'll go into the reception-hall and have it out. Agreed?”
Dorothy Gordon was on her feet immediately. “You can't fight with your hand in such a condition,” she cried.
Brent shrugged his.shoulders. “That makes no difference in one's hitting capacity,” he averred. “I don't fight with the palm of my hand. Come on, Dreen. Miss Gordon had better remain behind. Fights with fists are rather brutal things. I don't care to watch them myself. There are some candles in the hall, I think. Come along, Dreen.”
Dreen hesitated, his big body framed in the doorway. “If I thrash you,” he said, “I suppose I'm to be the leader?”
“Right you are,” replied Brent cheerfully. “If I'm defeated, I'll be the first to acknowledge you.”
The two men left the room, and the thud of their canvas shoes resounded in the hall. Dorothy Gordon, her face pale, looked at Pursey Ochs and Schlauss Hyman.
“I—I'm—afraid——” she began hesitatingly, then burst out: “Oh, it's so unnecessary. Why don't you go in and stop it?” she demanded fiercely, turning her eyes on the two men.
“It isn't our fault,” Schlauss Hyman reminded her.
“Not at all,” agreed Pursey Ochs, finding his tongue. “In a situation like this, a gentleman has to demonstrate his physical superiority. The weak bow down before the strong. Dreen was making himself disagreeable. We would have continual bickering if——”
He suddenly paused. Hyman was grinning at him.
“Remember that conversation we had about that book, 'The Wild Places,' Ochs?” he asked, smiles wreathing his face. “You said that a man who lives in this age, a civilized man, has no need for physical strength; that he can hire burly stevedores to do his fighting for him; that you were bored by the story because it didn't vitally interest you; didn't touch on your life——”
“That,” said Mr. Ochs, with some asperity, “referred to far different conditions and——”
The girl shivered as the sound of a body thumping heavily to the floor was plainly heard.
“Mr. Ochs,” she begged, “go in and stop them. It isn't fair, such a big man as Mr. Dreen fighting a man smaller than himself, and with an injured hand—that—he—got—by s-saving me——” her voice faltered a little.
Schlauss Hyman meanwhile had been studying the table-cloth with wrinkled brows, and looked up, oblivious of what had been said.
“'The Wild Places,'” he said suddenly. “That was written by Bauldwin Brent, wasn't it?”
“Yes, that was the gentleman's name,” replied Pursey Ochs. “I take back my criticism. He very likely knew what he was writing about—and, besides, I see things a little clearer now. Far as I remember, the chap ought to have known. He's been everything under the sun. I've written him up hundreds of times. Always doing some tool thing; soldiering here in China, and in the Sudan; exploring in Africa, trying to find the Pole—and——”
“I knew it,” cried Schlauss Hyman triumphantly. “I've been sure of it for three minutes fully——”
But the girl who had not heard was on her feet. “I'm going in to stop that fight,” she said determinedly. “Poor Mr. Brent——”
Schlauss Hyman laughed noisily. “Poor Mr. Brent!” he cried, in bitter scorn. “Poor Dreen! that's what I say. We were fools not to have known before. Why, Brent could take care of two like Dreen. Hasn't it ever dawned on you as to who he was?”
The girl looked at him, wonderingly; and Schlauss Hyman continued: “Why, we must have all been blind. Haven't you heard of Bauldwin Brent, author and general daredevil, revolutionist, explorer, duelist——”
The girl stared open-mouthed. “The Bauldwin Brent?” she asked, her tongue dry.
“The Bauldwin Brent—John Bauldwin Brent—J. B. Brent—and all the rest of it.”
Pursey Ochs began to laugh, too—laugh at his own lack of perspicacity.
“You don't mean?” questioned the girl.
Before she could be answered there was the sound of another heavy fall, and a quiet of a minute following. Then a man's footsteps were heard coming toward them.
“Poor Dreen!” said Hyman. “If he had known——”
Brent stood framed in the doorway. He was breathing a trifle audibly, but his appearance was as spotless as when he had quitted the room. His face was unmarked, and he was looking quite at his ease.
“There's Bauldwin Brent,” said Schlauss Hyman; “and what's more, he can't deny it.”
Brent nodded to them. “You'd better have a look at Dreen, Hyman,” he said. “I think he's only stunned a bit. I was very careful not to mark him in any way. I didn't want to hurt the boy.”
He came forward, and picking up his coffee-cup drained it.
“Look here,” said Ochs. “I'm sorry I made that criticism of your book, 'The Wild Places.' I take it back. I know a little more about such subjects now. And—Brent—I'm mighty glad to know you.”
Brent sighed. “All right, Ochs,” he said. “But I was hoping you wouldn't know. People seemed to expect me, as Bauldwin Brent, to do such queer, unheard-of things, and to make monstrously clever remarks. I was tired of it. I'm just an ordinary sort of fellow, who abides by the conventions when he's in civilization, and my reputation annoys me.” He turned to Dorothy Gordon. “It wasn't really a deception; but I'm sorry I didn't tell you at first. But, really, I was awfully tired of having people expect great things of me, and then be disappointed because I don't wear my hair long or keep a flaring mass of silk tied under a Byronic collar, or come to dinner in a flannel shirt, and show myself absolutely regardless of other people's feelings. Can't you understand how tired a man gets of being constantly watched and expected to perform like some monkey on a stick, or caged beast—or a—all that sort of thing?” He paused rather out of breath. “Anyhow, since it's out, forgive me, won't you?”
The tension of the moment was relieved by the entrance of Dreen, slightly supported by Hyman.
Dreen was rather pale, and was smiling his old, boyish smile. He was more like the Dreen they had first known when he came aboard the Sultana.
“Brent,” he said, and extended his hand, “you did for me—did it fair, too. You could have punched me into a jelly. Nobody knows that better than I do. You let me off. I'm sorry I've been such a cad, and I hope you'll overlook it, will you? Say, I'm awfully sorry. Shake hands, won't you?”
“Of course,” replied Brent; and they gripped one another's hands firmly.

### IV.

Sleep claimed the tired persons of all save Brent a very short time after they drew the sheets over them and became conscious of feeling very clean and comfortable in the silken pajamas which had been left for them by their enemies the Japanese. Before they had been in reclining positions fifteen minutes, Dorothy, Ochs, Hyman, Dreen were quite soundly asleep. But Brent was not. He had many things to think about.
Two things battled for supremacy in his mind. One of them was how he was to preserve Dorothy Gordon from harm—the other how to manage to prevent the rebellion planned from ever occurring. He felt suddenly such a weight as the ruler of a nation must have forced upon him at times. Although he did not realize just how he was going to manage it, he felt that he was responsible for keeping those arms out of the Philippines, those men from landing, and preventing the deaths of thousands of Americans like himself. He had soldiered in the Philippines, and he knew how little mercy Americans might expect at the hands of victorious insurrectos. He had seen the remains of many American soldiers mutilated by Filipinos. He knew of many enormities committed—enormities he dared not think of, and which are unfit for the printed page, or even the thoughts of a decent man.
What chance had the few thousand American troops in the islands? Brent was quite sure that the constabulary would prove faithless; would desert to their brown brothers with their carbines, their ammunition, their training. It was quite plain to him that the Filipinos, with thirty thousand Japanese rifles, could sweep the islands clear of Americanos in less than two weeks. And the United States four weeks' journey away!
He could not sleep. He arose and sat down by the window smoking cigarette after cigarette. As he sat there, he saw the stars disappear, the moon cloud, and the skies grow black. He heard the soughing of the wind and the dash of the breakers on the shore below. The night-birds shrilled warnings; there were many flutterings of wings as bats and owls and other creatures of the night flurried to shelter—even the chitter of the insects seemed to take on an alarmed note; and the wind changed from a tropical zephyr laden with scents.of the jungle to a cold, fierce wind redolent of sea salt.
The sky lighted up with a flaming streak; the thunder rolled resonantly, threateningly. Rain began to fall; great heavy splotches of it. He closed his windows.
From where he sat he could see the ocean lighted up by balls of St. Elmo's fire that zigzagged across the water; sometimes riding the crest of a great white breaker; sometimes seemingly extinguished in the gulfing void. The casements. of the windows rattled. The palm-trees shed their fronds as they bent and swayed under the tropical hurricane. Frightened squawks of birds told him that death was abroad. A spray of golden hibiscus blossoms was dashed against his window in a gust of rain.
The breakers were thundering on the shore now, dashing themselves wildly, tumultuously against the sand. A tree near the house cracked and fell to earth, carrying smaller trees with it.
For hours the storm continued, and it was with the surf's thunder, the wind's howl, and the thunder's crash in his ears that Brent finally fell asleep.
He awoke early with the sun streaming in upon his face; and somehow forgot the troubles of the night before, and whistled quite merrily. He rolled up his windows, and the breath of the ylang-ylang was wafted into his nostrils. The air was sweet with the smell of early morning. Birds chirped and sang merrily; monkeys chattered; parrakeets squawked. The ground was strewn with leaves, cocoanuts, bananas, grape-fruit, and other abundance swept to the ground by the storm of the night. From where he stood he could see the fallen tree; a slim dragon-shoot.
Slipping his feet into his grass-slippers, he made his way out, attired as he was in the yellow silk pajamas that he wore, descended to the first floor, and found his way to the kitchen.
He had noted the night before that there was a little creek running by the house, upon which the Japanese had built a bath-house; and it was to this that he made his way. He found a board floor, and two huge wooden tubs fitted with faucets and pipes; one faucet marked “Hot”; the boiler attached to the pipe signifying that the faucet could easily be made to verify itself by building a fire under the boiler. But Brent had no use for hot water. He preferred the cold.
He went back to the house to get some soap and a towel, and then remembered Pursey Ochs, who had probably never taken a bath in cold water in his life. He ran up-stairs, and awakened Ochs after considerable trouble; and that gentleman followed him down-stairs, carrying soap and towel, and rubbing his eyes sleepily.
“I will say for the Japs that they're cleanly little beggars,” said Brent; “and it was mighty nice of them to remember this bath-house.”
He plunged into the wooden tub now half-full, and soaped and rubbed himself, dashing the water over himself in the ecstasy which a cold-water bather finds in his matutinal ablutions. Ochs watched him rather enviously, and started the water in his tub, hardly realizing that it was cold.
When Brent was out and was rubbing himself into a fine glow, Pursey Ochs discarded pajamas and plunged into the tub. The next moment there rang through the bath-house and the surrounding grounds the shriek of a man who has been wounded bitterly; who had been deceived, decoyed, and betrayed. Ochs leaped up, chattering, and would have gotten out of the tub had he not observed the malicious grin on Brent's face.
Let it be remembered that Pursey Ochs was a man of determination. He sternly subdued his chattering, and with trembling hands proceeded to soap himself and dash the cold water all over him. Several times his hands, numb with cold, lost the soap, and he was in imminent danger of having a cramp; but when he stepped forth from the tub, he rubbed himself with an appearance of dignity, casting meanwhile oblique glances at Brent, to see what effect his actions had.
“Ochs, you're a brick,” said Brent admiringly. “You've got nerve. I didn't take my first cold-water bath half so calmly.”
“Who said it was my first cold-water bath?” growled Pursey Ochs.
Brent had no reply ready, and he remained silent.
After the rubbing-down process, Mr. Ochs was surprised to find himself in a state of beatitude, and when both men had gone back to the house and dressed themselves, Pursey became almost kittenish.
“Come,” said Brent, “we'll go down and see what's happened to our boat on the beach. Maybe, too, we can pick up some crabs or turtles on the beach after the storm. Are you with me?”
“Count me in,” replied Pursey Ochs; and they raced one another down the slope and to the beach.
The first sight that met their eyes was an astonishing one. There, stranded high and dry on the coral reefs of the bar, was a schooner of some two hundred tons burden, her masts broken, her spars gone, her decks swept clean. They stared in astonishment for some minutes at the black hulk which had come upon their vision with such suddenness. Pursey Ochs was the first to recover, and his eyes sought the beach.
“Look there,” he said, with some awe in his tone.
Brent looked and saw. Sprawled out in awkward attitudes were the bodies of six or more men, some half-buried in the sands, one of them propped in a sitting posture against a great camphor-tree.
“Good Lord!” said Brent; and moved toward the bodies. Remembering, he looked at Ochs.
“We've got to get rid of them before Miss Gordon gets a chance to see,” he said.
Ochs nodded.
The first man was quite evidently a Jew. He had the enormous hook-nose of the more marked of his race, and there was something about the set of his jaw that confirmed the idea. His eyes were closed. He wore a quantity of jewelry on his fingers, an enormous gold watch-chain with a diamond pendant across his waistcoat, and a diamond pin secured by a catch in his water-soaked blue scarf.
An idea came to Brent. He felt in the dead man's pockets, and drew out a packet of papers. They were water-soaked and mostly illegible; but one letter had been written on a typewriter with a copying-ribbon, and then press-copied, so the letters were perfectly clear:
“Mr. Moses Greenbaum,
Hotel King Edward,
Hongkong, China.
He stepped back suddenly, clutching the paper in his hand. Then he felt the man's heart. Moses Greenbaum was quite dead.
Ochs was examining the other bodies, and shouting at Brent. But Brent did not hear him. He went from one to another. There was the tall, lean Spaniard, whom he knew instinctively to be the mestizo, Araza y Tagliono; here the fat, bulky form of Von Klingen, the German smuggler; a little farther apart, elegant even in death, girlish, almost effeminate, his blue eyes staring guilelessly at the heavens above, the renegade Anglo-Saxon, who was known throughout the Orient as “Chirping Charley,” and feared as few men were feared; he whom his parents had christened Charles Carr Conkling. It was hard to believe, looking at his slim form and pale, delicately featured face, that he was such a scoundrel.
A little farther away, twisted into a strange shape, was the fair-skinned Aorto. There was an evil, agonized leer on his face now. The man who sat against the camphor-tree was the third mestizo—a mestizo indeed this one with swarthy brown skin and lowering eyebrows. His mouth was open, his jaw loose, his ferret eyes staring. Near him lay a lascar sailor, clutching the belt of a Chinese. A man in a torn uniform with faded gold braid had his head buried in the sand at the lascar's feet. In all, nine bodies lay there.
Brent began to cast off his clothes. “I'm going to swim out to the hulk, and see if there's any one aboard,” he said quietly. “You go along the beach and see if you can find any more bodies.”
A few minutes later Brent was lifting his naked body hand over hand through the water, the sun gleaming on his white skin. Ochs watched his speedy course in admiration, then began to make his way up the beach at a run, searching for more flotsam which the sea had cast up.
Brent reached the hulk, and caught at a port-hole, swinging himself up and gaining a foothold. The schooner was tilted on her beam-ends, and when Brent reached the deck, he found it no easy task to keep from slipping. All about him were torn timber, wrecked apparatus, fragments of sail-cloth, rope, and iron fittings. He found the wheel smashed, the pilot-house broken in, the boats blown from their davits.
He started to descend the companionway, and his foot struck against something soft at the top. It was a man's body, his head crushed in by the falling of a heavy piece of timber. The cabin had three or four feet of water in it, in which floated the body of another man done to death in some mysterious fashion. Brent clutched the companionway, and ascended to the deck again to breathe the pure air.
The forecastle was deserted; and so was the rest of the ship. Brent dived into the sea again, narrowly missing the coral reef, and swam ashore with all promptitude.
He found Ochs waiting for him with the information that another sailor and two Chinese, evidently servants, had perished also, and were lying a little way around the south bend.
Brent got into his clothes, while Ochs, by his instructions, returned to the house to fetch spades. When he returned with two, they set to work and dug a great trench, into which, after removing the jewelry and papers, they cast the bodies, and shoveled in the sand, making it firm with many blows of the blunt instruments. Brent stood back and looked at Ochs.
“Fate has played us a turn to-day, Ochs,” he said; and his voice Was very grave. “On us five rests the responsibility of many of our countrymen's lives, and the integrity of the island possessions of our country. I'm an unworthy enough man; but you've chosen me for your leader, and I'm going to do the best I can——”
He paused.
“Six of the men we have buried formed the Junta of Hongkong. They are dead and buried now. The men who come from Japan probably do not know them. So we five become the Junta, assume the names of those dead men, and play their parts to prevent our country's loss——”
Instinctively he removed his cap, and sank to the sand on his knees. His head was bowed.
“God help me to save my countrymen's lives, to preserve my country's possessions,” he said; and his tone was that of a man praying.
Pursey Ochs, iconoclast and agnostic, was suddenly moved by his emotions.
“Amen,” said he fervently. And then, ashamed of himself, he blushed and coughed several times.

### V.

They gathered some mangos, some bananas, and a sort of grape-fruit, which Brent called pumelo, on their way back, intending the same for the morning meal; and when they reached the house, they found that breakfast was prepared. Hyman, Dreen, and Dorothy had, by their combined efforts, produced coffee, broiled bacon, and a sort of flannel-cake, made from the wheaten flour, which Dreen had discovered in the pantry. The fruit added to these appetizing articles; they made a most satisfactory breakfast; every one declaring that the flapjacks were prime, especially when garnished with plenty of honey. Dorothy, however, was sadly aware that their compliments of the cakes had in them something of personal feeling for the maker, for quite a number of them were burned, and she knew it.
Breakfast over, Brent and Ochs told the story of their morning's discovery, and impressed their companions with the fact that they must get used to their new names.
“Ochs here is Herr von Klingen,” said Brent. “Fortunately he speaks German. Hyman is Mr. Moses Greenbaum. Miss Dorothy is Charles Carr Conkling, and I'm sorry enough he was such a disreputable fellow. Dreen here is Señor Leon Aorto. Can you speak Spanish, Dreen?”
“Very badly,” replied Dreen.
Brent sighed. “We'll have to make the best of it. Fortunately I'm good at Spanish, and can talk enough for the two of us as Don Ambrosino de Araza. I must say”—he had the ghost of a smile on his face—“that there are very few people who can boast of such disreputable characters as we have assumed.”
“Or maybe it's only that those gentlemen were found out,” remarked Pursey Ochs, with great disbelief in the goodness of mankind.
When they left the table, Hyman took a look at Brent's lacerated hand, and dressed it again with some medicinal salves he found in the chest, binding it up with cotton lint, and advising Brent not to use his hand any more than he could help. Dreen was left behind with Miss Gordon to make the house tidy and clear away the breakfast things, while the other three set about an exploration of the grounds.
Although the arsenal and barracks were not visible from the house, they were a very short distance away, built on the slopes of the island valley; the arsenal upon the near slope, the barracks upon the far. With the keys which they found in the house, the men entered the arsenal and found what they expected—case after case of modern rifles, box upon box of cartridges and high explosives, kegs of the dreaded Shimose powder, marked in huge red Japanese ideographs, meaning, no doubt, that care should be taken in the handling. Four Maxim rapid-fire guns, in sections, were stowed away in packings of cotton and excelsior, their chubby brass noses seeming complacent and in no way deadly. The uniforms were packed in huge green chests, one piled upon the other. There was but little room to move about in the arsenal, for all its huge size; so many of the implements and accouterments of war were stowed away there.
Entrance to the arsenal was gained by a very complicated mechanism, involving the use of three or four keys, which unlocked padlocks, slides, and threw back the fastening of bolts. They were careful to see that the building was securely locked before they left it.
The barracks did not prove especially interesting. They were two long, low buildings, with a space of some fifty-five yards between them much resembling a street, for the trees had been lopped away within the enclosure, the shrubs, greenery, and gorgeous growths uprooted, and their places filled by the sand of the seaside, ground in with a heavy rolling-machine. In every detail was seen the minute care and accuracy of the Japanese builders. All was as it should be, in neat and regular form; and save for the dust that had accumulated since the leaving of the Japanese, all was beautifully clean.
The barracks were provided with cots of regulation army make—canvas stretched on four horizontal poles, and supported by four vertical ones—one blanket and one sheet apiece; a comb, a piece of soap; a couple of towels and a scrub-brush; also two suits of clean, coarse underwear, and one pair of white cotton pajamas.
“There's no use in talking,” said Brent, with admiration, “the Japs are rotten morally, but they're the cleanest people in the world—and they look on it as a necessity. Look at that outfit for a soldier——”
Below, there were a huge cooking-range, several smaller stoves for the same purpose, and great wash-tubs for linen, and, huge boilers. In every respect, the place was ready for occupancy. Back of the first barracks and between that building and the second one were the wash-houses, which were provided with large wooden tubs.
Coming back to the bungalow from the inspection, they found that the house had been swept and put in order by Miss Dorothy and her stalwart assistant, Dreen. They were fanning themselves after their exertions, using the huge blue aprons about their waists for the purpose, while their heads were ornamented by turbans made from towels. Dorothy beat a retreat at the entrance of the other three; and Dreen laughed boyishly. He appeared to be enjoying himself.
Dorothy had found a clock among the stores, and had set it by guesswork when she arose that morning. Hyman and Dreen, taking measurements of the shadows and judging the position of the sun, amended her guess, and set the clock at ten minutes past ten.
“Who's a good shot in the crowd?” asked Brent.
Dreen adjudged himself worthy of that title.
“Better take a gun and try to shoot something for the next two meals, then,” was Brent's remark. “As for Hyman and myself, we're going to make some sort of a tour of exploration to see what this island's like. We mayn't be home for lunch, Miss Dorothy,” as that young lady appeared, denuded of turban and apron. “And if we're not here by two o'clock, don't you wait for us. Ochs, you stay behind with Miss Dorothy. Dreen will go out and try to bag some game.”
So the party broke up again.
Before making their tour of exploration, Brent and Hyman had to patch up the ship's boat, which, in spite of its sheltered position, had been somewhat damaged in the storm of the night before. They had, fortunately, discovered some oars among the supplies; and the boat once fixed, they set off on their journey,
They returned about six o'clock, when the sun was beginning to go low on the western horizon. They had followed the shore of the island for a great distance, and were of the opinion that it required more than a day's journey in a rowboat to circle it. They had rowed in one direction for a long time, and, seeing no curve which would lead them to believe that they were coming back again, they turned their boat the way they had come.
Several times they had gone ashore and investigated several creeks and inlets, and had gone a little way into the tropical forest; but they had very little information to show for their day's work; and Doctor Schlauss Hyman's hands were blistered from using the oars.
Dreen had been very successful in his hunting, and had come back at five o'clock with a brace of wood pigeons, a parrakeet, and a young wild pig, the bringing of which over his shoulder had stained his white clothes with blood and ruined them for all time.
“I saw some antelopes, too,” he told Dorothy; “but one of them stopped and looked at me, sort of pathetic-like, you know; and, honestly, I didn't have the heart to shoot—I just didn't. Though,” he added regretfully, “it looked very juicy and tender.”
He advanced himself a few pegs in Miss Gordon's estimation by that ingenuous speech.
Pursey Ochs proved himself the hero of the hour by suddenly coming to the front and offering to roast the wild pig. He had much experience in that line, he said. He told them some funny stories of political barbecues in which he had assisted, and then sent Dreen off to dig for yams—“sweet potatoes,” he called them—which he told Dreen were to be found growing under a certain dragon-tree. Dreen returned with the yams and washed them about the time that Mr. Ochs had prepared the pig for roasting.
The three of them then went out beyond the house, and Pursey Ochs directed Dreen to dig a hole. The pig, wrapped in green leaves and surrounded by “sweet potatoes,” was placed in the hole, the fire was built, and Mr. Ochs seated himself on a soap-box, stick in hand, with which he would every now and then test the tenderness of the pig. It was still roasting when the explorers returned from their voyage, and there was much excitement among the other four as to the pig's condition, Mr. Ochs issuing bulletins at intervals of ten minutes.
At last the perfect roast was announced, and Brent and Dreen came out bearing a huge platter, upon which the young pig was placed and triumphantly borne into the house and to the dinner-table.
Dinner over, they were quite gay over the events of the day; but the conversation soon took a more serious turn, and the talk drifted to what they should do when the ship from the north arrived. Before ten o'clock they went to bed.
Thus began their life on the island; and this life was disturbed not at all for a full week, during which time they settled down to a routine that still held in it all the elements of novelty. They gave up the attempt of exploring the island, deciding that it was much larger than they had expected; and Brent spent much of his time teaching Ochs and Hyman how to shoot straight.
They made a rifle-range, and erected a huge board with a bull's-eye on one of the little rocks in the cove; and the newspaper editor and surgeon made the most of their opportunities and ammunition, learning how to use a revolver and rifle with equal facility.
Brent and Dreen evolved a series of physical exercises for their weaker companions, and tried to teach them to wrestle. Ochs and Hyman worked like Trojans to overcome their years of sloth, regardless of the aching backs, necks, and arms which the exercises brought forth.
Brent cut some heavy sticks from lignum-vitæ-trees, and trimmed them down into tolerable imitations of single sticks; and with these he bouted, for partners having Dreen and Dorothy, until the other two had sufficiently mastered it to take a hand.
They had no trouble in sleeping. When they went to bed, each one of them was healthily tired out. Between exercise and cold baths, Pursey Ochs lost flesh rapidly and gained muscle. He felt his arms each day, and was encouraged by the hardness they were acquiring, although when he looked at the enormous thews and sinews of Dreen and Brent, he was inclined to be discouraged.
The housework was equally divided among them, and the place kept very neat and clean. After many abortive attempts at cooking, they began to acquire some skill in the culinary art, most especially Dorothy Gordon, who had a woman's quickness for any sort of domestic work. Miss Gordon did not regret her situation in the least.
“If I only had a horse,” she murmured, “I would be perfectly happy.”
She knew well enough that her aunt was too thoroughly selfish a woman to weep very long over her loss; and, as that aunt was her nearest relative, she felt sure that no one was undergoing any particular pain.
So their life went on until the morning when Brent came in late for breakfast, a pair of binoculars in his hands. His face was tense.
“Come,” he said. “Look toward the north, Ochs.” And he handed him the glasses.
All left the table to go to the veranda. Ochs lifted the binoculars. He gasped a little as he took them down.
But there was hardly need for glasses, for a thin little trail of smoke was going upward from the China Sea, and was visible to the eyes of the others.
“She's headed straight for us,” said Ochs. “It's the ship from Japan.” His face was very serious for the moment, but his was a nature which pretended to take things lightly. “On with the dance,” he quoted, in his lightest tone; “let joy be unrefined, Oh! but this is where we begin to reap a crop of merry young hell. Beg your pardon, Miss Dorothy. Guess those flannel-cakes'll get cold if we don't stow them away.”
He went back to the dining-room, and continued to eat as though nothing troubled his mind. Brent looked at Dorothy Gordon.
“Dorothy,” he said very quietly, “it's come, as you and I and all of us know it must come. You've got a difficult part to play—I know what it means to you. You'll be thrown into the society of men whose conversation is not fit for women's ears; and you must forget it. The man whose name you have assumed was a rogue of the worst description—nothing will be too vicious for these people to say to you. But remember we're playing the biggest game in the world—the biggest game in the world. We're playing for our country's honor, for the lives of thousands of Americans. No sacrifice is too great if we can win—I'd sacrifice anything—and I know you would, to——”
“I—I'd try,” she said very low, and looked at him queerly, then with a slight hysterical laugh went back into the house.
Brent turned to Drent and Hyman. “Fellows, we're up against it,” he said.
The others nodded gravely, and watched the smoke trickling upward from the China Sea.
“The mines are laid to blow up the arsenal,” said Brent presently. “Remember, when the necessity comes, any one of us who sees it first will take the responsibility of touching off the match. Those rifles and that ammunition will never reach the Philippines, at any rate.”
They nodded again, still watching the smoke. There was a new look in the eyes of each. It was the look that comes to those who must play great parts in the world's tragedy.

### VI.

“And now, gentleman,” said Captain Rolf Arundsen, twisting his enormous yellow mustache—which had given rise to his sobriquet “Walrus” Arundsen—and glaring about him with his single blue eye. “Now that we know each the other, some explanations we should make. Eh?”
Both hands went to the mustache, and its spiked ends seemed to be veritable tusks of yellow ivory. The blue eye, mild and uncomplaining like a little child's, was frowned upon by the heavy brows, the whole facial get-up forming a most incongruous picture.
“Sit here, Captain Arundsen,” said Bauldwin Brent in Spanish, pushing forward the largest chair.
The blue eye was suddenly turned upon him. “You speak Danish? No? German, then? No? But English?”
“Si, Señor el Capitan,” smiled Brent.
“Then,” announced Captain Rolf Arundsen, “it is English we will speak. We all speak English, is it not?”
“You twy to speak it,” said Lanier, sneering.
“So, is it so?” replied Rolf Arundsen explosively, his mild blue eye performing remarkable gymnastic feats, while his glass one stared stonily at the antics of its mate. “So, is it so? But it is not that I speak like the children they speak, Mr. Lanier; like the little babies that cannot say the words.”
Lanier, a handsome, dissipated man of some thirty years, was the first officer, and cordially hated “Walrus” Arundsen. According to the custom among the adventurers of the Orient, he, too, had been given a nickname which he despised, and which had risen out of his unfortunate trick of turning his “r's” into “w's,” and adding a “th” when such an appendage was unnecessary. Lanier had fought this mannerism all his life, but had never conquered it; and he would rather have been called anything other than “Lisp” Lanier.
It had been some time now since the ship had found a safe anchorage, and the five adventurers had put out to meet her, introducing themselves to the officers as the Junta, minus the Señor Esperaso, “who had been drowned.” It was not without some trepidation that they had made their assertions, fearing as they did that there might be some one on board who would know the Junta by sight and dub them liars. But, thanks to the fact that the externals of all of them were to a certain extent the same as the men whose parts they played, no suspicion was aroused, Every one in the Orient had heard of the effeminate dandy, Chirping Charley Conkling; of the rubicund Froehlich von Klingen; the Jew, Moses Greenbaum; the lean Spaniard, De Araza; and the mestizo, “El Colorado” Aorto [Aorto the Red], which had been developed into “Reddy” Aorto. Dreen's Titian curls surmounting his large head filled the picture admirably.
“First of all,” grunted the Swiss mercenary, Colonel Gustave Pfferkorn, “we've got to get those ragamuffins of mine ashore.” He referred to the refuse of the Chinese and Japanese ports which he had recruited for service under the Republicas Filipinas. The ship's boats were made ready to take them ashore, an officer in each boat.
The supposed Junta leaned over the rail and watched the disembarking of the recruits. Seldom had Bauldwin Brent, familiar as he was with the lowest type of mercenary, seen such a villainous aggregation. To the others, save Hyman, whose practise had taken him among the lowest class of Polish Jews, the sight was amazing.
There were discharged American and English soldiers in remnants of their uniforms held together by strings and pins, unshaven and unkempt, their faces of the lowest type which the Anglo-Saxon knows; greasy, treacherous-looking Italians and Greeks with earrings in their ears and long knives in their belts. Brent noted one of the Greeks in an altercation with a big English soldier for a place in the boat. The Englishman struck him heavily and knocked him backward. Brent saw the look of the Greek, his yellow teeth showing in a ghastly smile.
“He'll do for that 'Tommy' for that,” meditated Brent.
There were stolid, beefy-looking Germans, some bewhiskered Russian deserters in boots, a great number of Chinese in the uniform of the Imperial Army, Spaniards, Portuguese, Eurasians of indeterminate ancestry, the scum of all nations, dirty, ill-kept, villainous, some five hundred in all.
Colonel Pfferkorn, with a riding crop in hand, superintended the disembarkation, not scrupling to use the crop whenever one of his recruits jostled another or tried to enter a boat which contained too many. His officers, numbering ten, were just as mixed as the soldiers; two wore the uniform of the French Foreign Legion, and evidently had belonged to the brigade stationed in Cochin-China; three more were in the dress of the Imperial Chinese Army, and looked like Norwegians; two more were attired as infantry lieutenants of Siberian Cossacks; one had the scarlet jacket of an English sergeant; two more were in plain khaki tunics and were nondescript. All the officers betrayed one universal trait, familiarity with the sort of brutes they were dealing with, and distributed kicks, curses, and blows among their men with great impartiality.
The “army of occupation” having landed, Colonel Pfferkorn went in the last boat with Schlauss Hyman to show him the way to the barracks.
The vessel commanded by Walrus Arundsen had once been a merchant ship of one of the great lines plying between Japan and the United States, and had been purchased by Japan for use as a transport during the war. She was heavily armored, and had a gun-room of great capacity. The brass nozles of rapid-firing guns peeped out from under canvas coverings on her decks. Had the same nozles been elevated instead of deflected from the port-holes of the gun-room below, there would have been an ominous array. She had been rechristened the Valkyrie, evidently by a happy thought of Arundsen's; and while she was a ship in no condition to meet an armored cruiser or a battle-ship, she was quite capable of harrying a coast town or giving battle to gunboats and torpedo-destroyers.
She was manned entirely by Chinese except for the navigation and gunnery and engineering staffs. Her boatswain, master-at-arms, carpenter, and other minor officers were all Chinese. Her gun-captain was an ex-gunner in the American Navy, a: Norwegian by descent, and also a dipsomaniac: a man who had made the highest averages, but whose continual sprees had brought about his reduction from warrant officer to petty officer, until he was finally disrated to the ranks again. After serving out his enlistment in the forecastle, he had quitted the navy with a bitter hatred for the United States. The other gunners were Germans.
The chief engineer was a Scotchman named MacTavish. He had three assistants—MacCullom, Raeburn, and Ellison, all hailing from the, banks of the Clyde. They were the only decent men of the lot. They took no part in the councils, and ate at a different table in the saloon. They were there to run the engines. They hardly knew the reasons for the expedition.
With the navigating staff it was different. There was the first officer, Robert Lanier Daingerfield, familiarly known as “Lisp” Lanier, a graduate of the Naval Academy, at Annapolis, and who had won his lieutenancy in the service by sheer hard work, aided by a gallant feat performed off Morro Castle when he was an acting ensign, just out of the academy. Lanier had been dismissed from the service for cheating at cards three years before; and hated his own country cordially.
The second officer was the fourth son of an English peer, who. had been kicked out of the British Navy for some reason unknown. He was a round-faced, smoothly shaven, clean-looking person with a slight limp like a string-halted horse, and a red slash of a scar across his intensely white forehead. His upper lip was too short, and his brilliant teeth were continually in evidence. He passed under the name of “Prince Edward” among his confrères, but he signed his name “James Phillips,” just as Lanier signed his “Henry Lanier.”
The third officer was an Irishman, Brian O'Shane by name, a graduate of the merchant marine, and a former R. N. R. man, whose ticket had been “dirtied” and command taken away for having been drunk when his ship went on a rock. He was a small man, with fiery red curls, which he oiled daily in a vain attempt to keep under subjection; and an enormous, fog-horn voice. His hands and feet were out of all proportion to his height, and he was generally known as “Hoofer” O'Shane.
The fourth officer was a Dane and a crony of Arundsen's, who called himself Christian, but who belied his name. He was an incompetent navigator; but a splendid handler of men. He had a pug-nose, and three of his front teeth were missing.
It was Christian who, as officer of the deck, had been left in charge of the ship; and the other navigating officers, the chief gunner—the Norwegian-American, Sturm Sturmson—Colonel Pfferkorn, and the five supposed members of the Junta were now assembled in the living-room of the bungalow to hold a council of war.
Brent had seen to it that there was a plentiful supply of glasses, Scotch and rye whisky, seltzer, and several bottles of cocktails. Boxes of cigars and cigarettes lay about in profusion, along with many boxes of safety-matches.
“You know, I am believing,” said Captain Arundsen, “that it is by orders that it is you, gentlemen, to whom I report, most especially the Señor De Araza. Your orders, when they are given, shall be obeyed most promptly. It was that I bring my ship here, and also the gutter-rats as passengers. This has been done; and the further commands I now await.”
Brent smiled amiably. “I have no order to-night, captain, except that you and your officers remain to dinner with me. To-morrow we will go more seriously into the matter.”
“And I,” said Colonel Pfferkorn, “have been designated these ruffians in the barracks to train. Hear them, now!” He lifted his hand for silence that the shrill yells, curses, and cries from the barracks might be heard. “Them I shall train, it is most assured. But the time it will take—I do not know. At present they are very filthy. I would ask that the Señor De Araza permit that a uniform be given to each man. I shall see that it is kept clean. I have understanding that there are many uniforms in the arsenal.”
“Greenbaum,” said Brent, speaking to Doctor Hyman, “I give you here the keys to the arsenal. Go with Colonel Pfferkorn and have him summon some of his soldiers to aid you. Remove the number of uniforms necessary. But”—he looked at the colonel—“I think it best that no arms be distributed among them as yet.”
The colonel, a large-framed man, with a huge, red nose on which a wart disported itself, nodded emphatically over his gold-rimmed spectacles. “Yah,” he affirmed contemptuously. “There are many cases of arms aboard the Valkyrie, but I do not trust those fledglings. Come, Herr Greenbaum.”
Walrus Arundsen lighted a cigar, and dispensed some information. “It is known to you, of course, Señor De Araza, that another ship, under command of Captain Thorwald, leaves Japan within several weeks with a cargo of arms and more men, if possible. You have heard?”
“We have asked and have hoped,” returned Brent non-committally.
“They come,” reasserted the Walrus, spitting profusely on the floor. “Until then, perhaps, we do nothing.”
Brent shrugged his shoulders.
The late afternoon was creeping on. The vessel had anchored at twelve o'clock, and the disembarkation of the troops had taken time. “Prince Edward” Phillips lighted a cigarette and looked extremely bored. Brian O'Shane had gotten Pursey Ochs in a corner, and was telling him a story which tickled the risibilities of the man from St. Louis. Dreen was listening, with ill-concealed weariness, to the tale of Sturmson, the ex-warrant officer, who, with many calls upon the Deity, was explaining that he was an innocent man. Lanier had managed to seat himself next to Dorothy Gordon; and the girl, pale but determined, was pretending to listen to him, although her mind was far away.
Lanier's touch on her shoulder awakened her from her memories. “Day-dreaming, Conkling?” he asked, laughing unpleasantly. “I should think you would have a good deal on your conscience, though, from all I've heard.”
“What do you mean?” asked the girl.
Lanier laughed again. “Oh, I believe it's consistently recognized that you're the worst scoundrel in the Orient, Mr. Conkling,” he said. “You remember the case of that girl from——”
“Never mind,” said Dorothy Gordon stiffly.
The man surveyed her. “I was prepared, to some extent, for your appearance, you know,” he continued, easily insulting, “but I hardly expected to find so innocent a face——”
“Oh, stow it!” replied Dorothy, borrowing a phrase from Mr. Ochs.
Lanier got up. “As I'm going to stay for dinner, and the captain's sent for his cook and boys, we've got plenty of time before dinner. I wish you'd show me the grounds roundabout. Will you?”
“Why——” For a moment she hesitated, then, with a scowl: “Oh, very well!”
They passed through the French windows to the veranda, and down the graveled walk to the spring. Here Lanier deliberately motioned to Dorothy.
“Sit down,” he said.
“I thought you wanted to see the grounds,” she began.
“Sit down,” he said again; but she faced him angrily. “I'll do as I please,” she asserted, and started away.
He caught her by the shoulder. “I have something very important to say.”
She turned, a sickly fear in her eyes, and sat down on the plank. He stretched himself carelessly at her feet, and took a cigarette from a gold case. He offered them to her, but she refused. He lighted his.
“I might as well say, to begin with,” remarked Lanier casually, “that I know Charles Carr Conkling personally, also Von Klingen and Greenbaum.”
He paused, and blew a smoke ring.
“Also Miss Dorothy Gordon,” he resumed.
Her brain seemed afire, her fingers shook, and her body seemed to ache. She tried to speak, but her mouth was dry, and her tongue, somehow, was not under her control. The white hand which she stretched forth trembled.
“No one else on board does,” he continued, looking keenly at her.
“You—you traitor!” she gasped. “You shameful traitor! Oh! what a cur, what a cad you are!”
“Why?” he asked coolly. She did not answer. “I've kept better faith with you than ever you would have done with me. When I recognized you, and failed to recognize the men introduced as Von Klingen and Greenbaum, I said nothing. My actions betrayed nothing. I did that, Dolly, for you!”
She said nothing. Her body was shaken with convulsive sobs. Was this to be the end, after all? When they had hoped for so much; when they had meant to do so much. “No sacrifice is too great for country,” she remembered Bauldwin Brent had said. If she could only get this man out of the way. Slowly she began to regain her composure. There was a revolver in her hip pocket. If she could get that out, and kill Lanier. He was a traitor, and deserved death. He was not popular with his captain, and Charles Carr Conkling's reputation was well known. Everything would fit in so well.
She must! Again she said: “No sacrifice is too great for your country,” and her hand stole to her hip pocket. But before it came out, Lanier's lean fingers had gripped her wrist in a vise, while his left hand plucked the revolver from the pocket and put it in his own. He leaned back and regarded her with admiration.
“Dolly,” he said, “you've got nerve. You're the bravest, pluckiest girl I ever knew. And so you'd kill me, would you? Well, bless me, if I don't admire you for it, you little devil!”
Her face was hard.
“See here, Dolly,” said Lanier Daingerfield, his tones softening. “What's the game you and your men are playing? How did you get here, and what do you mean to do?”
“Do you think I'd tell you, you traitor?” she cried bitterly.
His face darkened. “In what way am I a traitor? Didn't the United States kick me out of the navy, and deprive me of my citizenship? Didn't she renounce me? And what did I do? Oh! well, it's a wretched story. If I hadn't struck the captain after!—but, then, what's the use? I had to have an occupation, didn't I? I was disgraced. Not a decent man I knew would speak to me, and not a decent woman—except you, you little angel of mercy! You were then. I won't forget that day when I went down Charles Street with everybody I knew cutting me, and you stopped and spoke to me, and told me you were so sorry, and hoped I'd bear up and go somewhere else and be decent. That did keep me decent for a long time, I can tell you. But what chance did I have? I was discredited. No one would give me a ship. I served for awhile in the Brazilian Navy until they got on to my disgrace and fired me out. Then I drifted over to Chile, and served in their navy. The United States admiral at that port gave me away, and I was cut loose again. Then I came out here, and found that the only thing I could get was the command of some smuggling ship—and I've been at that ever since. And then this chance cropped up—and I took it. What is the United States to me?”
“Your country,” she replied.
He shook his head.
“Dorothy,” he said slowly, his lips making the name almost pathetic, “I didn't get the chance before to tell you how much I loved you——”
“Don't!” she said, holding up her hand.
“I didn't get the chance,” he pursued doggedly. “But just the same I did love you, and I love you now more than ever. I've carried a picture of you all these years. Stole it from my cousin Jim. Here it is.” He unfastened his tunic and felt within his shirt, from which he presently dragged out an oval case held by a thin silver chain and encased in chamois. He snapped open the case, revealing a picture of a very young girl in a white dress and with her hair braided down her back. “You remember that, Dorothy, don't you?”
“You have no right to it,” she said. “You should give it to me.”
He laughed scornfully. “Much chance of that!” He put back the case, buttoning his tunic. “Now, Dorothy, suppose I should promise not to betray you; promise on my love for you—not on my honor, for I guess I haven't any—would you tell me?”
“No,” she said.
His face darkened. “Remember, I haven't as yet done anything to my country. I'm giving you a chance now, and making my last try to be decent. If I'm tried too far I might tell the others that you folks are not the Junta at all. If you tell me the true facts of the case, I may throw in my lot with you—may help you. At all events, I promise not to betray you. Take your choice!”
Her face brightened slightly. “You might help us a great deal—if you wished,” she said, and her eyelashes swept her cheek. She knew her power over men, she knew. the proper poses to assume to set their blood tingling. There was a sweetness in her tone. Lanier's cheek flushed.
“I will help you,” he cried hotly. “The others can go hang! Tell me.”
In a very low tone she told him the whole thing as it had happened; the shipwreck, the landing on the island, the finding of the dead bodies, the resolve to thwart the expedition.
“And now,” she said pathetically, “we are at your mercy. If you betray us!”
“I sha'n't betray,” answered Lanier slowly. “I will help you. What were your plans?”
She knew now her best course was to tell him all. She explained that they had hoped to disable the ship, blow up the arsenal, and, somehow, get a message to the authorities in the Philippines. He listened intently. When she had finished he was in a brown study. For some time he sat there, his hands clasping his knees, rocking to and fro abstractedly. Presently he looked up at her.
“Dorothy,” he said, “I've a better scheme than that. We dine ashore to-night. While the captain and the other officers are getting drunk, I, with your companions and yourself, can seize the ship. One must remain behind to keep the captain and the others quiet. The crew are Chinese and devoted to me. The assistant engineer in charge is my personal friend. The officer of the deck, Christian, can be overpowered. Then we can up anchor, and away. The man who remains behind can blow up the arsenal. After that he must take to the woods, and wait until we show up with help from the Philippines. Dolly, I'll do it”—his voice sank—“on one condition.”
Her slender form shook and trembled. She knew what he was about to say. She tried to cry out, to protest; but her lips seemed frozen.
“On one condition,” continued Lanier. “The condition that you promise to marry me.”
She said nothing; but as she sat there the trembling departed, and only the coldness remained. She saw that the scheme propounded by Lanier Daingerfield was one which could be carried out without a hitch; she saw that through him the rebellion would be nipped in the bud, and the United States saved disgrace and the death of thousands of her sons. If she refused, what, then? Lanier had promised not to betray them; but he would be cognizant of their attempts, and no doubt would thwart every one of them. They would be helpless, like bound people.
“No sacrifice is too great for your country.” Brent had said that. Brent! And she loved Brent. For the past week he had been her life, her soul. She had feasted upon the sight of him, the sound of his voice, the words he spoke. And, somehow, she knew that Brent loved her; and she had been waiting in happy trepidation for the time when he would tell her so.
Her face was very white when she arose. “I can't answer you now,” she said. “Give me an hour.”
He arose, also. “An hour be it,” he said. “I've waited years for you, Dolly. An hour more can't make much difference. With you I guess I'll be a different sort of a chap—but I had given up all hopes of that!” He took off his cap. “An hour, then, Dolly.”
“I will speak to my companions,” she said, “before I tell you,” and left him, going up the path which led to the rear entrance of the house.
Brent was still in the reception-room with the others. She entered and put her hand on his shoulder.
“I want to speak to you for a moment,” she said, in her manliest tone.
Brent took his feet from the stool and got up. “Come up-stairs,” she said, “to the rear porch.”
It was nearly nightfall. The sun had sunk into its western resting-place, leaving ifs reflection behind it, which stained the horizon blood-red. Above were the many pinks and crimsons, whites and blues, which come with the sunset. The soft zephyr of tropical eventide swayed the palm-trees, and brought the odor of the ylang-ylang to them. The chatter of the monkeys and parrakeets was very subdued, sleepy, and solemn, for it was the time for their rest. A bird of paradise yawned sleepily, and, spreading its gorgeous' plumes, emitted its unlovely note, and flew lazily to its nest. Out of the distance came the sad, sweet tones of a nightingale.
“Brent,” she said quietly, “Lanier has recognized me for Dorothy Gordon, He also knew Greenbaum, Von Klingen, and Conkling.”
Brent jerked out an exclamation, and sat down heavily.
“He is a disgraced naval officer,” she went on. “I met him four years ago. He was well thought of then, had been promoted for bravery or something. He paid me some attentions, sent me candy, books, and flowers, and often came to see me. I liked him very much. I was a little hero-worshiper, and I thought him quite a hero. But I was disillusioned before I had known him two months. He was discharged from the navy, and his disgrace made public. He cheated at cards and then struck his superior officer, and, so they say, tried to kill him. I only saw him once afterward—on the street that was—and I was so sorry for him that I stopped and told him I was sorry, and—all that, you know——”
“Bless your kind little heart!” cried Brent.
“And, now—well, I've persuaded him to join us.”
“Bully for you——” began the man; but she held up her hand.
“He has promised to bring our plans to success.”
Briefly she outlined Lanier Daingerfield's scheme for seizing the ship.
Brent regarded her solemnly. “It's our salvation,” he said, “our salvation.” He caught both her hands in his. “Dorothy! Dorothy! Your country owes you more than it will ever know—and I—Dorothy!”
“Yes?” she half-whispered. “Yes?”
He only pressed her hands more fervently. And she, knowing that she had but little courage left, hastened to the climax.
“Lanier is not doing this for nothing,” she said, her voice breaking in the middle.” “Only on condition that I promise to marry him! Only on that condition!”
Brent dropped her hands, and stood back, his jaw loose, his eyes staring. Then the jaw grew hard and the eyes flamed. With a sudden, quick movement, he caught the girl in his arms. and held her so tightly to him that she felt her life was being pressed out of her. Yet, for all of that, she did not utter a sound.
“No, no, Dorothy; I—why, you're mine—mine—mine. You know you're mine. You're mine.”
She breathed, gasped out: “Yes, yours, yours, Brent, dear. I am yours—you know I am yours,” and began to cry softly.
His fierce kisses rained upon her lips, her eyes, her hair.
Presently she released herself, still holding her handkerchief to her eyes.
“If you care for me how can you tell me what you did?” he cried, a fierce jealousy awakening within him. “Did you care for this man or——”
She looked up, her eyes pitiful. “Brent, dear, it is the only. way. You said there was no sacrifice too great to make for our country. And I am making the greatest sacrifice. For I love you, I love you very dearly, Brent, very dearly.”
The man's face was haggard.
“It is the only way out,” said the girl, her voice breaking again. “If I do not give him my promise he will not help us, and will try to prevent our plans being carried out. If I do not promise we cannot save our country, as we hoped to do. I would not have had the courage to think of the promise, had you not said that no sacrifice was too great for country. But—and so I am making it, Brent.”
There was a long silence, then: “Sweetheart,” he said, and his voice had in it a rare, sweet quality which she had never heard before, “I am honored, made better, purer, by loving such a girl as you—the bravest, truest little woman that ever lived. No matter what fate has in store for me, I shall always love you. I had other plans, but fate has intervened. Our country demands a sacrifice. It shall have two—yours and mine.”
Her arms went about his neck, and he kissed her again.
But presently they drew away from one another and looked each into the other's eyes, seeing only despair there; and the woman rose to her feet.
“I shall go—and tell him now,” she said.
“Yes,” he replied dully. “Yes.”
Darkness had overspread the land. The light had gone out of the world and out of their lives. The plaintive notes of the nightingale seemed nearer, more distinct.

### VII.

When Brent had got a firm grip upon himself again, he arose, and, very pale-faced and thin-lipped, descended to the first floor. He must get rid of the other officers for a short while for the purpose of getting his own people together. The easiest solution of the problem presented itself in the smell of cooking which came from the kitchen, where the captain's steward and boys were preparing the dinner.
Brent reentered the reception-hall. The bottles of whisky were half-empty, the place was thick with tobacco smoke. He stepped forward.
“Captain Arundsen,” said he, “and the other officers. Dinner will soon be ready. Perhaps you would like to wash up a little before dinner?”
“It is so,” said Captain Walrus Arundsen, removing his feet from the table and rising. “To wash is what I desire.”
“There is water in the bedrooms,” said Brent. “Come, captain and Colonel Pfferkorn, and you, Mr. Phillips and Mr. O'Shane and Mr. Sturmson.”
Lanier entered with Dorothy Gordon as he spoke.
“Will you come and wash up before dinner, Mr. Lanier?”
Dorothy shook her head at Lanier.
“Presently,” he said carelessly.
The five others followed Brent up-stairs to the different bedrooms. Not one of them was entirely sober, and they welcomed the idea of cold water. Brent led each to a different bedroom, and closed the door; then speedily got down-stairs again.
Ochs, Dreen, and Hyman were in the reception-room stalking about, their hands in their pockets. Lanier talked to Miss Gordon in a corner.
“That's a swift lot of gentlemen,” said Mr. Pursey Ochs. “What I call very lecherous in their ideas—lechers, in fact. Not that I take to myself any great purity of mind, but I do not rake up the muck-heaps for the purpose of making a quiet, intellectual afternoon. So——”
Brent nodded. “All right. We haven't got much time to talk. Mr. Lanier! Come over. Miss Gordon has given me to understand that you are with us, and she has also informed me of your scheme. I approve. This is Mr. Ochs, Doctor Hyman, and Mr. Dreen. Mr. Lanier has consented to aid us in our cause, and I feel sure you can trust him——”
Lanier nodded. “You can trust me,” he said briefly. “My scheme is to seize the steamer to-night and make away with it. The Chinese crew will do what I say. They're mostly off my old ship, and I got them their places here. The officer, Christian, we'll have to blanket. The engineer in charge—old MacTavish, the chief engineer, is sick—is named Ellison, and he's a friend of mine. The other engineers, McCullom and Raeburn, are decent chaps, and will be all right after awhile. We'll have to lock them in their staterooms until we get out of port. Now, this is what I propose, and I must talk quickly, because there's very little time. You ply the others with all the liquor you can, and try to get them drunk—though you'll have a hard job. Well, about nine o'clock I'll get up to take a breath of fresh air, so will all the rest of you, one at a time, all except one. You'll join me. We'll take the captain's boat to the ship, and carry out the scheme. As soon as we get enough steam up, we'll start. When we're under steam, I'll give three hoots of the siren. The man who stays behind will have to keep the officers away until that time—keep them away, somehow—because if they got loose and alarmed the soldiers, there'd be the deuce to pay. Now, that's all, I think. Once under way, we'll make straight for Manila at the limit of our engines, get a couple of war-ships, and hustle back here to settle matters. It's up to you as to who the man shall be who'll stay here. He's got to take a lot of chances; and he'll very likely be hunted like a criminal by all this refuse on the island. I forgot to add that he'll have to blow up the barracks if he doesn't want these men to be armed and put up a fight when the United States cruisers show up——”
“We have laid the mine to the barracks,” said Brent, “and I will see that they're blown up as soon as you sound the siren. I'll also see that none of the officers escape or make any noise until I hear that siren's whistle——”
“You!” cried Dorothy Gordon.
“Yes,” replied Brent. “I'm the man to stay. I've had more experience in living in the wilds than the rest of you. I can shoot straighter, I'm physically stronger, and I can live in the woods. The man who stays behind will have to have some experience at that, you see.”
“But you!” There was a note of agony in the girl's voice. Lanier Daingerfield looked at her sharply.
“I agree with Brent,” he said. “He's the best man for it. Let him stay behind.”
“Oh, that's settled,” responded Brent, with an appearance of carelessness. “I was elected the leader of this party, and I delegate the place to myself. I take care to get ready a bag for myself having lots of food and ammunition in it before we sit down to dinner, and I'll be well armed, and—— Sssh!” he cried warningly.
“Scatter! Separate, you people! They're coming down. Dreen and Hyman, you stay here and look after them for awhile. I've got to pack up a little—and——”
He disappeared in the semidarkness outside. Pursey Ochs followed him. Dorothy Gordon slipped away to her room, leaving Lanier Daingerfield behind.
Pursey Ochs caught Brent's hand. “Somebody's dealing us a royal flush,” he said, “but you got a tray hand.”
“Ochs,” said Brent, “look after the girl, will you? Look after her—and, Ochs! see when you reach Manila that she stays there—that she doesn't come back with the ships. Will you see to that, Ochs?”
There came a strain of anxiety into the newspaper editor's voice. “Do you think you'll peter out?” he asked.
Brent shrugged his shoulders noncommittally. “I want you to promise, Ochs. I might not have the chance to ever speak to you again, and I want you to know that there's not anything in the world for me—except Dorothy Gordon! And I can't go with her because I must stay here. We have some hard roads to travel, Ochs, sometimes, and a man doesn't whine. And I've gotten to like you—and I know you'll look after her. I don't trust this Lanier overmuch—and not with her at all. You see, she's sacrificing herself to get him to do this. He's doing it for a price. He knew her years ago—and the price is herself. And she bought him with that, Ochs.”
Pursey Ochs wrung the other man's hand silently. “I'll look out,” he said. “I—well, she doesn't care for me, Brent, and she does for you—but nobody ever did love a fat man! Still, I suppose a fat man can love, if he chooses—and I—well, I'll keep my eyes peeled, Brent, and if anything happens to you—well, there's nobody except her that I think more of—and, so-long.”
Ochs' voice was a little husky. He suddenly released Brent's hand and pushed off into the grove of palm-trees,
Under the very eyes of the captain's steward and boys who were preparing the meal, Brent extracted several tins of biscuit, some cans of meat, and some limes. Taking these to his room, he placed them within a shooting-bag which he had constructed out of canvas for the purpose of carrying game. He filled up the rest of the space in it with cartridges and bird-shot, and buckled it tightly, leaving it on his bed. From the wall he took down his shotgun and filled it. That would be necessary for shooting game.
He stripped off his tunic and washed his face and hands, then strapped about his waist his cartridge-belt containing two holsters, the same belt being one of a number in the arsenal. He examined his heavy .45's, ejected the cartridges and replaced them. Satisfied with the working of the guns, he shoved them into the holsters, which he left open. After washing his hands again, he put on his tunic over his warlike array, and took the blanket from the bed, folding it neatly and strapping it on the outside of the game-bag. Then, propping his shotgun against the bed in close proximity to the bag, he blew out his candles and went down-stairs.
It was not very long before all were sitting at dinner. Brent saw to it that five magnums of champagne had been brought up, with instructions to the boys to cool them in the well as they were needed. In addition to this there were cherry and apricot brandy, and Japanese saki, not to mention the indispensable Scotch and rye, and the seltzer siphons.
The dinner consisted of many courses, skilfully cooked by the Japanese steward, who had once served on an American man-of-war. In some way he had produced soup, fish, an entrée, a roast, a salad, and dessert; and as these courses were served with long intermissions between (thanks to Brent's orders) there was plentiful time to imbibe frequently and deeply, which every one at the table seemed to be doing, although the six conspirators were pouring most of theirs into their plates or on the floor whenever the chance presented itself.
They finished the dinner proper by half-after eight, and a pleasant amusement occurring to Phillips, who had hitherto said little, he shot the cork off one of the bottles of champagne, amused at the geyser which streamed up to the ceiling. The boy promptly poured out the wine, and was ordered to put the empty bottle back in place, where Phillips riddled it with the shots from his revolver. The sport appealed to the others, and they shot at the champagne-bottles in sheer, drunken abandon, taking no count of the fact that some of the bottles were full.
“We can—er—drink as fash as we shoot,” hiccoughed O'Shane, gulping at his glass and holding it out for more from the broken-necked bottle.
The room was heavy with the smell of tobacco and burnt powder, above all the reek of the spilled liquor. Out of the noise and turmoil nine o'clock struck ominously. Lanier Daingerfield unostentatiously withdrew from the table and touched Dorothy's arm.
“Come,” he said.
She arose and stepped to the doorway. Looking back, she saw Brent's eyes wistful, pathetic, resigned.
“I must speak to Brent for a moment,” she half-choked, to Lanier. “Wait for me outside.” She coughed loudly, to hide her emotion. Her eyes and a backward motion of her head invited Brent.
He got up, and they stepped together into the anteroom. “It is only for a minute, Brent, dear,” she said. “I am very brave; but I couldn't leave you without a good-by. I have so little left in the world now, that I could not give up that good-by. So kiss me, dearest, and—that's the end of it all, I suppose.”
He bowed over her hands. “Good-by, sweetheart. There is no one but you. In this life or the next, only you.”
“Dolly,” came a voice from outside.
He kissed her, and without words she went away, leaving him with bowed head. He stood there for several minutes, then, with a certain decided movement, drew himself up stiffly and went back into the dining-room.
His absence had evidently not been noted. Walrus Arundsen was standing on his chair, wobbling to and fro and spilling his champagne, and giving a speech on the subject of lovely womanhood as studied by him from the tropics to the frigid zone. In his broken English, with fragments of all other languages mixed in, the effect was decidedly grotesque, and Pursey Ochs, whose sense of the ludicrous defied all personal feelings, was shaking with laughter. At Brent's reentrance, he nodded to Ochs, who became grave again, and presently arose and went out, gripping Brent's shoulder in good-by. Dreen performed a similar action in leaving, and Schlauss Hyman muttered something of a semiaffectionate nature. Presently all were gone but the enemy.
But the diminution of the jovial company did not appear to be a cause for worry. Arundsen began to troll out a drinking-song in which the others tried to join; but the eccentric voice of the Walrus, added to his frequent flatting of his notes, prevented any adequate swelling of the chorus. He was shouted down by the fog-horn voice of Hoofer O'Shane, who, his forehead shiny, his face perspiring, and his red curls waving defiance, began to hiccough “The Wearing of the Green,” after which he made an impassioned speech against perfidious Albion and all connected with her. This aroused the ire of Phillips, who was drunk enough to forget that he had forfeited his right to be called a Briton.
“Damn' Irish—always making a bally row,” stuttered the Englishman. “Don't know when they're jolly well licked. We licked 'em jolly well.”
“Ye lie, ye sphalpheen!” shouted O'Shane unsteadily; but Phillips was too intent upon his own discourse to notice him.
“Always looking for a bally row,” continued Phillips, waving his glass and spilling some wine on Colonel Pfferkorn, who was slumbering peacefully in his chair. “'Fore we gave them the rightabout, always rowing among themselves. Then all combined to row with us. Rotten race—always talk, nothing but talk.”
“I'll Show ye the sort of talk,” began O'Shane; and his fist whirled toward the Englishman, who stood staring vacantly and waving his glass. Brent caught O'Shane's arm and held it tightly. O'Shane attempted to shake it off, but found that he was pinioned. He turned, swinging his left hand.
“Take thot, ye naygur!” he shouted, and aimed a blow directly for Brent's face. Brent struck up the arm and caught the other hand. The spirit of cruelty was in him. Perhaps he had suffered so much that night that there was within him a savage desire to make others suffer. The attempt of O'Shane to strike Phillips, who was quite helpless in his vinous state, aroused his anger; and the epithet of “naygur” was adding fuel to the flame. Brent knew he was playing the part of a mestizo; and knew also that his skin was very brown from long exposure to sun, wind, and rain. But he was from Virginia, where a man may call another anything but that, and be better off.
At all events, the latent savagery in Brent awoke, and for the first time since his bout with Dreen, he let his strength have play. But with Dreen it had been different. Brent had endeavored not to hurt the football-player. He was careless with the offensive, bullying Irishman. He smiled what his negro nurse of the old days had been known to call his “white laugh,” a combination of a sneer and a smile without mirth in it, his eyes all the while cold and hard. His steellike fingers twisted the Irishman's wrists around, until O'Shane's eyes bulged and the veins in his forehead stood out. Drops of cold perspiration fell from his face, and he was deathly white.
He stood it for perhaps a minute, then shrieked “Och! It's murdher ye're after,” and gave a violent, convulsive effort to free himself. But Brent, still smiling, turned the wrists still farther.
“Get down on your knees, and take back the 'nigger' part of it,” said Brent. The Irishman's bones seemed about to crack. With a prayer to the Virgin, he sank to the floor.
“It's not meaning it I was,” he half-shrieked.
Brent released him with a contemptuous gesture, and resumed his seat. The others had been quite silent during the affair, and it had sobered them up somewhat. O'Shane chafed his red wrists, casting oblique, evil glances at the man who had worsted him so easily.
“And this is what ye call hospitality?” he growled. “Ye have us to dinner wid ye, and then it's a fight ye're wanting. Sure, and it's a hospitality I'm not liking, for one.”
He looked around the room thick with smoke, and discovered the absence of Herr von Klingen. His eyes took in casually the fact that Greenbaum, Aorto, and Conkling had also vanished along with Lanier.
“Sure,” he continued spitefully, “it's hospitality of which ye should be proud! But one of the hosts still remaining at table; and he assaulting the guests!” O'Shane got to his feet again. “To the devil wid such hospitality! I'm going back to the ship.”
Brent got up. “You're not going yet, Mr. O'Shane, I hope?”
“I am, thin,” returned the Irishman, moving toward the door.
By a quick turn Brent put himself between the Irishman and his means of escape.
It had been more than half an hour since the other conspirators had left the room. Surely by this time they must be near the end of their work. His ears were strained anxiously for the sound of the siren.
“I can't let you go yet, Mr. O'Shane,” said Brent pleasantly. “The night is young, and there is yet a number of bottles which we have not opened. Come, will you leave while there's good liquor to drink and good fellows to drink with? That's not like an Irishman.”
“No,” cried Phillips, with a hoarse laugh. “Thash not like Irishman. Not like Irishman 'tall.”
“I'll be going, thank ye,” returned O'Shane stiffly, and stepped forward. “What! ye won't let me?” He turned to Walrus Arundsen. “Captain, are ye seeing that four of yer hosts have quitted the table, and that yer first officer's gone with them. Is that the sort of hoshpitality——”
He swayed a little, but steadied himself. Walrus Arundsen, goaded into a rage by the words, got on his feet.
“We go—we go, all of us. Now we go. Come, let us go, all of us—now—yah! pig!” And he struck the snoring Pfferkorn lustily on the back.
Pfferkorn opened his eyes sleepily, and Phillips, reduced to childish horseplay by his drunkenness, sprayed the seltzer on the countenance of the rubicund Swiss.
Pfferkorn, with an exclamation of disgust, mopped his face with his handkerchief, and, taking off his gold-framed spectacles, wiped them carefully. His sleep had left him perfectly sober.
“Come on,” said Phillips. “We're going—back to ship——” and let the seltzer spray upon Sturm Sturmson, who was also in a comatose condition. The Norse-American jumped up suddenly, and his fingers played in and out of his tawny hair. He wiped his face in a bewildered sort of way.
“Whas'r matter?” he inquired thickly.
“Going,” replied Phillips, solemnly staring at him. “Going to ship—to pride of wavsh—Britannia ru'es the wavsh, and all thash sort rot—thash joke—laugh—O'Shane's a rotter—he wansh go back ship—I wansh stay——”
“It is to go,” announced Rolf Arundsen, who, after a nice calculation of equilibrium, had succeeded in getting his bearings, and was steering a tolerably true course toward the door, only to be confronted by Brent.
It was a scene which will always stand out in Brent's memory—the long, low-ceilinged room with the table covered with a cloth stained with wine and strewn with cigar-ashes, overturned and broken glasses, sodden cigarettes, and burnt-out matches; the floor running with spilt wine, the broken bottles lying everywhere and crunching under the boot-heels of those who walked; a long trail of smoke circling about the ceiling; and the candles burning low in their sockets.
The windows were open, and the moonlight cast a ghastly light on Phillips, who stood balancing himself in the rays, dapper as ever, not a strand of his hair disordered for all his drunkenness, the red scar standing out sinister on his white forehead. Walrus Arundsen's yellow mustache hung limp and reeked of liquor; Brian O'Shane, always red of hair, was now also red of face; Sturmson's tunic was unbuttoned, showing a dirty shirt underneath, which was also soaked with perspiration; and Colonel Pfferkorn looked like a good-natured schoolmaster out of place.
“It is to go,” said Walrus Arundsen, facing Brent.
“Do not go yet, captain,” pleaded Brent, following the pacific course as long as it was possible. “I do not wish you to leave me yet.”
“It is to go,” repeated the Dane stolidly.
“No,” said Brent.
They stared at him. Brian O'Shane laughed mockingly. “Faith, he's the laddy to try that strength of his!” he said. “He's too strong for me, but not strong enough for the lot of us. Come, is it that we all wish to go?”
“Yes,” shouted the others, angered at opposition.
“Well,” jeered O'Shane, “the Spaniard, here, thinks he's strong enough to keep us here. We'll be showing him. Come, the lot of yez! One, two, three.”
There was a rush altogether. O'Shane, who led it, was upon Brent in a moment; but not before Brent's hands had come from under his tunic, and O'Shane found himself looking into the black, ominous circles of two .45's.
“You'll stay until I let you go,” said Brent quietly. “If a man tries to leave before I give permission, if he tries to draw a weapon, I'll shoot him dead. Hands up. Get 'em up a little quicker than that. Up, I say!”
Sturmson's and Pfferkorn's had gone up instantly; after a little hesitation, Arundsen's and Phillips' followed suit. There was only O'Shane, who, with his hands in his side pockets, stared defiantly.
“O'Shane,” said Brent, and his tone was vicious, “you'll put up your hands or I'll shoot to kill. What I say goes.”
Suddenly the Irishman laughed. “He's making a fool out of us. A Spaniard! I'm thinking he's not much of a Spaniard. Ye heard the fine Yankee tongue of him, thin. We've been a pack of fools. I've been misdoubting this crowd ever since I saw thim. That Conkling was no man—I knew the same. I'd been suspecting—and now——”
“Put up your hands!” said Brent.
“I will, answered the Irishman, “that way.” His hand went to his hip pocket swiftly, and he jerked out his revolver. But before it had done more than dangle in his hand, there was a staccato report, and a red mark showed on his forehead. He gasped suddenly, and his knees bent under him, then he fell sprawling to the floor.
Brent's face had not changed. He watched the smoke circle around the room, smelt the powder, knew that he had killed the Irishman. But he was listening for only one thing, the hoot of the siren.
“He's dead,” said Phillips, suddenly sober, looking down at the Irishman.
“Yes, ” replied Brent, in a matter-of-fact tone. “Just as any of you others will be if you don't keep your hands over your heads.”
No one spoke after that for some time. The drunkenness was leaving the men. They were growing quite sober. None of them knew why Brent wished them to remain, why O'Shane had been killed; but they all knew the number of deaths that lurked behind the circles of those ominous weapons, and they had faced danger too often to court certain death.
And so they stood, motionless and silent, save for an occasional shifting of position and the scraping of feet across the floor. Outside, the insects of the night made their queer noises and occasionally an owl hooted. There was another noise, too, the sound of the puffing of steam, to which Sturmson was listening intently.
Suddenly, out of the stillness came the harsh, shrill note of a siren. There was a pause, and it was repeated. Another pause, and it came for the third time. And the silence fell again.
Each man had started when the siren shrieked, each, except Brent, whose face wore a smile that was almost a happy one.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “in a moment I will leave you. You will not return to your ship to-night. She is now on her way to Manila. I may tell you that I and my companions are not members of the Philippine Junta, but citizens of the United States, who have determined that their country shall not suffer through the machinations of the country which hired you. The ship has gone to Manila to get assistance. Until then you can make yourself comfortable in this house. I turn it over to you. I also say good-by. But keep your hands up until I get out of the door.”
He slipped up his tunic and shoved one of his revolvers back in place. With his free hand, he extracted the key from the door, and stepped outside, still keeping the revolver leveled on his enemies. The next second the door vs and the key was turned in the lock.
Brent shoved back his second revolver and sprang up the stairs to the second landing. He grabbed his bag, blanket, and shotgun. Almost instantly he dived down the stairs again and out of the door. He skirted the gardens and the bath-house, and made quickly to the crest of the hill separating the house from the arsenal.
His hand groped in the earth for a moment, then he lifted a cigar-box, which showed a ball of cotton soaked in oil, which was tied to the end of a long, black fuse, soaked in the same material He struck a safety-match cautiously, shading it with his hands to attract no attention, then ignited the ball of cotton.
It burned brightly, communicating with the fuse. Brent watched the flame dance on its way up the hill and disappear over the slope. He stood quite still, leaning on his shotgun, the bag and blanket slung over his shoulder. His eyes were kept on the dim outlines of the arsenal.
He waited perhaps some five minutes, his muscles tense. Then there was a mighty roar, and he clutched at a tree for support, his rifle falling to the ground. The earth swayed beneath him, the din was tremendous.
Then, from the arsenal, came a brilliant, blinding red flame that seemed to obscure earth and sky together. He watched it, dazzled.
Then silence and blackness followed; and the shrill curses and oaths of frightened men were wafted out on the evening air.
Brent, knowing that he had done his duty, and that now his life alone was to be considered, struck off for the path which they had made toward the other side of the island.

### VIII.

Lanier Daingerfield stood in silence for several moments after Dorothy joined him. The muscles of his face were working, and it was with difficulty that he kept back a flow of words. Presently he turned and looked at the girl in the moonlight, frail, slight, boyish in her white uniform, the moon-beams lighting up her yellow hair.
“What did you,say to Brent?” he asked quietly.
She turned swiftly on him. “What is that to you?” she replied, with spirit. She was in no mood to be questioned on the subject which had made her heart sick.
“Are you in love with Brent?” he questioned slowly.
“I have promised to marry you; that should be enough,” was her answer; and she walked several paces from him.
“Dorothy!” he said, and his arms went about her.
“The others are coming,” she cried. It was hard to keep some semblance of gladness out of her voice; but he was far too egotistical to see that. He released her as Pursey Ochs came out of the house, stepped from the veranda, and came up to them. He was followed by Dreen and Hyman.
“We're all here,” was Lanier's curt greeting. “And we'd better lose no time carrying out our plan. Come.”
There was little said. They followed him down the wooded slope, stumbling over tree-trunks and through tangles of vine and herbage. Once Hyman's foot was caught, and he stumbled down; but he caught himself, and was on his feet before the others noted it.
They came out into the moonlight again, and the black. hulk of the wrecked schooner on the reef loomed up under their gaze. The moon had made a silver maze of the waters, and ever and anon little fishes leaping: to the surface threw out their trails of liquid phosphorescence like the coloring of an orange against the silver. Out to sea, the Valkyrie seemed a thing suspended in the magic waters, her few lights glimmering like the baleful eyes of some monster of the deep.
From the barracks came the sounds of noise and revelry. Brent had seen to it that there had been several barrels of rum broached, and the soldiery had done the rest. They were shouting out some sailors' chorus now; and the enchanted distances softened their rough notes into fairy melodies before they reached the ears of the listeners:
See there she stands and waves her hand
Upon—the—quay,
And every day while I'm away
She waits—for me,
And whispers low when tempests blow
For Jack—at sea,
Yo-ho, boys, yo-ho-ho!
The glamour of the scene was upon them. They stood watching the cobwebby shadows of the forest, swinging, pendulous things of shade; and then away to the moonlit waters. The music out of nothingness was like a charm. The soft drone of the night insects supplied the orchestra.
Lanier Daingerfield, by virtue of his leadership, was the first to pull himself together, and his eye traversed the stretch of white sands. “There's the boat,” he said, and pointed a little way up the beach. “And there are those lazy Chinese rascals fast asleep in the sand. Come along.”
He ran ahead, his shadow bobbing before him like an attendant elf disporting itself on the sands. They followed his flying tunic, and came up breathless while he was shaking the four Chinese sailors out of their slumbers. Once awake, they were quite active; and when the four had clambered into the boat, the sailors rolled up their trousers and waded out, pushing the boat before them. Out of the shallows, they climbed in, and adjusted their oars while Lanier held the tiller-ropes. The still water, cut by the sharp prow, bubbled up little waves of fire.
The accommodation ladder was still down when the boat dashed up to it; and a sailor scrambled down from deck to receive their flying rope, which was made fast. The five conspirators clambered out on the ladder.
Lanier had left Dorothy to her own devices, and was talking to Dreen. “You look like you could strike a good blow with your fist,” he said. “And you'll have to do it, because I don't want to hurt Christian. He's not a bad sort. I'll go up to talk to him; and while he's engaged with me, you give him a right-hand swing behind the ear. You understand?”
Dreen nodded affirmation, and they scrambled on deck. The officer of the deck was pacing to and fro, his hands behind him, a short pipe in his mouth. “Now,” said Lanier.
At the sound of their soft shoes on the deck, Christian turned and raised his hand in salute, then gravely paced up and down as before. Dreen and Lanier approached him, and the latter laid a hand on his shoulder.
“Hello, Chrishun,” he said, with drunken familiarity, a condition which he was very well able to assume.
The Dane turned and stared at the lurching form of his companion, but did not remove the pipe from his mouth. Dreen slipped behind him.
“Too much schnapps is not goot,” he said sententiously, letting twin clouds of smoke pour from his wide, upturned nostrils. He took the pipe from his mouth and spat.
Before he had replaced the pipe, Dreen, lightly balancing himself, launched out in the deadening pivot-blow, and, turning on his heel, caught the Dane behind the ear with the full force of arm and body. The pipe fell to the deck and rolled over, the hot ashes smoldering, while Christian dropped limply.
Lanier trod out the ashes, and, picking up the pipe, knocked out the remainder of its contents and thrust it back in Christian's pocket. “He's keen on that pipe,” said Lanier, and shook the Dane roughly. He did not respond.
“Come, we'll carry him to his cabin.” Lanier caught Christian's feet, while the other took his head. The members of the party and the Chinese sailors on watch looked curiously at the proceeding. Pursey Ochs lighted a cigar and stared away at the lights twinkling on the island. None of the conspirators were overfond of blows delivered from the back.
As Lanier emerged on deck, he shouted for Lim-Sha, the boatswain, and one of the Chinese sailors hurried below and awakened that dignitary. Lim-Sha shuffled up in pajamas and grass-straw slippers, sleepy-eyed and with a look of injury.
“Wantchee me, claptain?” he inquired, still with his injured air. Lim-Sha had been boatswain on Lanier's old ship, and it was a constant source of anger to Walrus Arundsen to hear his first officer referred to by the title which, on the Valkyrie, he felt that he alone should bear.
“Yes, Lim-Sha,” replied Lanier briefly. “I take command here now. We go away chop-chop. Catchee all crew, swing up boat to davits, take up ladder, get under way. You savvy?”
“Yes, master. Me savvy.” Lim-Sha asked no questions. He worshiped Lanier, and made the Chinese crew do likewise. Lanier's orders had far more effect than Arundsen's.
“Now?” asked Lim-Sha, moving away.
“Qui-qui,” returned Lanier briefly. “You send three piecee firemen to engine-room, too, Qui-qui.”
As the boatswain hurried off at an accelerated gait, Lanier turned to Pursey Ochs.
“Armed?” he asked.
“Two guns—Colts. Both loaded for bear.” Mr. Ochs was learning brevity in this hard school.
“Come on, then.” He moved off. “The rest of you stay where you are.”
The two men plunged into the semi-darkness of the deck-saloon and down the broad, brass-covered stairs to the level of the cabins. Passing down the passage, Lanier turned a door and exhibited a pair of winding, spiral steps for the benefit of Ochs, said steps leading down into a maze of machinery of brass and steel. The machinery was working ponderously, slowly, and the place below was hot.
On a small chest at the bottom of the stairs sat a man in a thin, white rowing-shirt,a pair of white trousers, and white shoes. He was playing solitaire, and keeping one eye on a brace of dirty stokers who stood before the roaring furnace which produced the power to make these engines things of life. At the approach of the two, he looked up.
“Hello, Ellison!” said Lanier. “She's still under steam, is she?”
“She is,” returned the Scotchman, a clean-looking young fellow, for all his surroundings, with a close-clipped, sandy mustache. “And a sinfu' waste of guid coal it is, mon. I thought ye were roistering on shore.”
“I've got orders to get the ship under 'way, and make for Manila,” returned Lanier. “Don't wait to get up enough steam, Ellison. Just let her go with what little you have until we're a bit away from the island. Then we can anchor, and you can get all the steam you want——”
Ellison eyed him suspiciously. “Are ye joking the noo, Lanier?” he asked.
“Devil the joke!”
“Then ye must know I canna get the ship under way wi'oot orders from the captain and my chief—and he that ill wi' the fever that Wallace MacCullom, who is somewhat of a sawbones, can do naught with him, and I'm fearing the auld man's near to death—wi' ye roistering on shore,” he added.
“I've brought a man aboard who can cure him,” said Lanier, suddenly remembering Hyman. “A regular doctor he is, although I didn't know it until to-night. But now, Ellison, here's your three firemen. Set them and your stokers and coal-passers to work and get up the steam. Quick, man! I've got my orders, and I haven't time to lose.”
“I canna,” replied Ellison stubbornly. Lanier nodded to Pursey Ochs, who interpreted his gesture and acted accordingly.
It is a moment that should not be forgotten, for it marks the downfall of the Pursey Ochs that was—that law-abiding, fight-hating, peace-loving Ochs who had thundered against imperialism, against the force of arms, against strength or brute force. This was another Pursey Ochs, who was some thirty pounds lighter than the peace-loving one, not to mention some degrees harder; this was a lawless Pursey Ochs, who had a cheery smile on his face while he trampled upon all that he and the Daily Star, of St. Louis, had held sacred; for it was with his customary cherubic smile that Pursey Ochs thrust the cold muzzle of a Colt under the ear of William Ellison, and held it there.
“I just hate to do it, Elly,” said Lanier apologetically. “But orders are orders, and you've just got to start the machinery, and that's all there is to it. Take your choice, or have a pellet jingle against your brain-pan. It's just as you like. I'll give you two minutes to decide in.”
He pulled his watch out by the fob, and held it in his hand. Ellison said nothing, scraping at the oil-stained floor with the point of his canvas shoe. The byplay was hidden from the stokers and firemen around the angle.
Lanier snapped his watch-case shut, and looked questioningly at Ellison.
“I'll do it,” growled the young Scotchman. “It's no' canny for a man to lose his life when he has but yin forbye. Tak' yon bit pistol from ahint my ear—I'll do it.”
“Right,” said Lanier. “You've got sense, Ellison. I'll just leave this gentleman here to keep you company in case you get lonesome. What's the use of putting back the revolver, Ochs? It looks better in the light. You understand—I trust Mr. Ellison; but if it should chance that my trust is misplaced, I know I have you here.”
Pursey Ochs grinned his comprehension, and fondled the Colt, keeping one gimlet-eye acutely alert for any trickiness from the canny Scot. Lanier went up the corkscrew stairs and disappeared at the top.
Ellison was giving instructions in a tone of voice very different from the mild one he had used in the conversation. The stokers, firemen, and passers were quickly on the alert, and the engine-room became a scene of activity. The great fires half-smoldering crackled under the coal heaped upon them, and breathed out blue flame, which presently became a hot, roaring red again. Valves squeaked and emitted steam. Rods worked up and down with the energy of rattans plied by angry schoolmasters.
Through it all, Ellison sat with his hand on the indicator, and the bell-tube communicating from above swinging close to his ear. Twice Lanier from the bridge shouted down instructions to him; and twice he made the angry reply that he was not yet ready.
In an interval he turned, and, for the first time in the red glow from the furnace fire, Pursey Ochs got a good look at his craggy forehead, his insignificant nose; his eyes, one brown and one blue, and his shock of hair. To say he gazed in wonderment was to put it mildly; and to add that Ellison's gaze was quite as surprised and shocked was still to be inadequate.
When Ochs got his breath, he managed to gasp: “Bruce Gillespie! Bruce Gillespie!” Then: “What in the name of the lamb's hindfoot are you doing out here, you disreputable scavenger?”
To which the erstwhile Ellison replied quite as courteously: “And ye, ye fat tub, what are ye? Am I worse off for a wee drappie of whusky, or are ye that degraded, J. P. Ochs?”
“Right you are,” replied Pursey Ochs. “It's myself I am, though not fat—only a trifle stout. How are you, Disreputability?”
The two shook hands, and Gillespie eyed the other dubiously.
“But for all that my love for you surpasseth that of any man, I'll have no hesitation in dislocating your mental pabulum, my chick,” remarked Ochs cheerfully, glancing down at the revolver.
Gillespie gave another order; and cursed two firemen with such lustiness that they fell to trembling.
“And now,” said Pursey Ochs, “what in Heaven's name brought the wealthy manufacturer of calamity carts down to running an engine on a pirate—hey? When I left St. Louis there was the big sign still over the Gillespie factory: 'Go Gassing in a Gillomobile,' making the moon look insignificant; and thousands of your mortuary machines making mischief for the morgue. What's the matter?”
Gillespie gave some more orders, and did not reply. When he did, it was sadly. “Whusky, my friend; whusky,” he said. “I went adrift in San Francisco, and when I awoke I was shanghaied on board a ship for Japan. They robbed me of my money, and I landed wi'oot a groat. I went to the consul's, and told him who I might be, but my clothes were against me, and he laughed at me, and hinted I had a drappie too much. Sae there was naught to do but gain a poseetion of some kind, which would gi' me enough siller to mak' mysel' look respectable, and tak' me back to 'Frisco; so, being a first-class marine engineer, I applied, and was taken on this ship—and so ye have it.”
He stared at Pursey Ochs, and shouted something, back to Lanier through the tube.
“And what of ye?” he asked. “Ye, the mon of peace, who would ha'e yer country gi' up warr entirely! Ye wit' a pistol trained upon a peacefu' mon!”
He continued to stare at Ochs, whose eyes dropped beneath his gaze, and who was, for once, at loss for an answer.
Meanwhile, the boatswain, Lim-Sha, had brought the crew out of their bunks, and the anchor-chain was slowly warped up, and the great piece of steel brought to deck. Lanier on the bridge shouted his instructions, while Dreen, Hyman, and Dorothy stood at different points of the ship, revolvers in hand, to use if necessary. From the cabin of the imprisoned engineer Raeburn came a frantic clamor; but Wallace MacCullom, the other, was too busy with his feverish chief, old MacTavish, to bother about the uproar outside. He had long ago decided that the rest of the officers were godless; and was not surprised at any uproar they might make.
“Christian, also, who had come out of the swoon brought on by Dreen's blow, was making vigorous attempts to get out of the cabin in which he was confined, but with no success.
The crew had been under Lanier's commands before, and Lim-Sha had taken Lanier on trust. It was not for them to ask questions. The great engines down below were throbbing and pulsating—the ship quivering at every revolution.
“Stand -by,” shouted Lanier; then down the tube: “Full speed ahead.”
Slowly, with many snorts and puffs, the great ship plowed out toward the sea. Lanier, catching the siren-rope, pulled it hard. The raucous note came forth, followed by two more.
Dorothy Gordon in the excitement of the moment ran to Dreen.
“We're moving. We're moving. We're going—at last.”
“Yes,” said Dreen; and his tone sobered her. She looked back toward the island. The lights glimmered in the bungalow. In that same bungalow was the one man for whom she cared—the man she had given up, and who had stayed behind to die. Her eyes filled with tears.
“Brent, Brent!” she moaned.
Borne out on the still breeze of the night came the sound of a pistol-shot.

### IX.

There was no sleep for the adventurers that night. Lanier as the only navigator of the lot was forced to keep the bridge through the long hours, while the others had little desire for sleep, fearing as they did a recapture of the vessel. The stealing of the Valkyrie had been such a bloodless affair, that they doubted almost that it had really been done.
They pulled steamer-chairs out of one of the storerooms, and reclined on them, their revolvers ready to hand. They could hear the crack of the machinery, the guttural chants of the Chinese sailors, and every now and then a vigorous protest from Raeburn and Christian.
Some two hours after putting out to sea MacCullom made an outcry. Dreen went to see what was this new cause for uproar.
“Theres a fever-stricken man in here,” said MacCullom through the key-hole. “And I've run out of ice for him forbye. Wull ye na' let me oot?”
Dreen went below to fetch some ice, and notified Hyman on the way. The doctor, ever keen to use his professional skill, went within the chief engineer's cabin, and was soon issuing orders to the astonished MacCullom.
“No wonder he has the fever,” shouted the little doctor. “It's a wonder he didn't die under such treatment. You must be crazy.”
“What do ye ken of the fever?” asked the astonished MacCullom.
“I am Schlauss Hyman—Doctor Hyman,” returned the other with dignity; and the rest of his night was spent with MacTavish; and when the dawn came the old man had become conscious again, and his temperature had been reduced some twenty degrees.
Ochs was very busy in the moonlight with a pencil and pad. He was writing a long despatch, which he was going to send to the Daily Star, of St. Louis; and his mind was abstracted as he framed the same, endeavoring to get in all the necessary details without unduly increasing the income of the cable companies, who received press matter from Manila at seventy-five cents per word, gold. Dreen was talking to Dorothy, but she did not hear what he was saying. She was thinking of the man back on the island and the single pistol-shot.
Presently she got up and went to the other side of the ship, where she was alone. The moonlight shone upon her as she clasped her hands over the rail—the gentle, soothing moonlight that somehow seemed to bring her nearer to the man she loved.
After awhile she returned to her steamer-chair, and fell into an uneasy sleep.
At dawn the steward brought up some toast and coffee for those on deck, and they gulped down the warm fluid and ate the toast gratefully. Pursey Ochs, who had been writing and crossing out all night, thrust his manuscript into his pocket,and made away with two orders of toast and coffee, and then lighted a great black cigar. He was looking as fresh and rosy as though he had had a comforting sleep.
Dorothy asked the steward to show her to a cabin, and she went within, ordering a bath as she did so. When she had bathed, reattired herself, and arranged her hair, she came up on deck again. When Lanier saw her from the bridge, he called Lim-Sha and bade him take several sailors and fetch out the rebellious Christian.
Christian was brought out very sulky and sleepy-eyed, and brought up to the bridge, which Lanier still paced. The latter gave him good morning and bade Lim-Sha stand back with his men.
“Now, Christian,” said Lanier cheerfully, “the nose of this vessel is turned toward Manila. We shall arrive there to-morrow some time. If you prefer to go into Manila a prisoner, and be handed over to the Philippine authorities on a charge of conspiracy, just say so. If you want to throw your fortunes in with us, you will go scot-free, and probably get a reward for being a good boy. If you refuse, I shall lock you up, and keep you locked up until we get to Manila. Then you'll be landed in Bilobid prison. Take your choice, my boy. I'd like to have you. You're the only other navigator aboard, and I'm tired of being on the bridge all the time.”
The fourth officer eyed him for some time, then he nodded his head: “Vat choice is it you give me?” he inquired. “It is no choice. Am I a vool? Nein. I vill take my watch.”
“Good boy,” said Lanier encouragingly; and told him the story of the seizure. “But remember, Chris, if you so much as alter the course of this vessel by half a point, I'll clap you in the black hole, or my name is Jones.”
“Am I a vool?” returned Christian again.
Lanier followed Lim-Sha below, and gave the Chinese instructions to watch Christian. He came up to Dorothy.
“I have conquered,” he said exultantly; “for your sake, Dolly. To-morrow we will be in Manila. I'm going below now to get some sleep. I will see you later.”
The day sped on uneventfully. They breakfasted at eight, after which Pursey Ochs and Dreen played with quoits on deck, while Dorothy tried to read a novel which she found in the saloon. Hyman was still hovering over his patient, and found only time to take a bath and snatch some breakfast. At one they had “tiffin” and the pleasure of Lanier's company. He was in white duck trousers, and a blue, brass-buttoned, gold-braided coat.
Lanier relieved Christian on the bridge, and Christian came down, but avoided any companionship with the others.
All in all it was an uneventful voyage. Nothing happened of any consequence—the crew was well-behaved. Raeburn and MacCullom, the engineers, when released that morning, showed themselves very tractable, and took turns relieving Ellison in the engine-room. Ochs and Ellison (or Bruce Gillespie) spent much time together arguing religious questions; and as both had remarkable faculties for keeping their tempers, they had long sittings of moment.
Mid-morning they entered Manila Bay, and passed Corregidor by ten o'clock. The quarantine station at Mariveles detained them longer, and the customs authorities the longest, inasmuch as their papers did not in the least correspond with their destination. The papers stated that the Valkyrie was bound from Nagasaki to Singapore with assorted notions and farm-machinery; and when the machinery was found to be rifles and carbines, the customs authorities looked askance.
“See here,” said Lanier, to the inspector of customs who had come aboard, “I can't stay here and explain all this to you. This is a very serious matter, and I've got to see the general commanding about it. Take possession of the ship, and I'll leave one of the officers aboard. The rest of us must go ashore.”
The customs man consented to this, and put his cutter at the disposal of Lanier and his companions. At the customs dock they were forced to take a rowboat to get to the other side of the city, where lay Fort Santiago; and some fifteen minutes later they stood in the anteroom of the commanding officer, division of Luzon.
They were admitted presently, and faced a smooth-shaven, ruddy-faced man with gray-black hair and a military mustache, twisted upward after the fashion of the kaiser. Lanier involuntarily saluted, and the salute was returned gravely. The general eyed their uniforms, now somewhat the worse for three days' wear, and looked at them curiously.
“General,” said Lanier, “my name is Daingerfield. This is Miss Dorothy Gordon, Mr. J. P. Ochs, Doctor Schlauss Hyman, and Mr. Hopworth Dreen——”
The general involuntarily straightened in his chair. “Eh?” he exclaimed; and put on his gold-rimmed eye-glasses, which he had held between thumb and forefinger. He looked them over critically. “Are you—why, of course you are—you are the passengers who were lost from the Sultana. I am happy, indeed, to see that you were not drowned.”
He had been on his feet since Miss Gordon's name was mentioned, and now he offered her his hand. He shook hands with all the others, and then smiled quizzically. A new thought came to him.
“But where,” he asked in some alarm, “is my good friend, Mr. Brent? Don't tell me that he is lost.”
Dorothy's eyes filled with tears. “We don't know yet, general,” she said; and put her handkerchief to her eyes.
“I think,” said Lanier, “that the sooner we tell the story, general, the better. Mr. Ochs can tell you the first part of it, I the last. Go ahead, Ochs.”
Ochs, in short, terse sentences, denuded of his customary embellishments, told of their being cast away, of their finding the island, of the reading of the letter—here, at the mention of the names, the general sat erect—of the arsenal, of the dead bodies, their resolve to play the parts, the coming of the Valkyrie, and their welcome of it.
“Mr. Ochs,” said the general, when the gentleman from St. Louis brought his narrative to a close with a wave of his hand toward Lanier, “you tell a story that”—he was highly agitated—“that would seem——” The general turned to Lanier.
“General,” said Lanier Daingerfield, “I was an officer on the Valkyrie. I accepted the position in Japan. When I did so, it was with the idea of somehow thwarting the ends of the expedition.” Here Lanier lied, and the others knew that he lied. “On my arrival at the island, I recognized Miss Gordon, and she asked me to help her and her companions. I consented. We seized the boat that night and came here. The crew is Chinese, and is devoted to me. Our only regret was that we were forced to leave Mr. Brent behind to see that none of the officers left for the ship until we had her under way.”
The general was on his feet. “Then Bauldwin Brent is still on the island! I trust we shall be in time to save him. He saved my life at Malolos——” he spoke very gravely.
After the silence that ensued, the general spoke again. “Miss Gordon and gentlemen, you have done your country a great service; one that cannot be adequately recognized. I will call my staff together now, and we will decide what plans to pursue.” He touched a bell, and a clerk entered.
“The transports Samar and Leyte are still at the dock, Sarment?” he asked.
“Yes, sir.”
“Telephone immediately to the quartermaster that under no circumstances are they to leave to-day; and ask the quartermaster to come to my office at once. Telephone the navy-yard at Cavite, and ask for Lieutenant-commander Colcourt, of the Arizona; and ask him to step over here. Then if you can, get the admiral on the wire and tell him I would like a few moments' conversation with him.”
He waved his hand, and the clerk left the room.
“You will arrange with the customs officials with regard to the Valkyrie?” asked Lanier. “Remember that she is an armored vessel, and if you put a gun-crew aboard her, and some naval officers, she can do a lot of good.”
“I'll remember that,” said the general.
He seemed absorbed for the moment, then he turned to the five. “You can do little now except wait until we have our conference. I should advise your going to the Pacific Mail Office and claiming your luggage and valuables, and then going to the Oriente.”
Ochs paused at the door. “General,” he said, the newspaper man coming uppermost, “I am wiring the entire story to the St. Louis Star this morning. May I ask that you give no information to newspaper men until to-morrow morning?”
“Certainly,” replied the general. “But be mild in your strictures upon Japan—remember that we can't afford to have an open rupture yet with the ungrateful little beggars.” He looked as though his language would not have been so moderate had Miss Gordon not been present.
It was Dorothy who paused now, and regarded the others with some embarrassment. “I wish,” she said, “that some one would go to the Pacific Mail people and get my suit-case with the green labels. It has the dresses I wore aboard the steamer. And can't you put a room at my service here to change in?” she asked of the general. “I don't care to walk into the Oriente in these clothes.”
“Your clothes and valuables are not there, Miss Gordon,” said the general. “Your aunt went back to Hongkong on the same steamer, and took all your things with her.”
Dorothy's face clouded. “Then”—and she hesitated painfully—“some one will have to buy me some clothes, and trust me until I can wire home to my bankers and get an answer.”
There was a chorus; but Dorothy accepted the general's offer. She took the five ten-dollar gold-pieces and bade him good morning. The five left with the general's instructions to return by three o'clock, and to be ready to sail at six that evening.
Dorothy got into a carromata outside, and told the others that she would meet them at the Oriente. She had previously asked the general's advice as to where to go for clothes, and her carromata finally rattled down the Escolta and stopped before what looked like a country store, selling everything from shoe-strings to steam-plows. There were a number of male clerks, and several American women. Dorothy put herself into the hands of one of the latter, and emerged some little while later in crisp duck clothes, a white lace hat, canvas pumps, white stockings, and a white parasol and gloves, leaving instructions to send more of the same to the hotel.
When she arrived at the hotel she registered; and took lunch later with her four companions. All eyes were upon them, and their lunch was several times interrupted by the visits of the reporters of the local papers, with inquiries as to the way in which they had evaded death. Ochs, true to his news instincts, had rehearsed them in what to say, and they replied that they had been picked up by a vessel going to Singapore.
Lanier tried to draw her apart after lunch, but she went to her room, and did not rejoin them until it was time to return to Fort Santiago. It was intensely hot in the sun of noonday, and the street was almost deserted. When their carromatas rattled into the courtyard of the fort, they were saluted by a sleepy-looking guard.
They found in the general's office an array of notables gathered about the table. There were the admiral commanding the South Pacific Squadron; the commandant of the navy-yard; several naval officers; the quartermaster-general; the colonel of the 289th, and one of his majors, and several of the general's aids.
Several muchachos put chairs for them to join the group, and handed them ice-water in thin glass goblets, after which they retired. The admiral, looking suddenly at Daingerfield, spoke:
“You were Lieutenant Robert Daingerfield, were you not?”
“Yes,” replied Lanier Daingerfield, holding his head erect. “Discharged from the service for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. But I am here to serve my country to-day, admiral, even if I am deprived of my citizenship.”
The admiral remained silent, pulling at his beard. Briefly the general commanding outlined the plans which the council had decided upon.
The admiral would provide officers, gunners, and marines for the Valkyrie, which would also carry two companies of the 289th; while the transport Samar would carry the other battalion and a half. Majors Fenpenny and Chisholm were to command the first and second battalions respectively; Colonel Parr to command both. Lieutenant David Phelps, of the U. S. S. Manitou, would take command of the Valkyrie, with Lieutenant Briggs and Ensigns Hurrt and Collins. Lieutenant-commander Alfred Colcourt, commanding the Arizona, would make up the fleet with his vessel, carrying its usual complement of men and an additional complement of marines commanded by Captain Wagner. The fleet was to sail at six o'clock that night, and Daingerfield was to act as pilot.
“Do you wish to go back or remain in Manila?” the general asked of the others.
“Go back,” returned the others in chorus. The officers smiled; and Ochs turned to Dorothy Gordon.
“You are not to go back,” he said, with an appearance of calmness.
Dorothy eyed him so scornfully that he wilted, and did not reopen the subject.
When they had passed out of the room, and gone below to their carromatas, Lanier Daingerfield helped the girl to ascend. Before she knew what he intended to do, he had jumped in by her side and bade the driver proceed to the Church of Saint Beateria.
“But I must hurry back to the hotel,” said the girl. “And make ready to go—”
“You are not going back,” said Lanier firmly.
She looked at him for a moment, then called to the cochero to stop.
“I gave you no right to influence my actions,” she said. “And I am going back on the Valkyrie.”
“Then,” he said desperately, “you must go back as my wife; and that is why I want to go to Saint Beateria.”
The carromata had stopped, and the slit-eyed cochero was peering in at them.
“You intend to go back on your promise?” asked Lanier fiercely.
She shook her head. “Only I must wait until all has been accomplished,” she said. “There is no manner of use in your protesting. I will not marry you now.”
He poured out a long declaration of love, to which she listened unmoved. “When we return to Manila,” she replied immovably. “Cochero, Hotel Oriente.”
The carromata rattled off. Lanier spoke not a word during the journey. When the carriage drew up, he looked at her sadly.
“Very well,” he said. “I suppose I can wait. I've waited so long, anyway.”
They went into the hotel together.

### X.

Brent gained the slope of the hill after an effort which was half sheer determination. The prickly branches scratched his face, the tangled thickets tore the upper parts of his legs. He staggered behind a dragon-tree, and sank down to the ground, his wound bleeding profusely. His eyes, weary, hopeless, sought the sea. It was calm and pitiless under a glaring noonday sun, stretching away for countless miles toward the blue horizon. There was no sign of a sail.
He ripped from his tunic another long strip of white drill, and, tearing part of this off and doubling it, he placed it over the bleeding place, where a bullet had entered his side early in the day. This accomplished, he bound the strip about his person, tying it tightly with several knots. He panted for air, and drew in long breaths of it.
He was a pitiful figure, and yet somewhat of a heroic one. The three days through which he had passed had been eventful ones for him, and had left him the wreck he was. The night of the blowing up of the arsenal and the stealing of the Valkyrie he had spent in peace; but that was the last night of rest for him. Early the next day the man hunt had begun, and he, the hunted, even in his own misery, had time to reflect that as he was now, so must have been the countless little red foxes to be in at whose death he had ridden the hounds often in his native Virginia. Virginia!—it was a long way off. He doubted that he would ever see it again.
But, after all, it hardly mattered. Dorothy was not for him, and there was very little in life now that he had tasted the full sweetness of love, and the cup had been rudely snatched from his lips. He wondered why he did not wait and give himself up to his pursuers; why he did not allow them to take him; but something, the love of life deep within him, had kept him on his way. Once or twice he had exposed himself to their bullets, with the result that he had received that wound in the side. If they had killed him, it would have been well; but he did not care to be wounded again.
The wound was giving him the most fearful pain. The bullet had torn its way through the fleshy part of his side, and had come out at the back—the place where it had come through had been cauterized and brought together by the burning of the bullet itself; but the place of entrance was raw and bleeding, and the pains of burning assailed him. He had lost quantities of blood. He was very weak.
He had abandoned his shotgun the day before, because it was too cumbersome to carry. He hardly dared shoot anything because the sounds of his shots attracted his pursuers—that was how they had first discovered him. Now they were all on the chase, the whole five hundred or more; spread out in a half-circle; a drag-net which he could hardly hope to escape. They had driven him relentlessly around, and were forcing him back to the south end of the island, where lay the barracks and the bungalow. Once they got him there all would be soon over.
Brent was a brave man; but he shuddered at the thought of what these human savages might do when they had trapped him. He it was who was responsible for their plight, the failure of their expedition, and the loss of all chances of loot to which they had been looking forward with avidity. They knew their time was short, and they had determined to punish him before their end came.
Even now he could hear the crackling of some brush below the slope of the hill; and he knew that some of the party was in the underbrush. He had little to fear from them except at close quarters, for there was a scarcity of ammunition among them.
He knew that the ship's officers and Colonel Pfferkorn's staff carried revolvers; but none of them wore cartridge-belts, and each revolver carried only six shots. Most of the ammunition of the ship's officers had been exhausted in the playful attempt to shoot the champagne-bottles full of holes on the night of the dinner; and Brent had counted twenty shots fired at him. That left hardly more than forty shots in the possession of the enemy, while he carried a cartridge-belt which had held fifty cartridges.
It was fortunate, not only for the rescuing party which must come, but also for himself, that he had blown up the arsenal before any arms had been distributed. The rest of the arms and ammunition were aboard the Valkyrie, which must have, long since, reached Manila.
Brent's face was haggard; deathly pale. His tunic was in rags and tatters; the linen shirt and collar which he wore hardly better. His trousers were full of enormous rents, showing the skin underneath, bleeding from innumerable cuts and scratches. He reached down and pulled up his long hip-boots, buckling them tightly above the knee. It was fortunate that he had worn these the day of his flight.
He tilted his white pith helmet over his eyes; and, lying full length behind the dragon-tree, glanced down the barrel of his Colt. It was impossible to go farther at the time—he was exhausted and weak. The sun had made him giddy—his wound was like to make him delirious.
The crackling amid the brush continued; and out of the clematis-blossoms below, the heads of several soldiers showed. When they got a little farther toward him, Brent saw that there were six of them—a Greek with a long knife; three English “Tommies” with cocobolo wood clubs; an Irish-American deserter in the United States Army khaki, with corporal's chevrons; and a nondescript in one of the regulation uniforms which Pfferkorn had distributed. The latter carried an iron thole-pin which he had picked up somewhere.
Brent looked down his revolver-barrel, sighting it, and felt sorry for them. Several times he lifted the revolver; and hesitated after lifting it. Presently he summoned up his breath, and shouted to them:
“Keep back there, you six! Keep back! I've got a gun trained on you. Don't be fools. I don't want to kill you.”
At the sound of his voice, the Greek and the nondescript scurried to cover; but the English soldiers and the Irishman stood their ground, looking upward from where the voice came. Presently one of the cockneys began to swear in choicest billingsgate.
“Ah! blast me! 'oo's afryd? Wot price me for such a rotter? I s'y, you come out o' that there peaceablelike, and give up. We ain't goin' to 'urt you, are we, Bill?”
The other grinned, showing blackened teeth. “Lord love yer, no! We ain't goin' to 'urt yer, old pal.”
They continued to advance up the slope, “Bill” winking at the first speaker. “Come, now, give up peaceablelike, and yer don't get 'urt,” soothed the third cockney.
“Come on, 'Amstead 'Eath,” said the Irishman, speaking to one called Bill, and with an attempt to parody his speech. “Are ye carrying yer courage wid yer, or did ye lave it to home in yer other trowsies. Get the ould badger out of his hole.”
He started forward with a rush.
“I'll shoot to kill,” came from Brent sternly. “Stand back there, you Irishman, or I'll kill you.”
The Irishman with a foul oath rushed on. There was a vicious crack like a whip-lash, and the Irishman threw up his hands and rolled down the hill. The three Englishmen took a spurt and rushed forward almost to the base of the tree behind which Brent lay. In a moment those brutal clubs would be laid over his head. He did not hesitate, but fired three times, quickly. Two of the Englishmen went down; but the third staggered on. Brent finished him with a hole through the forehead, just in time to see the Greek wriggling up behind him, his long knife gleaming viciously. The shot from Brent's gun broke the teeth that held the knife, and the Greek went over on his back.
Brent lay still, unmoved by the slaughter. This was but requital. The hunted was showing his teeth. He had given the men a chance, and they had refused to take it. Had he not killed them, they would have finished him. Coolly he loaded his revolver and tested it; then counted the cartridges in his belt. He had only thirty left, counting the ones in his other revolver. Thirty cartridges between himself and the end!
But it had ceased to become terrifying. There was down within him now but one resolve—to make them suffer for his capture. He would be no weakling easily captured. They should pay for his body very dearly if they wanted it; so dearly that they would regret their desire. Rightly used, every cartridge meant a man. He snapped his teeth, resolved that they should be rightly used.
The wound was aching, throbbing, like a severe toothache—every now and then assailed by a crawly, creeping sensation, as though something were tickling it; then bursting forth into intense raw pain so great that the tears stood out in his eyes. The heat of the day oppressed him—the flies buzzed about him irritatingly. His eyelids, heavy for sleep, persistently blinked; but by sheer force of will he kept them open.
He could hear more of his pursuers crackling in the underbrush now; and he knew that he must seek a new location. The hill was open from too many sides. They could soon surround and take him before he used his thirty cartridges. He must seek some open place of concealment.
He had but one way to go—back to the bungalow. They had spread out their lines so that for him to attempt to cross the island was to attempt the impossible. Below the hill he found a deer-path leading a few paces from the beach, and winding in and out of the trees. It was easy to traverse; and he was hidden from his enemies for a space until they should double on his tracks. There were some trained woodsmen among them; he suspected the American deserters for that; one grizzled fellow especially, who might have seen fighting against the Apaches, and, whoever he might be, had kept keenly on the trail since first they had sighted him.
Slowly Brent dragged himself along the deer-path. It was growing late in the day, and all that was necessary was to keep them off until nightfall came. Then they could not follow his tracks, and he would be in comparative safety. Already the sun had gone down, a great glistening ball of red in the west; only a small segment of its upper rim showing above the waves. At a space unsheltered from the sea, Brent looked again with hopeless eyes; but there was no sign of a ship.
Ever and anon he heard the hoarse cries of his enemies beyond him; and they seemed to be drawing nearer. His mouth was parched, and he longed for water. But he had not seen a stream that day, and knew of no means of obtaining the precious fluid. A fawn crossed his path, regarding him with startled, puzzled eyes; and, as he raised his head, it fled into the jungle depths. Once he saw a huge python, coiling and uncoiling about the limbs of a massive camphor-tree; but the sight failed to even horrify him.
Suddenly, by sheer intuition, he paused, and looked upward. There, spitting and mewing on a branch above him, was a panther-cat crouched for a spring. The glaring eyeballs, the upturned fur of the enormous feline, gave him only a dull, passive interest. He wondered as he watched in a disinterested sort of way if the panther would be able to kill him by one spring; and his eyes sought those of the cat, and found them. The panther arched its back, and glared at him, the ruff of white fur about the neck bristling; and the whole attitude one of quivering intensity.
As Brent watched, a queer thing happened; the panther's eyes were withdrawn from his, and the tail sank, drooping; the back lost its arch, and the fur resumed its normal position. Spitting with something like disgust, and trembling as though with fear, the panther turned tail and sprang for another branch. Brent watched it disappear, wondering why it had not sprung at him; he did not know that the cat had looked into the eyes of one devoid of fear, and was itself afraid of such a being.
Brent kept on his way, not hurrying or particularly caring what happened. He still heard the shouts behind him, and every now and then the throbbing of his wound gave him such pain that he was forced to stop and hold his hand tightly against it, fancying that by the action he was assuaging his pain.
The red rim of sun had disappeared and the afterglow was on the land. Out of the stillness came the sound of a shot, and a cartridge whistled close to Brent's ear. He dodged behind a tree, his eyes seeking sight of the one who had attacked him; but the forest was silent, and gave no sign of man. Brent waited, fingering his revolver.
Then, as if by a concerted movement, men burst forward on all sides save the one toward the sea. It was an unbroken line, planned craftily. Brent had no place to flee now save only the sea itself. The faces of all nations, evil-eyed, sensuous-lipped, looked upon him. Mechanically, as one who has something to do which is quite useless, Brent lifted both revolvers from his holsters, and fired with unerring aim. A number of men fell. Another cartridge whizzed his way, and imbedded itself in the tree. The men pushed onward, whirling their clubs. From where he stood, Brent could see Colonel Pfferkorn waving his sword and shouting to them. He shot at him; but the colonel remained untouched.
There was but one thing left to do. He had not time to load again. Without words, he turned quickly, parted the bushes, and dashed into the thicket leading toward the beach. He emerged standing on the crest of the bank, a drop of some thirty feet to the sands below. He gave it no thought, lowering himself on the sand-bank, and clutching at the sand as he whirled downward, trying to break his fall. He landed at the bottom badly shaken up; and, turning, saw his pursuers hesitating at the jump. A bullet whizzed by him again, and splashed up some water in the sea. He stood on the white sand in the afterglow, a fair mark for a decent marksman.
But he wasted no time in remaining so. He tightened his belt and holsters, threw off his ragged tunic, and ran forward, wading out into the waves. The hulk of the wrecked schooner lay still on the reef. If he could gain that!
As he reached his armpits in the water, a bullet clipped a lock of hair from the side of his head. He hardly noticed it, striking out with all his might and diving under water. He was a man whose body had been taught to obey his will; now for the moment his wound ceased to ache, and his old strength seemed to come back to him. He had made up his mind to reach the hulk of the schooner; and the hulk of the schooner he would reach. He came up gasping for air, and again heard several shots, but was not concerned.
He struck out boldly, and then went under water for the second time, swimming with all the might of an overhand, racing stroke. Up to the surface again, with the hulk only a rod or so away; and he completed the distance without diving under water. A shot spattered against a bulkhead but some distance from him. He caught at a rope, which, rotten through a week's contact with water, broke, and threw him back—again he clutched at a porthole, and drew himself upward on the slippery deck, crouching down behind the wreck of the pilot-house.
Suddenly by a spirit of wild bravado animated, he drew himself up, and shook his hand at the gathering on the shore. “Yah, yah!” he jeered at them; and the wind blowing to shore carried his mockery to them. Among the pursuers lined on the white sands, there were some who found it in their heart to admire the solitary figure in the dripping clothes and jack-boots who had eluded five hundred, and who, even in his darkest hour, was not afraid of them.
Some one fired; but the zigzag of the water confused the aim. A sea-mew squawked a plaintive note as it circled over the black hulk, and somehow seemed to bring to Brent realization of his pain and suffering. He sank down behind the boat-house.
Presently the crowd on the beach began to thin out in spite of the violent haranguing of Colonel Pfferkorn. By twos and threes they made their way off and toward the slope leading to the bungalow and barracks. As the darkness fell, the crowd lessened until there was no one there at all.
And Brent, crouched down behind the bulkhead, was shivering in the cool air of evening, while the wound throbbed and pained until he felt he could no longer contain himself, but must shriek aloud demoniacally. The salt water had gotten into the wound, and it burned and scorched.
All around him he began to see queer things. The sea seemed to hold strange monsters lurking within its depths, and he felt he must watch carefully lest some one of them devour him. Recollection came to him of the dead sailor floating in the water of the cabin, and he called to him, “Sailor! Sailor!” several times; and, laughed a grating, a mocking laugh.
To laugh and to call out hurt his parched throat; he remembered his desire for water, and knew that was back of all his pain. The water about the ship tempted him. At first he resisted the temptation, but as his sanity broke down, and his mind was given up to the unreal things of his imagination, the water seemed delightfully cool and inviting. He crawled down painfully, and swung over the side, taking great gulps of it, then crept back to the deck again, chattering senilely. The dead sailor down in the cabin seemed, unaccountably, to come to life, and came to him speaking of commonplaces; but he drove him away for an enemy.
There was present in him a great distrust of all things, and as the salt water which he had drunk began to fill him with a thirst more maddening than before, he saw phantasmagoria about him, and felt the cold hands of vampirian monsters. He shrieked to them, and bade them leave him; but they clung about waving their skinny fingers. He carefully reloaded his revolvers, dry now, chuckling to himself in his madness. They did not know he had the power to drive them away; but he would soon undeceive them. He fired wildly, and they disappeared. He chuckled again.
As the darkness settled upon the land, the moon came out, a shining silver crescent in the western sky. By its light, Brent could see a boat putting off from shore. He knew that it contained enemies, and spread out his cartridges on the deck, bottom up, counting them as a child counts his lead soldiers. The boat drew nearer, and Brent saw a confused mass of men huddled within her. He fired pointblank. He had forgotten his pain and agony now. He was mad, quite mad, and full of the demoniac desire to kill.
The boat, impelled by the lusty arms of the rowers, brought steadily up under the bows; and the head of a man swung up from over the rail. Brent fired; another head and another shot, and Brent, no longer cautious or caring, poured out his shots right and left as a child fires off crackers on the Fourth, amused by the noise he is making.
But in spite of his fire two men swung aboard and toward the pilot-house. With a swing of a club, Brent's revolver dropped from his left hand; and, infuriated and amazed, he hurled the other into the man's face. A gleam of steel descending like a lightning's flash, and Colonel Pfferkorn's sword whizzed by him. Brent sprang forward, grabbing at the hilt—the blade tore his hands, but he wrested it from its owner, and the next second slashed it across Pfferkorn's body.
The oncoming press stood back amazed at the sight of the madman, his hair in his eyes, his teeth showing wolfishly, his eyes wild and dilated. Another man fell, his head severed at the neck.
A man struck at him with the cocobolo stick, breaking the sword half-way. Brent jammed the broken blade into his enemy's open mouth, and the man stumbled back to the sea. The shortened blade was launched straight for the breast of Sturm Sturmson, who had rushed at him; but sudden fear seized Sturmson,and he sprang into the water.
“The man's mad—mad,” he yelled. “He's mad. Give me a gun—a gun——” and his mouth was full of water.
Two shots rang out, and that was the end of their ammunition. Whether or not the madman felt them no one had a chance to see, for he had dropped the sword, and seized a great mass of wood and metal on the forward deck—the steering-wheel, which had been torn loose by the storm. With the strength of his madness, he lifted it up and hurled it into the boat. The men within leaped suddenly, and the boat was crushed like an egg-shell.
Brent, picking up the broken sword, grinned wolfishly at them over the side. The attackers struck out for shore with all their energy. The attack was ended.
Brent stood up straight, and with a wild glee attempted a sailor's jig with poor results. The next moment his fancy changed, and he was gliding into a waltz—a waltz,
“Slumber on, my little gipsy sweetheart, Slumber on——”
He put his hand to his eyes. Where had he heard that? Some one had sung it—and—Dorothy.
With the return of his senses came the great reality of his pain. He staggered back, shading his eyes from the moon. Then the sword clattered to the deck, and he rolled down the companionway and lay stretched out on the stairs.

### XI.

The pink iridescence of dawn was on land and sea when the three vessels comprising the fleet which had sailed from Manila cruised off the lee shore of the island, looking for a place to anchor. One was found some few miles up-shore from the bungalow, and the gigs containing the commanding officers of the battalions and the ships put off from the other craft to the Arizona, where a council of war was held.
There were no sleepy ones in all the thousand men aboard the ships. All were eager, tense, waiting for their commands. At the termination of the council, the Valkyrie took aboard the other companies which went to make up Major Fenpenny's battalion, and steamed off for the extreme south shore of the island, while the Samar with the remaining battalion, under Major Hugh Chisholm, steamed away to the extreme north. Pursey Ochs accompanied the latter, and Hopworth Dreen went with the Valkyrie, each to act as guide for their respective battalions. The Arizona anchored, and her marines and jackies disembarked, the marines under the command of Captain Llewelyn Wagner, U. S. M. C.; the sailors in charge of Lieutenant Severy Quinn, U. S. N.; both detachments numbering together two hundred and seventy-five; and under the guidance of Schlauss Hyman.
Colonel Parr had accompanied Major Fenpenny's battalion; and it was he who had planned the mode of attack. Fenpenny and Chisholm, landing at the extreme north and south, were to form in long lines of skirmishers, and, if possible, to complete a three-quarters circle about the island, the lack of information concerning the island's circumference preventing any accurate prognostication as to whether this could be done. This would, at all events, give a spread of eight hundred odd men, all armed, surrounding part of the island, and steadily advancing toward the center to prevent any attempted concealment on the part of men on the island.
Meanwhile the marines and jackies were to spread out in just such another skirmish-line, with the exception of twenty who were to go to make up an officer's patrol, and, if possible, a patrol bearing a flag of truce. Ensign Gilroy was to have charge of this patrol, and was to approach the bungalow with it.
The marines in their scarlet tunics made a brave showing as they disembarked from the Arizona for the shore, the blue-bloused, brown-legginged jackies looking somber by contrast. They landed, the sun of early morning glittering on their bayonets and gold braiding, and even reflecting soberly from the brown barrels of the sailors' carbines.
Immediately they formed in skirmish-lines, and spread out along the white-sanded beach while Ensign Gilroy and his twenty were left in the center of it. Dorothy Gordon, with Lanier Daingerfield by her side, watched them wistfully. She and Daingerfield had been transferred from the Valkyrie when that vessel sailed toward the south, a half-hour before; she for her personal safety, and Daingerfield because it had been decided that his sphere of usefulness would be greater as adviser to Commander Colcourt.
“Attention—to the left—dress! Right about face, by twos—to the right—wheel—march!” came indistinctly to those on the Arizona from shore. It was Ensign Gilroy speaking to his men. The peace patrol passed the skirmish-lines, following the lead of Schlauss Hyman, and disappeared around the curve which concealed the path leading to the bungalow.
Schlauss Hyman marched first; following him came Gilroy, a great piece of white bunting tied to his sword and held aloft. The sailors moved briskly, and they reached the woodland path. Suddenly Hyman halted. The black hulk of the wreck confronted him.
“It looks to me,” he said, after he had lifted his glasses to his eyes and stared steadily at the dismantled hulk, “as though there were some people there. There's a man standing against the pilot-house, and two, three, four lying face downward on the deck. Don't you think you'd better look into that, Mr. Gilroy?”
The young officer, elated by the chance which had been given him, was missing no opportunity. “I see them,” he said. “No, I don't need the binoculars. Surest thing you know. Here, Martin!”
His command had been halted when Hyman spoke, and now stood resting on their arms. The sailor addressed stepped forward and saluted.
“Martin, you're the best swimmer aboard the Arizona. Here's a chance to prove your nerve. Strip quickly and swim out to that hulk. We'll keep our carbines trained on her. Shout out to the people aboard that if they shoot we shoot, and we've got their range. Then climb aboard and see what's doing. Come back immediately and report to me.”
Before Ensign Gilroy had said more than the first few words, the sailor, Martin, had begun to strip; and within a space of two minutes his clothes were in a heap on the sand, and he had saluted and plunged into the water.
Six of his companions, in response to Gilroy's order, were on one knee, their carbines trained on the hulk. The wind brought Martin's challenge faintly, but no answer; and the next moment they saw his naked body dragged upward and aboard the hulk.
The sun glistened on his wet skin as he moved to and fro on the deck, for the moment lost to view when he knelt to examine the bodies. His stay aboard was brief, and they saw him shoot from the deck in a graceful curve, launched toward them. He swam easily and powerfully to the shore; shook himself, and wiped the water out of his eyes, then saluted Ensign Gilroy.
“There's four dead men aboard and one man mighty badly wounded, sir,” he said. “The man standing against the pilot-house fell backward, shot through the head. He's just stiff. There's three more dead, one's got his windpipe cut clean through, another's been stabbed through the lungs, and the third's been batted over the head with something—skull's crushed in. And the fellow who looks like he done it all's cut up pretty bad, got about forty-eleven cuts, three shots in him, and a baste on the head, too. There's a piece of a sword lying near him where he fell, and a bunch of cartridges spilled over the deck. Must have been a devil of a scrapper, begging your pardon, Mr. Gilroy.”
Schlauss Hyman stepped forward impetuously. “What sort of a looking man was the last one, Martin?” he asked.
“Kind of good-looking, I guess; sort of thin-featured, 'cept for his nose, and that sticks up a little. Got eyelashes like a woman, long and——”
Hyman gave an excited cry. “Mr. Gilroy, that's Bauldwin Brent!” he cried.
“Gee!” said Martin, with something of awe. Every sailor and soldier in the Orient knew the name of Brent.
“Brent—eh?” said Gilroy. “Well, now, by all that's holy, we've got to get him off! Martin, put on some of your things and hustle back to the Arizona. Tell 'em to send off a boat and fetch Mr. Brent, and you go with the boat. Hurry, man!”
“Yes, sir,” replied Martin, saluting again, and pulling on his underwear. He followed this with his pants and shoes, and, catching up the remainder of his gear, fled hurriedly toward the Arizona.
Gilroy gave his command again, and the party set off up the hill toward the bungalow. All was silent about the place. After having made a reconnaissance of the grounds, they entered the house single-file; and Gilroy crammed the white flag in his pocket.
“No use,” he said briefly, “The beggars are probably asleep, and we don't need it.”
He stationed ten of the men below, and the others followed him up the stairs, each with directions to enter the different sleeping-rooms. What they had seen below amply justified them in believing that the people of the bungalow had no thought of their early coming.
The floors of both living-room and dining-room were littered with beer-bottles; the tables were stacked with bottles nearly drained, containing whisky, liqueurs, champagne, and other beverages. The glasses stank of stale liquor. The kitchen revealed an array of pans and pots, greasy and unclean.
The whole establishment was one to sicken the heart of a decent housekeeper, the chairs scratched and muddy where feet had rested, the walls marked with the imprints of dirty hands. Some of the furniture was broken and lay in a corner, along with a table-cloth and a quantity of napkins. Cigar and cigarette butts reposed in coffee-cups, and lay strewn on the floor, along with paper spills and burnt-out matches. It was plain that this crew had been making what they could out of adversity.
In the room which Gilroy entered Walrus Arundsen lay, his mouth wide open, exhaling a smell of intoxicants. Gilroy awakened him rudely with several thumps on his bare chest, and he started up with a roar of rage. Gilroy gently pushed him back, and the Walrus groaned and felt his aching head, blinking his sleep-heavy eyes at the young naval officer. At the sight of the United States uniform, he started up with a great oath, and Gilroy calmed him by placing the cold muzzle of a navy revolver under his ear.
“Do you surrender?” he asked calmly.
The Walrus eyed him with animosity and grunted. “Do I surrender, is it? Vot—with that upon my face—yah! Vot! am I a fool—or vot? Though in mine sleeping-clothes, I have belief I not make satisfactory prisoner for my rank, young man. Time has been vhen you vould salute an officer of the Danish Navy—vich same I has been. Me, Rolf Arundsen.”
He sighed deeply, and asked that Gilroy turn his back while he dressed, as he was a modest man of retiring disposition.
“No fear,” laughed Gilroy. “Not a chance. Slip into your togs, and be quick about it, Captain Arundsen.”
Gilroy assisted him in finding some clean underwear, socks, and canvas shoes, and helped him into a clean, white drill uniform; then, taking his parole, he slipped his revolver back into his belt and marched the redoubtable Rolf Arundsen into the hall, where were already assembled Colonel Pfferkorn, James Phillips, and Sturm Sturmson. Later, one by one the different officers of Pfferkorn's staff, save the four who slept at the barracks, joined the array, and were put in charge of ten of the detachment.
The men suffered capture without a struggle. They had no ammunition, and they knew that, under the laws of nations, it would be a hard thing to find them guilty of a serious crime. So they accepted their position with equanimity, having in fact far more solicitude for their aching brows than for their captive position.
Colonel Pfferkorn was in rather a bad way from his wound received at the hands of Brent, and was suffering from much loss of blood. Schlauss Hyman, ever eager in his profession, wanted to examine the wound; but Gilroy forbade it until they had returned to the ship.
“We've got to take a look at the barracks,” he said.
But the two men whom he had posted as flankers outside told him that this was not wise when he suggested it. One of them had already crept near the barracks and reported that the whole forest was alive with the soldiers of Pfferkorn; that they were armed with heavy clubs, and were prepared to make a sturdy defense. Gilroy considered the matter, and decided that as he had bagged the important prisoners, he would return to the ship.
“I say, old man,” came in the tones of James Phillips, “there's some beggars out there on that hulk in the harbor that may be in a pretty bad way. One of your own people, the bally American, Brent, gave the lot of us a tough fight, and laid us out with a light spar anchor. I don't know whether he's dead or not; but he went sheer, stark raving mad. On my word, simply terrifying! Now, if you'd send a boat——”
But a boat had already been sent. Martin, eager to distinguish himself with his important news, had not waited for a boat to take him back to the Arizona, but had swum out to her in his underclothes, with the rest of his gear on his head, and after climbing aboard had breathlessly addressed the officer of the deck telling him the story. Dorothy Gordon, turning, had heard what he said, and turned deathly pale.
“Mr. Harding,” she cried. “Oh, Mr. Harding! please—quickly. Yes, I know that is Mr. Brent, from his description—quickly!”
Lanier Daingerfield watched her, a frown on his face, which deepened into a scowl. He said nothing, but stood aloof, smoking.
Harding hurried off to speak to Lieutenant-commander Colcourt, and within a very short time a boat was lowered. Dorothy caught Harding's arm.
“Let me go!” she pleaded. “Please let——”
“Sorry, Miss Gordon,” replied Harding. “But I—well, it's really impossible, you know. There”—and he breathed a sigh of relief as one of the ensigns dropped into the boat and she was shoved off—“you see, it's too late now, anyway——”
The girl turned an agonized glance on Harding. “What else did the man say—did he say Mr. Brent was alive?”
“Yes,” replied the embarrassed young officer, trying to speak in a soothing tone. “He's alive—and—yes, he's alive.”
He excused himself, on the grounds of some duties, and hurried away. Dorothy, her hands clenched, leaned heavily on the rail, watching the gleam of the sun on the upturned paddles as the boat drew nearer and nearer to the hulk.
It seemed that they would never return. She could only distinguish vaguely that they lifted something into the boat, then remained to adjust something more, and pulled off. When they were some distance away, some one touched a match, and, with a great roar, and amid clouds of white smoke and sea-spume, the hulk vanished from view. When the waves settled, there was no sign of her. She had been torpedoed.
Slowly, it seemed, the boat drew back from the hulk, and approached the ship. Several sailors leaped on the accommodation ladder, and several in the boat passed them something wrapped in sail-cloth, which the first two bore tenderly up the ladder. The girl rushed to the side and encountered them.
“Is he alive? Tell me, is he alive?” she moaned.
They moved on, stolid, but perturbed. The young ensign doffed his cap to her.
“He's alive,” he said gently. “But the surgeon must see him at once.”
He, too, made off with all haste. Dorothy hurried to the doctor's office, Lanier Daingerfield following and gnawing at his straw-colored mustache. The doctor was not in his office. He was attending to the wounded man in the sick-bay, the steward told her.
“Try to be calm, Dorothy,” said Lanier Daingerfield. “The doctor will——”
She did not hear him, only sank down, covering her face with her hands. She heard another boat rattle against the side, and knew that it must contain the “peace patrol.” She got up, drying her eyes, and went on deck to find Hyman. The prisoners were the first to come aboard, and were led away by the sailors to Commander Colcourt's cabin, Ensign Gilroy following, after dismissing the others of his men.
The girl caught Hyman's arm. “Doctor,” she cried, “they've brought Brent aboard, and he's wounded. Doctor, doctor, please, please save him! You can! I've heard so much of what you've done—and he was your friend. Save him—for my sake—for—doctor, can't you understand?”
Hyman quieted her with that rare sympathy which physicians sometimes have at crucial moments; and hurried below to find the patient. Dorothy waited, crouched down in a chair which had been brought on deck for her, while Lanier Daingerfield stood off still smoking, and occasionally looking at her. He was swallowing hard.
After a time that seemed an age, Hyman came up and took the girl's hand. “Miss Dorothy,” he said, “you must be brave. You must have faith. I and the ship's surgeon will do all that can be done. For I promise you I will not leave him until I have pulled him through—or he is—— Well, you understand. If he does not live, it will not be through fault of mine.”
She stared at him with horror-stricken eyes. “But you—know—whether——”
Hyman shook his head sadly. “I don't know, Miss Dorothy,” he said simply. “You must have faith. No, you cannot see him now. No one can see him except me and the ship's surgeon. You must wait—and maybe—— Well, I don't know much about prayers, but there can't be any harm—and if ever a man needed prayers——”
He paused abruptly and went away without looking at her.
Meanwhile, the campaign on shore had begun. Fenpenny's battalion and Chisholm's were slowly drawing a drag-net through the forests and the jungle through which no men could pass. Early in the morning Chisholm's first company encountered a detachment of fifty of the derelicts, and ordered them to lay down their arms. As but twelve of the company's men were visible, the derelicts showed fight, and charged with their clubs. They were almost annihilated.
Soon both battalions encountered many more detachments, sometimes larger, sometimes smaller. Some showed signs of fight, and died for their folly, others submitted, and were made prisoners, and marched on with the attackers, deprived of their clubs, and their hands tied with their own tunics. Sometimes they were in pitiful detachments of twos and threes, and showed the white feather by groveling before the conquerors.
At noon Fenpenny's battalion reached the barracks with their prisoners. Before two o'clock Chisholm had made a junction with him, and they sent forward a white flag to the barracks, bidding the hundred ensconced behind the walls of the first building to surrender.
But the derelicts, suspicious and afraid, refused to surrender, and there was nothing to do but train the brass rapid-fire guns upon them. These had been lugged from the Valkyrie for just this purpose; and they tore great holes in the building, threatening its thorough annihilation. The derelicts, alarmed, called for mercy, and came out to surrender.
The campaign was over—almost a bloodless one for the American troops, They had lost but two men and had only six wounded. The derelicts' casualties of dead had not been counted; they probably numbered one hundred. Of wounded, they had twenty, which were taken to the Arizona to be cared for.
The prisoners were confined in the second barracks, which had been unharmed; and the soldiers took up their residence there, also, some of them bunking in the ruined barracks, also. The officers appropriated the bungalow.
The work was over for the day. But that night was to bring the council of war which was to decide what was to be done with the prisoners.
The Samar and the Valkyrie had returned before the campaign was over, and were anchored on either side of the Arizona. All the officers dined aboard the ships that night; but it was decided to hold the council in the living-room of the bungalow, and to this end the Chinese stewards of the Arizona were sent to sweep up and garnish the place.
At eight o'clock all was in readiness, and the boats put off from the ships to the shore, containing the senior officers of the ships and the regiments, including the captain of the transport, Lanier Daingerfield, and Ochs, Hyman, and Dreen.
The consultation was a long one, marked with many speeches from all parties. But the decision reached was generally agreed upon by all.
It was that Colonel Parr should remain on the island with his two battalions, and the Samar should lie at anchor with the Arizona to guard it from the second ship expected from Japan, and, if necessary, give battle to the ship. All that they had been able to wring from Arundsen was what he had told the others: that a second ship, armored like the Valkyrie and under command of the blackguard adventurer, Thorwald, was expected at any moment. Thorwald had an evil reputation for everything but fighting; but in that he was acknowledged the peer of any naval officer, for few had forgotten how he fought his ship when he served as a captain in the Chinese Navy, and engaged two Japanese cruisers and conquered them.
The Valkyrie, meanwhile, was to proceed to Manila with the reports of Commander Colcourt and Colonel Parr, conveying the official prisoners for trial at Manila, and to ask that another cruiser be sent. She was to sail at dawn.
And it was at dawn next morning that they conveyed the senseless body of Brent aboard the Valkyrie before they awakened Dorothy Gordon. She, too, was awakened later, and told to go aboard. It was Lanier Daingerfield who called her.
When the Valkyrie was leaving the island behind in the morning mists, she caught sight of Schlauss Hyman, very white-faced, clinging to her rail.
“Doctor Hyman,” she said slowly, and he turned and looked into her eyes,
“He is conscious,” said Hyman. “The worst is over. I have operated—I think successfully. He keeps calling for you, and I suppose you must go.”
He led the way down the saloon steps to the second officer's cabin, which had been given up to his patient. Lanier Daingerfield followed her, although she did not know it. Hyman opened the door and went within, Presently he came out and bade her enter. She went in, leaving the door ajar, and Hyman continued on his way down the passage. Lanier Daingerfield stepped to the door and listened.
The cabin was very dark. Only the gray-pink morning mists lighted it through a half-shuttered port-hole. The smell of anesthetics was heavy in the air. In the far corner she could see something framed in white, a face that appeared gray in its pallor. One thin, wasted hand was stretched out to her.
She dropped on her knees and carried the hand to her mouth.
“Brent, Brent!” Her voice seemed choked, her breath came in little gasps. “If you knew—you have suffered, I know, I know, but I—I have suffered, too, sweetheart, ever since I saw your dear body brought aboard. And now—it tears my heart to see you there so pale, so weak—and—Brent, Brent, never, never leave me again. Oh, I love you so, Brent, dear. There is nothing for me if you are dead.”
“Hush!” he choked out hoarsely, almost inaudibly. “You have promised—the other. You must not—tell me. Although it is what I want to hear, although I would go through all this again to hear it—you must not tell me. You must not tell me. You have promised—promised——”
He turned his head away, coughing, his frame shaking convulsively. In spite of his determination, a moan of pain escaped him, and he fainted sheer away.
For a time the girl remained on her knees, his limp hand in hers. Then slowly, as if in a daze, she got up, and looked down at him.
“Brent,” she said, and felt his pulse. Somehow she knew he had fainted.
“I shall kiss your dear face just once again,” she said, not knowing she was speaking aloud. “Just once, and then—then I will remember what you have taught me. I have promised him. He saved us, and kept his word. I shall try to make him happy. So, Brent, good-by.”
She bent over him and kissed his cold lips. Lanier Daingerfield, outside, drew himself up stiffly, brushed his eyes with the back of his hand; then his attitude suddenly relaxed, and he walked away with bowed head.
The girl came out very pale and erect. In answer to her bell-ring, a steward appeared, and she told him to fetch Hyman.
“Mr. Brent has fainted,” she said, holding herself straight, somehow; then, as the doctor passed within, she sank down in a heap, and sobs shook her slender frame.

### XII.

As she entered the little room of the Ermita Hospital, where Brent lay convalescing, the sick man's face lighted up, and he held out his thin hand.
“I have such news for you,” she said. She unwrapped the tissue-paper from her bundle, and revealed glorious, long-stemmed crimson roses.
“For me—those!” he said unsteadily. “Why, Dorothy, how did you get them?”
“Lanier got them,” she answered. “He had them sent from Hongkong on ice. Telegraphed for them.” As she spoke, Lanier Daingerfield, immaculate in white flannels, entered, holding his soft Panama hat under his arm, and smiling.
For a moment a scowl passed over Brent's face, then he stretched out his hand toward his rival.
“It was awfully good of you, Lanier,” he said. “I'm very grateful to you both for your kindness to me since I've been laid up. Let me see—it's two weeks, now, isn't it?”
“Two weeks and a day,” nodded Dorothy.
She was in white duck, and one tiny white-shod shoe peeped out from amid masses of tucks and laces, as she sat on the chair beside him. Her blond hair exhaled the perfume of the violet-beds, and her pink-and-white skin shone in the rays of the sun as they trickled through the shade of the bamboo-tree by his window. But there was a sadness in her clear eyes, and lines about her mouth which showed that the Dorothy of to-day was not the Dorothy of the P. M. S. S. Sultana.
“You said you had news?” hinted Brent.
“Yes,” she replied. “But Lanier understands it better than I. He'll tell you all about it.”
Lanier tossed his Panama on the table, watching Dorothy as she arranged the roses in a long, green-veined glass vase.
“Why, yes,” he replied. “The Valkyrie came in again yesterday, and there was a council held last night by the governor, the commissioners, and the senior officers of the army and the navy.”
“But what news did the Valkyrie bring?” asked Brent impatiently.
“Oh, I forgot! The second ship; called the Dragon and commanded by Thorwald, came down to the island three days or more ago. You know they sent the battle-ship Manitou to the assistance of the Arizona, and when the Dragon showed up, they fired on her and demanded her surrender. She refused, and showed fight—Thorwald was always reckless. Well, one of her shots destroyed a gun-top on the Manitou, and that made the old man sore. So he ordered the Arizona to open fire coincidentally with him, and they tore the Dragon up. Somehow, one of their shots hit the Dragon's magazine, and blew her sky-high. There wasn't a man saved. So, as far as that's concerned, that finishes the second ship.
“But, of course, the government was puzzled as to how they were going to punish those five hundred men on the island. Well, the council last night, acting on the suggestions of Parr and Colcourt, decided that they would simply leave them on the island, send them some agricultural implements, and make them work for their living.”
Brent nodded. “It was the wisest thing to do,” he said.
“The engineers got off,” continued Lanier Daingerfield. “Thanks to my evidence. So did Christian, though he didn't deserve to. The Chinese, of course, weren't implicated. That's really about all there is to tell, old man.” He got to his feet, and picked up his Panama, which he twisted between his hands.
“I ought to say,” he began again, with considerable hesitancy, “something that I should have said before. I don't know how it was that I was such a cad as to try to—well, I can't account for a lot of things I've done. I don't know why I cheated that night. Of course, I needed money, but I must have been crazy—and then, to strike my superior officer—but, anyhow, that hasn't got anything to do with you.”
He paused, breathing hard, and took out his cigarette-case. He offered Brent one, but Brent smiled a refusal. “Doctor won't allow it,” he said.
Daingerfield fingered the unlighted cigarette, and looked out of the window. “I drove a bargain with Dorothy.” He was trying to speak without emotion. “A rotten bargain. But it wasn't really so rotten, because I thought at the time that she cared a little for me, and didn't really care for any one else. And I've always loved you, Dorothy, and always will, I guess. So—well, fate seemed to play into my hand, and I took it. Dorothy promised to marry me——”
He squared his shoulders defiantly.
“But—I didn't know then, Brent, that Dorothy was in love with you. She is. She loves you better than—well, I only wish that there was enough to me to make a woman love me that way. She didn't tell me so. She didn't ask to be released. But I've seen; and, not being a blind fool, I've understood. When you remained on the island, when you were found and thought dead, and then—when Dorothy went to you after you were conscious—I know it was a mean thing to do, but I listened—yes, and I heard—it only confirmed what I thought.”
He still looked steadily at Brent.
“But, you see—I'm not exactly a cad—and I love Dorothy too much to make her miserable. And so—I release her utterly from her promise to marry me. I refuse to marry her. And, Brent, will you shake hands, and let me say you're a lucky dog?”
In the silence that followed the two men clasped hands.
As they stood there, silent, they heard the rattle of carriage-wheels outside, and presently the sound of some one coming up the steps and down the hall. There was a knock on the door, and Pursey Ochs entered, his face wreathed in smiles.
“Read them,” he said, extending three blue cable envelopes toward Brent, Dorothy, and Daingerfield. “They're personal congrats. from the Great White Father who sitteth in Washington, and they say that as patriots we collar the Roquefort, and are all the coliander.”
They were reading the despatches. Daingerfield's suddenly dropped from his hands, and he stared blankly at Ochs. Presently he stooped down, picked up the slip, and handed it to Ochs.
“Have I got a delusion, or what? Read it.”
J. Pursey Ochs looked at him curiously, and then at the slip.
Daingerfield, Hotel Oriente, Manila.
Excellent service rendered removes stain of past misconduct. Your name replaced active list navy lieutenant first grade.
It was signed with the name of the President.
With their congratulations in his ears, Daingerfield, crushing his Panama hat between his hands, staggered out of the room, Ochs following him with a steady hand upon his shoulder.
But the girl, forgetful of everything except her great happiness, turned her eyes to the man she loved.
“Sweetheart,” she said; and the thin arms of the invalid went about her neck.
“Its the same beautiful dream I dreamt before,” he murmured, and his tones had the gladness of springtime in them. “The same beautiful dream—but, sweetheart, I sha'n't wake up this time—I sha'n't wake up.”
Outside, a bird sang as though he would burst his little throat with the melody within him.
This work was published before January 1, 1930, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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