worried over the waste of the Grand Banks, and a second in the engine-room of the Nan-Ling at Birkenhead, Macdonald, so far as I am aware, paid no further court to the deity until Dixon Gray and he had thrashed about the Orient for a trifle over a year. And then one night on Dane's Island, halfway between the store and the jetty, he called upon the stars to bear witness that 'the skipper had got his chance at last.' After which he prayed that 'the laddie might be kept fra playing the fool,' and so passed on to the boat and was rowed out to the ship. He was clearly well pleased, if not with himself, at any rate with circumstance, and all because in their Odyssey they had been led to that fragment of volcanic rock and sand and matted jungle which is known to the sailors of the Eastern seas as Dane's Island - a name which, by the way, bears no relationship to the one that marks it on the map. As for its place, it lies within a circle whose line might touch Luzon at the top and the Banda Straits at the bottom, with Saigon and Gilolo on opposite sides; and it is indebted for its fame, as well as its name, to the settlement upon it of Stephen Dane, the trader who managed in the course of years to win for his store a measure of renown as high as that of Andrew Dougal in Silver Alley at Liverpool.

This brings me then to that sinister day when the Nan-Ling, her hatches battened down, a fair head of steam showing in her gauges, lay to an anchor in the harbor at Swatow awaiting the order of release. But her captain showed no fancy for the open sea, and while his crew of nondescripts hid themselves away from the throttling heat, he spent quite half his time in front of the barometer in his cabin. And he was frowning at the portentous proclamation on the dial when Macdonald descended upon him.

'I'm thinking,' the chief engineer said, 'that if we're no' likely to get under way I'll clean masel' up and have a spell ashore. There's a man I'd like t' see.'

'I'm staying where I am,' Gray sullenly snapped. 'Look at the glass. Did you ever see such a drop? And still falling. Three sixteenths in an hour. Who'd leave a safe harbor in face of especially in these waters. Just

that

fancy pitching yourself into a cyclonic storm in Formosa Straits. Sheer madness. Besides,' as though he were defending himself against attack, 'I'm not the only one. There are half a dozen skippers who won't face what's coming any more than me.'

'Oh, that's all right,' Macdonald airily replied. 'I'm not setting masel' up in the seat o' judgment. You're the skipper, and you ought t' know. And it's no business o' mine. Though I might mak' free t' mention that opinion seems t' be divided, if it's true what some o' the boys are saying aboot a junk going down the river this morning

not twelve hours sin'. Withoot the wind, too. Had her sweeps oot. Not that it signifies that much, for mebbe she'd only be going round the corner.'

'Junks!' Gray's lip curled scornfully. 'What have I got to do with such craft? If some ridiculous Chink thinks fit to commit suicide it's no concern of mine. I have to make my own laws. Though I suppose that whatever I do will be wrong. That's the way of the

Gray's face, but whether the thrust were intended or not, the words had sped upon their shattering course, and he made no attempt to divert them. As for his stay ashore it only lasted an hour, and he explained his speedy return as dictated by expediency rather than by choice. "There's no telling when the blaw 'll begin,' he said, ‘and I thought I'd better get aboard while I could.'

Grumbling about the sweltering discomfort of everything, he stretched himself out on the settee and lay for a quarter of an hour with his eyes closed, while Gray lounged back in his chair, his body limp and resistless, overwhelmed by the atmospheric oppression, the furnace heat, the breathlessness, his brain dominated by an odd medley of thoughts. At that moment, indeed, thought was the only force with any virility; for the rest, life seemed to have become suspended, it was just as though in all the world there was nothing but a tremendous silence. And so he abandoned himself willingly to a spell of brooding inertia, and when at last the calm was disturbed by a dull booming, something familiar and close at hand, he did nothing more than glance indifferently at Macdonald and wonder why he should have thought it worth while to worry himself with talk. About that junk, too - that preposterous Chinese junk. As if the thing could have the slightest interest for anybody aboard the Nan-Ling. It was so utterly unlike old Mac to give way to these fancies, but no doubt this maddening heat had upset him, knocked him off his balance. The first fact picked out by Gray's drowsy listening was that Macdonald suspected something fishy about the junk. Not that he knew anything for certain nothing beyond a few scraps of gossip he had pieced together, odds and ends picked up here and there, some on board and

some ashore. He was afraid that without intent he had been playing the eavesdropper, and probably there was nothing in the business, nothing to worry about. Though he could n't get away from the yarn Ah Fang had been spinning to him. But for that he would have put the whole rigmarole down for an empty Oriental fable. And even Ah Fang was n't above suspicion. Anyhow, granting that everything was true, it was most unlikely that the junk would ever get through the blow that was coming on. And he hoped it would n't, for he would be most desperately sorry if anything happened to old man Dane.

'Dane!' The name was charged with volcanic power. At one stroke all Dixon Gray's lethargy was shattered, the man converted to a palpitating note of interrogation. 'Dane!' he repeated, bolt upright now in his chair. 'What has your blessed junk got to do with him? What's the riddle, anyhow?'

By the widening of his eyes Macdonald proclaimed his astonishment at the outburst. 'Ma certes, man,' he retorted, 'but you're like a Chinese firework, off ye flare as soon as ye feel the touch of the match. An' what, I'd like t' know, is Stephen Dane t' you? One might think he owed you some money. As for what I've heard mebbe it was nonsensical balderdash, that being the case wi' maist of the things ye hear; but all the same it fits in pretty well with some of the queer doings in these parts. As I've told you, I only picked up a few bits o' shakings, the interpretation thereof being that the junk's one of them piratical craft, and she's skippered by Mister Chung Won. An' I need n't remind ye of the manner of man he is. Sort o' first-class devil. Terror o' the seas. Anything else ye like, so long as ye put plenty of hot stuff in. As for the port he's bound for and the plan he's working by, I'll

fetch Ah Fang, and ye can have it yourself at first hand. I've nae doot that a Crown Coonsel 'd be able t' pick his evidence t' pieces, but it's the maist that seems t' be available.'

A swift glance as he left the cabin showed him that in the space of a few seconds the captain's face had turned a dusky tinge, that his eyes were ablaze with the fires of incredulity and horror; but Macdonald paid no further heed, and was soon back again with the Chinaman, who proved anything but a docile witness, and chiefly animated by a panicky sense of concern for his own safety.

'Me Klistian. Me velly good Chinaman. Klistian Chinaman,' he nervously protested when Macdonald bade him 'tip his yarn about Chung Won and his junk.' His eyes darting from one man to the other, fingers nervously twisting and twining, he sought refuge in a profession of complete ignorance. 'Me no catchee catchee anything. Men talkee talkee. Ah Fang listen. That all. No savvy.'

'And what was it you heard when you listened?' Gray demanded. 'Come out with it. You'll not get hurt for the truth, but if you lie!'

The pause was charged with terrific threat, and Ah Fang knew it. Still washing his hands with invisible soap, his eyes never at rest, he plunged into a rambling, tangled tale. Men talkee talkee at Kling's las' night. Say Chung Won velly bad man, him pilate, shoot an' chop chop with long piecee knife. Take women away. Always cally women off. Chung Won muchee muchee chief. Him going to Dane Island to kill Mista Dane. Men say Dane velly lich. Plenty heap money. Big box. Heap money bellied. Pilate take allee money and killee people, but not killee women. Pilate plenty big fellow. Him strong. Muchee muchee pilate.' Ah Fang spread out his hands fanwise

and shook his head dolorously. 'Him kill and burn. No more store. No Dane. Allee same gone.'

At the end of a cross-examination, on which even the Attorney-General might have plumed himself, the Chinaman glided silently away, and Macdonald pronounced a counsel of despair. 'If the beggar's telling the truth, and the junk weathers the storm, it's all up with Dane. For there's naething t be done. By rights the old man ought t' be warned, but there is n't a gunboat within saxty miles, and the island does n't run to a telegraph wire. So I s'pose he'll just have t' tak' his chance. The wonder is that they have n't tried it on lang before. He's no right to have pitched his camp on such a howling wilderness of a God-forsaken spot.'

That this was intended for his final word Macdonald showed by the way he settled in the corner of the settee, evidently prepared to take his ease. But it was the last moment of idleness he was destined to know for many crowded hours. For a few seconds Gray made no sound simply stood there brooding, staring through the port without seeing anything, the hard moulding of his face, his whole bearing that of a man grappling with a crisis of magnitude. And then, suddenly, he became galvanized into passionate activity. 'What's your steam-pressure, Mac?' he sharply demanded, and was told that 'there could be a full head in an hour.'

"Then, in half an hour I'll get the anchor,' he announced. 'And I'll want you to shake your old box of tricks up for all they're worth,' he added.

'D'ye mean t' tell me
"That we're going to sea.'

Bewilderment stamped on his face, Macdonald slowly rose. But,' he ventured, 'look at the glass,' and found that he had fired a mine.

'Damn the glass!' Gray hotly cried.

'There are worse things at sea than bad weather. Man alive, what do you take me for? Think of that junk. If it should reach Dane's Island first. All that it means.'

Two hours later the Nan-Ling was shouldering her way heavily through a sullen sea, while her captain paced the bridge and the mate yapped fretfully against the scheme of things. If the old tub stands this she'll stand anything. That glass. Five sixteenths, sir. In an hour. Never saw such a rapid drop before. Though that is n't all. There's this,' and he waved his hand around. 'You can almost taste it.'

The gesture was eloquently expressive. It embraced all that Gray was seeing and feeling. That profound calm, the flatness of the sea, its tremendous flatness, without a ripple or a curl, without anything except its feeble labored lift, no life in it, its very movement suggesting impotence rather than energy. For it was so unlike the sea. That was the disconcerting truth - its unlikeness. There was its color too, patches dull as the skin of a mummy, vast flakes of lustreless brass; the sky that seemed to have lost its height and in the deadness of its tones was like the sea; the windlessness, the air that scorched as the breath of Tophet.

Again and again the mate lifted up his voice in querulous complaint, but I doubt whether Gray heard a word of it. All his thought, his watchfulness, were concentrated on that menacing immensity and its allied powers not yet revealed; and he was watching with the grim, resolute purpose of one bent on wresting from the foe its secret, compelling it to expose its hand, its design, and its resources. And in the end he had his reward. When Nature changed her expression, like a woman passing from sullen brooding to the fierce passion of uncontrollable wrath, his eyes were on her face and he knew that the

hour of trial was at hand. Into the bronze a purple tinge subtly crept, the edge of the horizon deepened to a dingy umber, and Gray turned to the mate with a string of orders. 'Better have the decks cleared,' he said. 'All loose stuff stowed away. Extra lashings on everything. Life-lines rigged up. Then come back here and stand by.'

VI

For himself, or about himself, as he waited on the bridge of the Nan-Ling for the impending onslaught, Dixon Gray had no thought. Nor had he any taste for an excursion into the realm of self-analysis. His attention was surrendered absolutely to his ship and his mission. Was the steamer equal to the call that was about to be made upon her? Would he reach the island in time? Beyond these two problems there were none others that mattered. Even in that terrific hour when the tempest leaped upon them out of the ocean night's black throat, and he clung to the bridge-rail alone, lost in abysmal gloom, solid walls of water sheering athwart his course, he had no other thought simply to hold on and accomplish the task he had taken up. Once, about halfway through the night, just as he had left the shelter of the wheel-house for the tremendous tu mult outside, he felt his arm tightly gripped, and the voice of Macdonald clamored by his ear, many of his words picked from his lips by the wind and swept away. Eh man, captain, is it you? What? This - wind — throttles everything. Thought see how getting along. It's awfu' below. Hoo up here?' Sharp and confident came the response: 'First-rate, Mac. Nothing worry about. Worse to lot worse, but - old boat facing it finely-so far-and-The crash of another comber on the deck applied a full point to his statement,

come

and the two men clung to each other in the darkness until the flood had swirled away. "That's what-like up here,' Gray grimly bellowed. 'And - nothing to what we're steaming to meet. Cyclone, you know circular- may run through the edge – or hit it centre.'

'All right.' The chief relaxed his grip. 'Drive her through it -if-like. I'll no mind-fetch t'other side. Seen enough up here t' satisfy me. Awa' back

drier shop.'

He had seen enough to satisfy. Though Gray caught the words he missed their double meaning; fancied that Macdonald spoke only of the storm. And he had greater work to do than spread himself out in idle chatter. He was the captain the man on whom everything depended, success or disaster, life or death. He was supremely conscious of the fact, conscious in a way which marked the moment out from any other. Many times before had he realized his power, but always as a burdensome yoke. Now it gave him a sense of exaltation; he was proud of it, gloried in his responsibility. There was much to be done out here in the raging waste of the China Sea, and he was the man to do it. I do not mean that he thought all this or any of it, rather did he feel it, his kingship. For once he was sure of himself. Whatever doubt oppressed him was of the ship. He knew her age, her frailties, her decrepitude; knew that he must drive her to the limit of her endurance, demand as much from her as from a ship of the highest register.

That this phase of the tempest was but the prelude to the real onslaught he was assured. Experience, coupled with his study of the Law of Storms, afforded no loophole for comforting doubt. Nor was he tricked by the manner of the attack. Some men would have said that Nature had descended

to a bluff, the sort of thing to fool a novice; but the moment Gray was sure of the fact, that brief slackening in the wind's persistence, he clambered up the slant of the bridge with a warning for the mate.

'Look alive, Marquis,' he cried, making a trumpet of his hands, 'this is n't the beginning of the end. It's the beginning of the start. The real thing now.'

That was all. His counsel of caution. His message delivered, he sidled away again; and Marquis, peering into the tenebrous environment, picked him out vaguely etched against the background of the night, fronting the storm, watching it, waiting for the advance of its reserve battalions. For every man aboard the night thenceforward was one of appalling isolation. They ceased to be a community, were converted into separate units; there was nothing they could be said to share except their peril. To the two on the bridge, the captain and his mate, all communication was denied; they might have been miles apart, were not really conscious of each other's presence, neither had any assurance of the other's survival. Even in the wheel-house and down in the engine-room the men were sundered entities, working only in unison by instinct and long training; while the crew, penned in their quarters, were in still worse case. For the others at least there was work to do, while these had laid upon them the nerve-racking task of waiting. They were held in the toils of the unseen and the unknown. Their world had lost its stability, its certainties; there was little left except that frantic tumult of motion, the pitch and roll of the ship, the straining of the hull as she rose, its grinding quiver when she dived, and the bared propeller, wrenched from the sea and thrust aloft, broke into a maddened race; and to all these again there was added the smothered crash as fragments of the