pistol leveled against the blank boarding. Equally upon the
instant he saw the trick that had been played upon him and in a

second flash had turned again. The turn and return had occupied
but a moment of time, but that moment, thanks to the readiness of

his own invention, had undoubtedly saved Mainwaring's life. As
the other turned away his gaze for that brief instant Mainwaring

leaped forward and upon him. There was a flashing flame of fire
as the pistol was discharged and a deafening detonation that

seemed to split his brain. For a moment, with reeling senses, he
supposed himself to have been shot, the next he knew he had

escaped. With the energy of despair he swung his enemy around and
drove him with prodigiousviolence against the corner of the

table. The pirate emitted a grunting cry and then they fell
together, Mainwaring upon the top, and the pistol clattered with

them to the floor in their fall. Even as he fell, Mainwaring
roared in a voice of thunder, "All hands repel boarders!" And

then again, "All hands repel boarders!"
Whether hurt by the table edge or not, the fallen pirate

struggled as though possessed of forty devils, and in a moment or
two Mainwaring saw the shine of a long, keen knife that he had

drawn from somewhere about his person. The lieutenant caught him
by the wrist, but the other's muscles were as though made of

steel. They both fought in despairing silence, the one to carry
out his frustrated purposes to kill, the other to save his life.

Again and again Mainwaring felt that the knife had been thrust
against him, piercing once his arm, once his shoulder, and again

his neck. He felt the warm blood streaming down his arm and body
and looked about him in despair. The pistol lay near upon the

deck of the cabin. Still holding the other by the wrist as he
could, Mainwaring snatched up the empty weapon and struck once

and again at the bald, narrow forehead beneath him. A third blow
he delivered with all the force he could command, and then with a

violent and convulsive throe the straining muscles beneath him
relaxed and grew limp and the fight was won.

Through all the struggle he had been aware of the shouts of
voices, of trampling of feet and discharge of firearms, and the

thought came to him, even through his own danger, that the Yankee
was being assaulted by the pirates. As he felt the struggling

form beneath him loosen and dissolve into quietude, he leaped up,
and snatching his cutlass, which still lay upon the table, rushed

out upon the deck, leaving the stricken form lying twitching upon
the floor behind him.

It was a fortunate thing that he had set double watches and
prepared himself for some attack from the pirates, otherwise the

Yankee would certainly have been lost. As it was, the surprise
was so overwhelming that the pirates, who had been concealed in

the large whaleboat that had come alongside, were not only able
to gain a foothold upon the deck, but for a time it seemed as

though they would drive the crew of the brig below the hatches.
But as Mainwaring, streaming with blood, rushed out upon the

deck, the pirates became immediately aware that their own captain
must have been overpowered, and in an instant their desperate

energy began to evaporate. One or two jumped overboard; one, who
seemed to be the mate, fell dead from a pistol shot, and then, in

the turn of a hand, there was a rush of a retreat and a vision of
leaping forms in the dusky light of the lanthorns and a sound of

splashing in the water below.
The crew of the Yankee continued firing at the phosphorescent

wakes of the swimming bodies, but whether with effect it was
impossible at the time to tell.

IV
The pirate captain did not die immediately. He lingered for

three or four days, now and then unconscious, now and then
semi-conscious, but always deliriously wandering. All the while

he thus lay dying, the mulatto woman, with whom he lived in this
part of his extraordinary dual existence, nursed and cared for

him with such rude attentions as the surroundings afforded. In
the wanderings of his mind the same duality of life followed him.

Now and then he would appear the calm, sober, self- contained,
well-ordered member of a peaceful society that his friends in his

faraway home knew him to be; at other times the nether part of
his nature would leap up into life like a wild beast, furious and

gnashing. At the one time he talked evenly and clearly of
peaceful things; at the other time he blasphemed and hooted with

fury.
Several times Mainwaring, though racked by his own wounds, sat

beside the dying man through the silent watches of the tropical
nights. Oftentimes upon these occasions as he looked at the thin,

lean face babbling and talking so aimlessly, he wondered what it
all meant. Could it have been madness--madness in which the

separate entities of good and bad each had, in its turn, a
perfect and distinctexistence? He chose to think that this was

the case. Who, within his inner consciousness, does not feel
that same ferine, savage man struggling against the stern,

adamantine bonds of morality and decorum? Were those bonds burst
asunder, as it was with this man, might not the wild beast rush

forth, as it had rushed forth in him, to rend and to tear? Such
were the questions that Mainwaring asked himself. And how had it

all come about? By what easy gradations had the respectable
Quaker skipper descended from the decorum of his home life, step

by step, into such a gulf of iniquity? Many such thoughts passed
through Mainwaring's mind, and he pondered them through the still

reaches of the tropical nights while he sat watching the pirate
captain struggle out of the world he had so long burdened. At

last the poor wretch died, and the earth was well quit of one of
its torments.

A systematic search was made through the island for the scattered
crew, but none was captured. Either there were some secret

hiding places upon the island (which was not very likely) or else
they had escaped in boats hidden somewhere among the tropical

foliage. At any rate they were gone.
Nor, search as he would, could Mainwaring find a trace of any of

the pirate treasure. After the pirate's death and under close
questioning, the weeping mulatto woman so far broke down as to

confess in broken English that Captain Scarfield had taken a
quantity of silver money aboard his vessel, but either she was

mistaken or else the pirates had taken it thence again and had
hidden it somewhere else.

Nor would the treasure ever have been found but for a most
fortuitous accident. Mainwaring had given orders that the Eliza

Cooper was to be burned, and a party was detailed to carry the
order into execution. At this the cook of the Yankee came

petitioning for some of the Wilmington and Brandywine flour to
make some plum duff upon the morrow, and Mainwaring granted his

request in so far that he ordered one of the men to knock open
one of the barrels of flour and to supply the cook's demands.

The crew detailed to execute this modest order in connection with