longed for the little house on Preble Square was praying, but others were cursing, not in the flippant ejaculations of ordinary intercourse, nor the reckless taunts flung in a fight, but the frenzied blasphemies of craven souls that face and tremble before annihilation.
The port boat swung clear but in the fury of the wind and their mad haste the "forward fall" quickly jammed; the stern tilted downward, and spilled them into the sea.
One by one they were washed astern. A clutching hand—a distorted face—a last imprecation—and they were gone.
The five in the starboard boat were ready when Ben, seeing their defection, ripped out the angry command:
"Belay there till I give orders!"
The renegade five would have put off, but the man who had just stood his trick at the wheel, the devout soul from Preble Square, and Scotty, his Gaelic dourness for once a beautiful thing, stood by, stopping the unreeling tackle and the boat midway in its descent to the waves. The mate bore the unconscious figure of his chief to the rail and propped him up in the bottom of the boat.
"In with you!" he called, shoving the steersman towards safety, but the engineer shook his grizzled old head.
"I'll stay wi' ye, laddie."
"In, you fool!" and Ben, shaking the affectionate hand from his shoulder, drew his revolver. Under its chill persuasion, the old man, stunned and wondering, clambered in just as the boat slid to the waves.
Then the boy s face changed. Peril ever wears a shrouding cloak, but its countenance envisaged by souls of steel is
