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Codrington wore a flannel dressing-gown; and as the other girl had turned out in a singularly be coming garment of cotton, I gave her my own pilot- jacket, and stole also for her (by brute force) a spotted carriage-rug from a Polish Jew.

"Now," I said, " there's string in the pocket of that jacket, and this thing will make you an ele gant skirt. You'd much better stop being fright ened, and then we can get along more comfortably. You aren't going to get drowned, or anything like it. I've insured you for a thousand apiece to Vanrennan, and I can't afford to let you come to grief at that price. When these fools have stopped struggling and squealing, you shall go off in a big boat and join another steamer. We shall have ten round us in half an hour. Look at those rockets."

Mrs. Codrington gripped my arm. " Then you think we have a chance of--" she began, and "m-m-m-m " said the great steam horn from above.

When we could hear ourselves speak again, and whilst the captain was giving his orders from the upper bridge, the Purser came to my elbow.

"Here, Calvert," he said in my ear, " you're a man. Those port boats won't lower anyway: she's listed too much over. I don't know whether we can get the starboard boats in the water with out swamping with this sea running, but we've got to try; and if any one goes off in them except the boat crews, it's got to be the women and kids. Same old yarn, y' know. So you've got to peg out anyway, and you may as well do it in a way that'll make you respect yourself. Ah, would you?" He knocked down a frantic German who was battling his way towards one of the starboard boats with a revolver outstretched. He wrenched away the weapon, and gave it me. "Here's a gun, old man. Just you wire in and murder the swine if they try to swamp you. They'll soon see those port boats won't lower, and they'll be back here in a minute."

Now a peculiar feeling had come over me. I had made up my mind that I had got to die, and didn't waste time by being sorry for myself over it. All my brain was turned on two objects. First, I had got to keep my ticket clean by seeing that the two girls I was looking after were sent away clear of the mess. And second, I wanted to leave a very red mark on the cowards who were wasting other people's lives because they could not save their own. That last wish amounted to a mania. I was ashamed of being a man whilst some of those brutes lived and could call themselves men also.

One of the starboard boats had been lowered already, packed with people. But before she was in the water the after fall had jammed in the block, and because the other took charge, she tilted bow-downwards, and spilt her wretched freight into the charging seas. Another boat was swung out, and lay beating against the rail as the steamer rolled. I would have hustled my two charges into her, but she was crowded in an instant and lowered away. She took the water safely, shoved off, and with oars straddling out on either side, crawled away over the inky water like some uncouth insect.

Then came the rush. The list had grown till the port boats hung inboard against their davits, and the waiting crowds beside them saw that that road of escape was cut off for good. In half the tongues of Pentecost they screamed into the windy night that the ship was sinking, sinking and each brute amongst them thought that his own life was worth more than all the honour and the wealth the world combined. They poured down the slope of the decks in a raving horde Polish and Russian Jews, Hungarian peasants fleeing from the conscription, Italian thieves, Belgian stokers a foul gush from the dregs of Europe; and with them came men who ought to have known better, but who had gone mad also, smitten by this same infection of terror.

I had slung the two women on to the floor grating of No. 3 lifeboat, and stood with my back against the gunwale. One of the mates, a gigan tic Swede, rose up beside me, his teeth gritting with fury and a belaying pin gripped in his hand.

Three deck-hands were sweating and swearing at the falls, getting the boat lifted right off her chocks and swung outboard.

The other women on the decks were knocked down and stamped on, and the mob of men leaped at the boat. It was no time for words. The mate and I hit out at every face we could reach with savage fury, but none turned to hit again. They scrabbled at the boat's gunwales with their hands, and those behind tore the leaders back. I could have beat in their faces in my hate; but I could not bring myself to shoot: there was nothing there worthy of a bullet.

The boat was lifted from its bed, and swung outboard. The steamer had ceased to roll, and the seas were coming green on her bridge-deck rail. The boat was floated almost before the falls were let go, and a wave came up and swayed her clear. The crowd shrieked and drew back up the slanting decks.

I leaned up against a davit, my breath returning to me in laboured pants. But the Swedish mate left me, and if ever murder showed in a man's eye, I saw it gleaming from his then; and shrieks coming through the darkness told what his fury was doing. He at any rate, I told my self, would die warm.

But the lust for maiming had left me. The last of the boats had gone, and the women and children who were left had got to die with us men, and with those who were infinitely less than men. The rockets were still spouting up in unwearied series from the upper bridge, and once I saw the Purser pass me, jaunty as of yore, with a lit cigar in his fingers, and an assurance be tween his teeth that all would be well. But I heeded him little. The chill of Death was nip ping me with its agues, and the hopeless minutes were dragging out intolerably. With a lifebelt I might . . . but no: there were women left, and I had got to stay.

Then of a sudden there burst out a roar, and a clang of iron, and a gush of scalding steam; and the decks ripped and splintered, and the steam rushed down in grey, peeling clouds. No, not that death. I vaulted the rail, and sank.

The instinct of the swimmer is curious. I had gone over the side quite satisfied that escape was hopeless, and intending to drown with one long plunge. But no sooner did the icy water thunder in my ears than the old instinct made me strike out for the surface. But I could not reach it. I swam on for what seemed to be minutes, hours, years, thousands of years; my arms aching, the veins like to burst through my skin; and then it came upon me that the steamer had sunk, and I was being dragged in her swirl down, down, down, to the dark sea floor; down, down, where it was too cold down down.

I opened my eyes and blinked; blinked again, and saw dimly the rough sea living-room of fishers. It was wainscoted with bunks round to the rudder case, and on the forward bulkhead was a fireplace resplendent with brass. I imagined I was in one of the bunks, but was not very certain about it, and so coughed inquiringly. Somebody came to my side. I pondered awhile, and then remarked, "I seem, somehow, to know that coat."

"It's yours," said the some one. " Don't you remember? I'm Mabel Vanrennan."

This was more satisfactory. I woke further, and inquired, " Where's the other Mrs. er I forget?"

"Codrington," said a voice from one of the bunks. " Here."

I was getting on. " I'm afraid you must have lost all your clothes?" was the next thing that occurred to me.

"Yes," said the voice, " and such a lovely diamond star!"

Then came a torrent of sobbing, and, between sobs: " Oh! how could I be so horrid as to think of such a thing now? There are only sixty picked up, they say. And all those other poor people lost! Isn't it awful to think about?"

"Very probably," I said. " But we've saved our own skins, and I don't think we've anything to be ashamed of. It wasn't my fault that some one gathered me up, though."

Then a man came in and stared at me thought fully a fisherman, in clumsy sea boots and brown-patched oilskin.

"Closish squeak you've had, mister," said he, slowly. " We just passed that other boat what run you down. She'd about seven foot of her bow gone, and looked pretty sick, I tell you. We hailed her to know if she wanted anything; but she said ' No.' Got her steering gear fixed up again, and was going to put into Ports mouth. She's a Welsh collier bound there. Rum go this has been. Where was your steamer hit?"

"Haven't a notion."

"Well, what were her water-tight bulkheads doing?"

"Very sorry, but I can't tell you."

"H'm!" said the man. Then what do you know about it?"

"Nothing," said I, " except that I'm here now, and that just now I imagined I was drowned."

"Well," said the man, "you won't do much towards dirtying any poor beast of a sailor's ticket at the inquiry, that's one blessing. I'll send you in a can of tea, and then you'd better sleep. We're standing in for Penzance to bring the news, because there ought to be a reward kicking about, and by the time you wake we should be there. So long!"

III

THE FINGER OF HANKIN

HE was called William Edward Hankin Seale, and by giving him the name of Hankin, his god fathers and godmothers considered that they had provided him with brilliant prospects. Where fore they economised, and forbore to add the usual christening mug and silver feeding tackle. In after years William Edward Seale had it constantly repeated to him that there was a man called Hankin who lived on a place called the West Coast of Africa, where he had amassed wealth, and was still amassing.

In his school days William Edward Seale said little about the vague Hankin. He learned that West Africa was a considerable distance from Charterhouse in miles; that the climate was hot, through some connection which it had with a thing called the equator, upon which the sun ap parently traversed as a bead does upon a wire; and that the Coast produced gold dust, ivory, and monkeys. Afterwards he got hold of The Cruise of the Midge, and added to this list of products, slaves, fever, sunstroke, and picturesque fighting.

He pictured Hankin as a king of countless negroes, who owned a long black schooner for nefarious purposes, and who went out for rides on his own private elephant and ate cocoa-nuts free of cost. He rather envied the old gentleman, but he did not swagger about him then. Later, however, he did both.

He went from Charterhouse to a bank in London, where he laboured easily, but acquired no unwieldy prosperity. He lived slightly beyond his income, but kept the leeway in check by waving Hankin before the eyes of his duns. He pointed out that the West Coast was notoriously unhealthy and that Hankin could not live much longer. He was generous in the matter of inter est, too. He said that when he put on a black tie for Hankin, they would see that there was nothing mean about him when he came to pay for accommodation. So he lived on; and the rumours of Hankin provided him gratis with dances and theatre paper; and dinners and Sun day river-parties were bestowed upon him by people who had marriageable daughters. " It's no use your asking me to pay for anything," he would say cheerfully. " I've barely a sixpence beyond my salary at present."

Occasionally he came across some man who had been in the Colonial Service or in a trading house on the West Coast, and asked about his connection, who, he stated, was some sort of a nine teenth cousin. But none of the Coasters ever knew about Hankin, or (what is perhaps more accurate) they never said they knew. So as far as William Edward Seale was concerned, Hankin remained vague and nebulous; but Seale never lost faith in his riches and dutiful cousinly affection (as bespoken by the afore-mentioned god parents); and calculated on the approaching windfall with certainty and sweet delight.

It was the coming of Captain Charteris with Nancy that gave him his first definite idea of Hankin. Charteris wired from Liverpool to ask for an interview, and was invited to come up and dine at the club and talk matters over there. Charteris came, and enjoyed his meal, as most men do after a course of Coast and steamer fare; but he talked whilst he was eating, and what he said did woful damage to Scale's appetite. After wards they went to a quiet corner of the billiardroom for coffee and cognac; and between whiffs of a good cigar, Charteris went on with his tale:

"We aren't mighty particular out there as a general rule, y' know, but that was a bit too blackguardly and low for anything. They kicked him out of the Service, of course; and they told him that if he didn't clear out of the Colony one time, they'd prosecute him to boot, and he'd get sent home to do five years for an absolute cert. So he cleared; and went to Lagos."

"But he was very rich at that time, wasn't he?" Seale asked.

"Rich? He owned the finest assortment of debts of any man in Accra. They had to pay his steamer-fare to get him away. I don't believe the old scamp ever did have a cent beyond his pay, but he'd a knack of hinting that he was a millionaire, and people sometimes believed him. He blarneyed himself into a trading house in Lagos on the strength of swaggering about money, which of course he hadn't got, and he might have worked himself back into a comfortable position if he had only chosen to keep straight. But that was not his way. He hung on there for a couple of years till he'd got his fingers well into the pie, and then one fine day he pulled out all the plums that were available and skipped by the British African boat to Grand Canary. He'd about a thousand pounds all told in his pocket when he landed at Las Palmas, and on the strength of it he married that pretty little woman I was telling you about, who died when Nancy was born."

"After which he took the child back to the Coast again, and brought her up like a savage?"

"No, he didn't; and that's about the only good point I ever heard the old ruffian accused of. He left her in Grand Canary, farmed her out (don't you call it?) in a village just outside Las Palmas, and went back again to the Coast to find money for the up-keep of her. It was a pretty plucky thing to do, because several gaols were waiting for him anxiously, and he'd dirtied his ticket so thoroughly up and down, that no white man would touch him with the end of a swizzle-stick.

What he did was to steam down coast to Lagos Roads, change over to the branch-boat and get across the bar, and then slip away from her by native canoe. He didn't land on the island at all. He went off over the lagoon, and then on, right up to the back of the Egba country. There was a hot war on then with the Yorubas, and it was about nine to one got knocked on the head and chopped; but somehow the old scamp slipped through, and then he started in to collect rubber. He got a mud-and-grass hut built and lived on native chop, and must have had a pretty tough time of it at first, because all the roads were blocked, and he could neither get ' trade ' up-coun try or send his rubber down. But after a bit, things went better with him. He got his rubber carried down to Lagos, contrived to lay hold of a few domestic slaves to do his work, and was able to send remittances to the woman who farmed Nancy outside Las Palmas. If he'd stuck to what he'd made then, he might have lived pretty comfortably, because trade-gin makes tol erable cocktails when you're used to it, and up in that part of the bush you can always get chickens and mutton if you care to pay. But he didn't do that: he stuck to the cheap native chop; and when he had fever he grudged himself pills and quinine: it took him all he knew to scrape up eighty pounds a year for Nancy."