The perpetual bizarre beauty of the scene was tiring to the youth. For some reason he thought again of the sea serpent. It occurred to Madden that an enormous scaly thing, in vivid spangling colors, embossed with sword-like spines, with a long convoluted tail, huge red-fanged mouth, would be in keeping with the scene before him, would indeed produce a gorgeously decorative effect, such as he had seen in Chinese pictures.

His thoughts took all sorts of queer turns. He wondered what he would do if he should see such a creature? He walked over and stood by the rail, staring intently into the colorful west, half expecting to see some wild dragon of his imagination. If it should come, he wished for a camera--a moving picture camera. A moving picture of a dragon attacking a ship!

Just then he caught a strange noise that seemed to emanate from the air above his head. He stood quite still, hands on rail, listening. It was repeated. It was a human noise. It seemed to come from the vacant bronze-colored sky above his head. He wondered if he were going insane?

Just then he caught sight of Caradoc's torso thrust out from a barrel up in the shrouding of the foremast. The crew of the _Vulcan_ had run up the barrel like a whaler's lookout to post a watch. Into this barrel Caradoc had climbed.

The face of Smith wore a strained, desperate look. Madden stared at him for several seconds, quite taken aback by finding him in such an unexpected place. One thing, however, filled the American with deep gratification. The man was not drunk.

"What you doing up there?" called Madden in surprise.

Caradoc's broad shoulders sagged drearily. "I don't know," he said dully. "I fancy I might as well jump overboard and be done with it."

Madden became instantly alert. "Jump overboard! What for?" A sudden thought hit him. Maybe this was the way they all went? Then another fear entered his heart.

"Say, have you seen anything up there, Smith?... A dragon, or... sea serpent, or..." Madden stared dumbfounded at his friend, marveling what manner of sight had put suicidal thoughts into Smith's head.

"Heavens, yes... dragons, dragons, dragons!"

A weak, watery feeling went through Madden's legs. He felt doddery.

"Many dragons!" All idea of beauty was lost in grisly horror.

"W-wait a m-minute!" he chattered. "D-don't j-jump--I'm coming up th-there!"

CHAPTER XIV

CARADOC WINS HIS FIGHT

Trembling all over, Madden gained the barrel and stepped through a niche in its side. He stared through the brilliant, hot colors, but no rushing horde of monsters met his eyes.

"Which way?" he asked breathlessly.

Caradoc looked around at him in uncomprehending misery. There was just room for the two in the barrel. Smith seemed to put his mind to Madden's question with an effort.

"Which--what did you say?"

"Which way?"

"What do you mean?"

"The dragons, man, the dragons!"

"Dragons--right here!" Smith beat his broad chest, then waved his long arms about. "Everywhere--don't you smell it?"

The idea of smelling dragons confused the American. "Smell what?"

"The whiskey!" shivered Caradoc. "I came up here to get away from it."

"Oh--so you didn't see--I understand!"

"It's tantalizing--horrible!" he shivered again, as if the superheated air chilled him.

The American's own foolish fancies vanished in the face of his friend's real trouble. Caradoc had met a dragon more terrible than the Sargasso could conjure up, and its fangs were in his heart. His flight to the crow's nest had been an effort to escape its fury, but it had followed him there. Leonard put a hand on his friend's shoulder. He was at a loss what to say. Indeed there was nothing to say.

"Habit--queer thing, Leonard--I thought I was all right."

"Yes?"

"You see, in college I used to take an alcohol rub-down after my bouts, and a drink. And now, after my fight at noon--smelling this--you don't know how it brings it back, appetite, recollections, everything----" he waved his hands hopelessly again.

"Don't think of it. Put your mind on something else."

Caradoc gave a short mirthless laugh. "Stand in a fire--and consider the lilies?"

"We've got to consider how we'll ever get out of here, if we can't run this tug's engines..."

"We're stuck! We're stuck!" declared the Englishman miserably. "I don't see why I don't go down and be a hog again... we'll finally starve...

Somehow I had a mind to die sober... God knows why I ever came on such a junket."

"Starve nothing. We'll get out somehow. We can fish and eat seaweed and distill our own water. I can make a still. And you'll get over that appetite. Bound to--can't last always."

Smith relapsed into silence, staring over the dying colors of the sea.

Madden tried to think of simple remedies to abate a drunkard's appetite for alcohol. He had heard of apples, lemon juice, but both were as unobtainable as the gold cure itself.

"How long have you been like this?" he asked at last.

"Been bad two or three years. Drank some all my life. My governor taught it to me when I was a baby. Then when I got older if I went too far he kicked. Naturally I intended to stop in time, till I slipped in deep."

Leonard nodded understandingly. "It always gets a nervous high-strung fellow. The better stuff you are the harder it hits you."

Caradoc stared moodily seaward as he continued his recollections.

"The governor kept warning me. I don't believe he'd ever have kicked me out, but he died. Then they cashiered me--took my commission--and my family let me go, too... Well, I can't blame 'em."

"Your commission--in the army?"

"Navy."

"What were you?"

"Second lieutenant."

Madden looked at his friend curiously. Here was a queer pass for an English naval officer. This revelation explained a good deal about Smith, his autocratic manner, his many-sided education, his emotion at leaving England. It even explained why he had expected Malone to place him in charge of the dock.

"Is there any hope of getting back in?" asked Leonard sympathetically.