"You--you don't mean he's _dead_?" he asked in a shocking whisper.

"That I do, sir, dead as a lump o' seaweed."

Madden turned and walked with a queer light feeling toward the galley.

He was in no hurry now. If that strange light sank them, drowned them, it made little difference. An idea came into his mind.

"Did--did you fellows kill him--murder, him?" he asked in a hard undertone.

The tenseness of his voice seemed to scare the sailor, "No, sir, no, sir, no, sir!" repeated the cockney over and over.

"For I'll shoot the man down like a dog! I'll hang him! I'll--I'll----"

"We--we didn't touch 'im!" cried the sailor in hoarse alarm. "'E done it 'isself, sir. Went clean crazy, kilt hisself--'orrible!" As the sailor gasped out "horrible" they entered the cook's galley where a dim light burned and a group of silent, sobering men stood in a knot over some object.

Madden shoved through to where two men stooped over a long body, dimly seen on the decking. The two men were Hogan and Deschaillon.

With his strange feeling still strong upon him, Madden knelt between the two. Caradoc lay limp and motionless, with a dark stain slowly spreading on the boards under his head.

"Tell me about this," commanded Leonard, thrusting a hand under the prostrate man's shirt and feeling for his heart. The request set loose a babble.

"'E did it 'isself, sor!" "Split hopen 'is own 'ead, right enough!"

"W'ack, 'e took 'isself, w'ack!" "Aye, that 'e did, sor!" "It sounds queer, an' it looked queerer, but 'e did, sor!"

Madden made a sharp angry gesture for silence, "One at a time. Mulcher, what happened?"

"'E comes in, Mr. Madden," began the cockney more composedly, "an' says, 'Forward, men, lively now,' an' Galton 'e turns an' says, 'Ye may take that, ye--'"

Again came the irrepressible chorus, "Aye, that 'e did, sor!"

"If a man speaks before I address him, I'll brain him!" shouted Madden.

"Hogan, what happened?"

"If you plaze, Misther Madden, Misther Smith came in and asked iv'rybody to stip forward and quit atin' up th' grub. Galton was mad innyway, an'

had a glass o' whiskey in his hand. 'Quit atin'!' yills Galton. 'A officer niver wants nobody to ate but himself.' Then, 'Take thot!' he yills, and flings his whiskey straight into Smith's face.

"Av cour-rse, we ixpected to see him smash Galton to smithereens, him being dhrunk--Galton, I mane--but he stood still as a post, sir, and tur-rned white as a sheet. I filt sorry for th' gintilmin--him putting up sich a good foight this avening--so Oi thought if he didn't want to fight, I'd help him pass it off aisy. I had a glass o' liquor in me own hand. I offers it to him. Says I, 'Pay no attention to th' spalpeen at all, Misther Smith,' says I; 'he's a fool to be throwin' away good liquor loike that; and have this dhrink on me, and if he does it again Oi'll pitch him out o' the port.' With that I handed him me glass.

"Well, sir, he took it, an' I belave there was niver another face on earth loike his, whin he hild up that glass to th' lamp. His hand shook so some of the sthuff shpilled. His face was loike a corpse. He shtarted to dhrink. Put it to his lips. Thin of a suddint, loike it had shtung him, he yills out, 'God 'a' mercy!' flings down th' glass, which smashes all over th' floor, lowers his head an' plunges loike a football tackle, head fir-rst, roight into th' sharp edge o' that locker there where ye see th' blood an' hairs stickin'. Down he wint, loike he's hit wid an axe, wid his skull broke in siv'ral pieces no doubt. Mad as a hatter, sir, fr-rom th' hate. Though it's sich an onrasonable tale, sir, I won't raysint it if ye call me a liar to me teeth."

Madden had found the Englishman's heart still beating. He pressed his fingers in the long bloody wound on his head and the skull appeared sound enough under the long gash.

"Get him out on deck," he ordered sharply, in an effort to keep his voice from choking in his throat.

"Out on deck! He's not dead! Get him in fresh air!"

Hogan, Deschaillon, and two navvies caught him by the legs and arms.

Madden lifted the bleeding head from which the blood still ran in a steady trickle. The crowd gave back and the five men with their grewsome burden passed through the galley's door into the dark passage.

Just then a sudden vibration went through the whole ship, as if the _Vulcan_ had been struck by some enormous force. The men carrying Smith staggered. There burst out a blare of confusion, amazed cries, shouts of terror. There was a stampede in the narrow passage. Flying men bumped into the bearers of the sick man. They were shrieking, "We're struck! We're foundering! Th' sea sorpint's got us!"

"Launch the small boat and stand by till we get there!" bellowed Madden.

All the carriers dropped Smith's body and bolted in the panic. Madden braced himself against the rush of the crew and held up the senseless man lest he be trampled on in the blackness. The uproar in the passage was terrific as the men tried to squeeze through all together. Every moment Madden expected a rush of sea water down the passageway. Just then, he felt someone else lift at Caradoc.

"Go on," said Farnol Greer's voice. "Let's get him out, sir."

CHAPTER XV

TOWED!

When the American pushed outside with his burden, a breeze swept the deck of the _Vulcan_ with an unexpected coolness. The vibrations had almost ceased, but there was a slight hissing of water from somewhere, and a feeling of movement. The men were in a hubbub on the port side where the small boat lay tied.

Filled with the idea that the ship was about to founder, Madden stared about. To his vast astonishment, he discovered the tug was not sinking, but moving. The _Vulcan_ was under way. The noise he heard was the swift displacement of water. For some unaccountable reason, the vessel glided southward at a speed of eight or ten knots.

In the uproar forward, Madden heard the cries: "Th' dinghy's swamped!"

"We carn't reach 'er!" "Cut 'er loose and jump!" "We couldn't right 'er in th' water!" "Cut 'er and jump! Quick! 'Eaven knows w'ot's got us!"

"Steady! Steady, men!" bawled Madden, laying Caradoc down on the deck and hurrying across to his panicky crew. "What's moving us?"

"We don't know, sir! Th' sea sorpint! Grabbed our cable and made off!"

"Can you see it?"

"Just make it out, sir, ahead!"

"Cut th' cable!" cried another voice; "that'll get us loose!"

"Yes, get an axe--Quick!"

A dim figure came running aft past Madden for the axe. The American shouted at him: "Come back! Don't touch that towing line! Let things alone!"

"Yes, but this'll drag us to the bottom!" chattered one of the men forward.

"We'll get in the dinghy when the ship goes down!"

"We might row to the dock from here!"

The men stood in a string along the rail, below them in the hissing water the dinghy tossing topsy turvy.

"What's towing us? I don't see it?" cried Madden.

Several arms pointed forward. Leonard peered through the gloom. The crescent moon and the stars filtered down a tinsel light. The faint shine merely made the darkness more evident Madden seemed to catch a glimmer of a bulk at the end of the anchor line some hundred yards distant. He listened but heard only the gurgle of the _Vulcan's_ wake and the creak of her plates.

When the sheer panic of surprise had worn away somewhat, the weirdness of the uncanny voyage came upon the crew with tenfold force. They stood gripping the rail, staring ahead with the feeling of condemned prisoners on their way to the gallows.