ng Devil T

arrative, for what I did and did not when full realization returned I m

ted under my frantic hands; would not open. Something fell tinkling to the floor. It was the key and I remembered then that Throckmartin had turned it befor

ght came to me that drove again the blood from my heart, held me ri

None, I knew, save Throckmartin and myself had seen the first apparition of the Dweller. Had they witnessed the second? I did not know, nor could

esuming sway at last, steadied me. Even had I spoken and been believed where in these wastes after all the hours could we search for Throckmartin? Certainly the captain would not turn back to Port Moresb

elbourne or Sydney if it were possible; if not sail to America as swiftly as migh

nations of the extinguishment. Not until noon was Throckmartin's absence discovered. I told the captain that I had left him early in the evening; that, indeed, I knew him but slightly, after all. It occurred to none to doubt me, or to question me minutely. Why should it

re and in the press of the war news Throckmartin's supposed fate won only a few li

ystone of my equipment. Pursuing my search to Sydney I was doubly fortunate in finding a firm who were expecting these very arti

om it. Or why I did not call upon members of the University staffs of either Melbourne or Sydney for assistance. At the l

Throckmartin, the happenings I had myself witnessed, were incredible, abnormal, outside the facts of all known science. I shrank from the inevitable disbelief, perhaps ridic

o the range of such a peril without first warning them

ice-well, I have atoned for it. But I d

y to be after Throckmartin, the despairing thought that every moment of delay might be vital to him and his, and my intensely eager desire t

e passage back to Port Moresby and it was another week still before I started north on the Suwarna, a

grant as the Javan flower for which she was named. Da Costa, her captain, was a garrulous Portuguese; his mate was a Canton man with all the marks of long and able service on some pirate junk; his engineer was a half-breed China-Malay who had picked u

lly, and we were then rolling over the thousand-mile stretch of open ocean with New Hanover far behind us and our boat's bow pointed stra

wells of the Pacific lifted us in gentle, giant hands and sent us as gently down the long, blue wave slopes to the next broad, upward slope. There was a sp

from the Tonga boy lookout

b'long po

the size of the Suwarna, without power. All sails set, even to a spinnaker she carried, she was making the best of the little breeze. I tried to read her name, but the vessel jibed shar

lpless, huddled sort of way, and even as I looked the vessel veered again, abruptly as

e that his was the action of a man striving vainly against a weariness unutterable. I swept the deck with my glasses. There was no other si

is captain and owner of the Br-rwun'ild. His name Olaf Huldricksson, what you say-Norwegian. He is eith

ls of the Brunhilda flapped down inert. We were now nearly abreast and a scant hundred y

" shouted Da Costa. "Wh

ders enormous, thick chested, strength in every line of him, he

d never have I seen a visage lined and marked as though by

e and were waiting at the oars. The

ladder. The Tonga boys bent to the oars. We reached the side and Da Costa and I each seized a lan

d black and the thongs had bitten into the sinewy wrists till they were hidden in the outraged flesh, cutting so deeply that blood fell, slow drop by drop, at his feet! We sprang toward him, re

ss as though forced from a dead throat; his lips were cracked

, but as Huldricksson's voice reached him he stopped. Amazement crept into h

began to curse us. He did not speak-he howled from that hideously dry mouth his imprecations. And al

y. "His wife, his daughter-" he dart

once more, had slumpe

eared at the top of

dy-nowhere!" His hands flew out in a gesture of

dry lips and as he spoke a chill

he sparkling devil took them! Took my Helma and my little Fred

moved toward him again and again Huldricksson watch

case and filled it with morp

whispered, "talk to him." He

Helma and Freda

im. "The shining devil took them," he

himself and then began to rock drunkenly. The morphine, taking him in his weakness, worked quickly. Soon over his face a peace dropped. The pupils of th

on we had Huldricksson in my bunk. Da Costa sent half his crew over to the sloop in charge of the Cantonese. They took in all sail, stripping Huldricksson's boat to the mas

ted wrists and sponged the blackened, parched

and turned. His unease was manifest and held

y shoulders. "You think he killed his woman and his ba

ably his crew mutinied and to torture him tied him up the way you saw.

ew did not. Nobody there o

, startled. "Wh

d slowly, "that

blood-stained and each ended in a broad leather tip skilfully spliced into the cord. "Look," he said, pointing to these leather ends. I looked and saw in them deep indentations of teeth. I snatched one of the tho

ward his elbow. This left wrist and hand still free and with them he twisted the other cord around the right wrist; drew a similar knot. His hands were now in the exact position that Huldricksson's had been on the B

pinioned himself so that without aid he could not rele

ick on these seas. Sometimes it is necessary that a man stand at the wheel many hour

him to the m

Costa slowly, "did Olaf

at him,

w," I answer

and then rapidly, almost sur

. Some things I have heard-but th

he half whispered, "I am damned glad there is no full moon tonight." And pass

no trace of that unholy mingling of oppos

as it the Nors

had been even more explicit-"The sparkl

nhilda, drawing down the moon path Olaf Huldricksso

atter of feet. Down upon us swept one of the abrupt, violent squalls that are met w

ngry, choppy waves from the tops of which th

d. Over in the west, from beneath the tattered, flying edge of the storm, dropp

n. For over its flaming portal something huge a

pproached we saw it was a little mass of wreckage and that the beckoning finger was a wing of canvas, sticking up and s

uff at his cigarette, waved a cheerful hand, shouted a greeting. And just as he did so a great wave raised itself up behind him, took th

head showed its top between them. Two bright, blue eyes that held deep within them a laughing deviltry looked

a. "I knew somebody was sure to come alon

I asked in

ay from Ireland, but not too far for the O'Keefe ban

tonishing rescue. He se

d with a grin, as he reached a moist hand out

e by side with the deviltry in the laughing blue eyes; nose of a thoroughbred with the suspicion of a tilt; long, well-knit, slender

hed out a firm han

y ever so much,

us back to the Suwarna bow that liking was to be forged into man's strong love for m

eart of a child, your laughing blue eyes, and your fearless soul? Shall I ever se