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 “Why don't they come on out? We must get 'em out!”

“They're with him, sir, 'fraid to touch 'im!”

“With who?”

“Mr. Caradoc, sir.”

“Afraid to touch him—why, what's the matter?”

“'E's dead, sir.”

A feeling as if ice water had been dashed over his body shivered through Leonard. The black cabin seemed to swing under his feet. His arms dropped down and he stood perfectly still staring into the blackness from whence came the sailor's voice.

“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