obeyed, observing: "It's dangerous work, sir, and she's liable to drag us down when she founders, which may be any moment now!"

"Doesn't matter," said Britton, curtly. "We're bound to help them even if this was their own doing. Have you lowered the launch?"

"Mr. Ainsworth and Mr. Trascott have it, sir."

"The smaller boats?"

"They're out, sir, trying to take some of the passengers off. Why in the name of Neptune don't they lower their own?"

The Mottisfont was larger than the steamer, and overtopped it as they drew in again. Britton leaned forward and listened to the tumult on the smaller vessel.

"I'm afraid they're fighting for their own boats," he said, quickly. "The panic's getting worse."

The hubbub was redoubled. A woman's scream, sharp and piteous, was cast despairingly on the night. Britton muttered something like an oath, and swinging down from the bridge he ran forward with all speed.

"Anyone in the turret?" he yelled to the group of sailors straining on the ropes.

"No, sir," answered the first mate. "The lookout was thrown to the deck when we struck. His shoulder is broken."

"Go up yourself," ordered Britton. "See if the searchlight works, and turn it on the coaster. We are only groping like blind men in the dark."

Turning to the second mate, he added: "Fire that brass cannon at intervals to call out the harbor boats. I see the usefulness of it after all!"

Leaving the mates to execute his orders, Britton sprang to the taffrail and vaulted at hazard down into the struggling mass of humanity that surged over the steamer's forehold. He landed squarely upon an Arab's back, knocking that swarthy individual into the lee scuppers, but without pausing to unravel the puzzling Algerian profanity which was thus elicited, Britton pushed his way aft.

He could feel the vessel rock to the roll of the water in the hold as the weight above was continually and suddenly shifted, and he knew that with one of those evolutions she would roll a little too far. There would be no recovery, and the steamer would turn turtle.

About the stern-davits a struggle raged. The forward boats were stove in with the force of the collision, and only four were left intact. The brown-skinned Berber sailors endeavored to lower them, and blue-coated officers vainly attempted to keep them back and to preserve order among the demented people.

One boat got away as Britton came up. The yacht's searchlight, pricking out of the gloom, showed the craft to be full of Arabs, while women and children were wailing in supreme terror upon the foundering vessel.

The crowd swayed to the rail as another boat was slung from the davits. Rex grasped the arm of a man in marine uniform.

"Where's your captain?" he demanded, harshly.

"I am the captain," said the man, helplessly; "but what can I do? The passengers have gone mad! The Berbers are beasts!"

Britton flung aside the arm he had seized with a gesture of repulsion.

"Do?" he cried, in fine scorn. "You might at least try! You act like a baby. This rush must be stopped–"

Boom! rang the Mottisfont's cannon. Its message reverberated like hollow thunder over the great bay. Two score whistles rose in answer from the inner reaches of the harbor.

Boom! The whistles shrieked anew, and the riding lights of the vessels plunged into activity.

"You hear!" exclaimed Britton. "If that rush isn't stopped half of those on board will be drowned by the swamping of the boats, with a hundred harbor craft coming to the rescue. Come on, sir–be a man!"

Rex took hold of a heavy piece of broken stanchion and made a flying leap into the knot of Berbers stamping about the stern davits.

"Back, men!" he shouted in a voice that soared above every other noise. "Be calm! There'll be a hundred boats here in a minute, with room for all of you. Let the women forward at once!"

A female figure sprang to the davits at his words, but the Arabs roared their dissent and charged in a body. Britton had a vision of a girlish form with an ethereal face and pale-gold hair, tossed rudely in the rush of men. She lost her footing suddenly and went down with a suppressed scream.

Snarling like an enraged animal, Rex leaped in front of them.

Crack! sounded his stanchion on the foremost head. Crack! crack! He pierced their ranks and dragged out the luckless woman. Shielding her with one arm, he was carried back against the ship's side by the pressure of the frantic throng.

"Are you hurt?" he found time to whisper.

"No–only frightened," she sobbed. The nervous strain was too much for her.

Britton made her kneel down under the rail behind him, and, with his legs protecting her from the trampling, he faced the angry Arabs again.

They had hesitated a little, daunted by the impetuosity of his attack. The Englishman's blood was now thoroughly aroused. Away back in his line of ancestors there had been knights of the old regime; there were soldiers of the empire among the later generations; and his grandfather had fallen at Waterloo. The fighting, bulldog strain was in him, and only sufficient baiting was required to bring it into evidence!

Boom! sounded the Mottisfont's cannon for the third time. Across the mysterious stretch of bay the shout of rowers answered.

"They're coming!" exclaimed Britton, triumphantly. "You pack of fools, have you no sense?"

A growl was the reply. Whether fear had driven out their understanding, or whether the rough fellows were actuated by a desire of revenge for the blows inflicted by the Englishman, they rushed upon him once more.

"Ah! you will have it, will you?" he cried, exulting in the mere thrill of battle. "Then lay on, you rabble!"

He stood in the central focus of the steam-yacht's searchlight, with muscle action unhampered and with bare feet gripping the deck firmly, while his enemies strove to reach him. His stanchion rose and fell like a flash as he circled in and out, avoiding the blows of his adversaries, and every time he struck a man went down. Once a sinewed Moroccan locked with him, and he felt the sting of steel in his shoulder, but a jolt on the fellow's neck from Britton's other arm stretched him senseless, while the knife clattered over the rail into the sea.

Crack! crack! The sound of his club grew monotonous; the soft, warm trickle of something down his left shoulder filled him with a strange disgust for the combat; he felt ashamed of himself standing in pyjamas on the lighted deck of another ship and striking down Berbers with a stanchion.

Since it was wholly necessary, the Englishman wondered at the sense of shame. Perhaps it was an odd trick which the wounded nerves in his arm were playing him.

Only three or four Arabs opposed Britton now. He ran at