Wetherbee cared for no such matters. His nerve remained unshaken, his pulses calm, as befitted a man who had played out the end of a difficult game to rewarded success. But as he resumed his retreat down the passage he caught a glimpse of something surely quite as human and lively as himself.
The light was somewhat stronger now and flooding in through the side panel made a kind of proscenium of the landing by the main companionway. And in that space he descried a dim form facing him there, looking toward him: a man as tall as himself, clad like himself in diving rig—like himself in polished copper helmet. He knew only two helmets of that particular shape and color. One he wore. The other he had left on the deck of the Fancy Free, his spare diving gear. No man of his crew ever could have worn it, for none of them used an apparatus. Therefore he knew that Deacon Selden had come down after all to dispute the prize with him and to claim vengeance on the spot.
He exulted; he could have wished it so and not otherwise. He had meant to kill Selden anyhow. But this was the time and the place and the manner to kill him; a manner to match and to complete his crime as an artistic achievement. One blow on the helmet would crush the fellow's eardrums. And leave no trace—no trace at all! He could bear the body quite openly to Port Kennedy, and even inter it with honors for an unfortunate hand who had died in the line of duty. No trace. Everybody outgeneraled, duped, and defeated and himself free as air.
And the cream of it was: Selden was going to fight! He saw that when he took a stride and the other moved up with him. He stretched out a hand to steady for a rush. So did the other. He swung up his armed fist. The other did the like....
Laughing loud inside his casque, he flung the bar above his head, and went to meet the adversary in crashing impact.
Meanwhile, above in the sunshine, on the deck of the Fancy Free, a limp and wild-eyed gentleman, who had once been deacon in his far past, continued to call abroad with prayful fervor, if any help might come:
"The wicked man lieth in wait secretly as a lion.... Lo, he hath said in his heart, God hath forgotten: he hideth his wrong in his heart.... Let him be snared in his own pit: in the net which he hid is his own foot taken.... Lord, break Thou the arm of the wicked and the evil man...!"
And when the first luggers came flying from Port Kennedy to the scene of the wreck and the first investigators went below, they found the lifeless body of Captain Wetherbee, the only honest man that ever came to Thursday Island by sea, who had been drowned there: impaled among the shards and splinters of a broken mirror that had served to mask a saloon door aboard the murdered Brisbane steamer.