"One of your passengers—Emerson. Heave to. You're passing us."
"That's bloody hard luck, Mr. Emerson; I can't help myself," the Captain declared. But again Boyd blocked him as he started for the telegraph.
"I won't stand it, sir. It's a conspiracy to ruin me."
"But, my dear young man—"
"Don't touch that instrument!"
From the launch came cries of growing vehemence, and a startled murmur of voices rose from somewhere in the darkness of the deck beneath.
"Stand aside," Peasley ordered, gruffly; but the other held his ground, saying, quietly:
"I warn you. I am desperate."
"Shall I stop her, sir?" the quartermaster asked from the shadows of the wheel-house.
"No!" Emerson commanded, sharply, and in the glow from the binnacle-light they saw he had drawn his revolver, while on the instant up from the void beneath heaved the massive figure of Big George Balt, a behemoth, more colossal and threatening than ever in the dim light. Rumbling curses as he came, he leaped up the pilot-house steps, wrenched open the door, and with one sweep of his hairy paw flung the helmsman from his post, panting,