Part 56 (1/2)

added Pelham, laughing; for he was enjoying the scene he had witnessed in the waist, when, one after another, the ”outsiders” had made the signs to his rival.

”You have betrayed the secrets of the Chain.”

”Have I?”

”Didn't you give the signs to Paul Kendall, the captain, and half a dozen others?”

”But, my dear fellow, they are members,” replied Pelham, chuckling.

”They are not? and you know they are not.”

”But, Shuffles, just consider that all of them voted for you.”

”I don't care for that.”

”I do. You recognized them as members first, and I couldn't do less than you did.”

”You are a traitor!” said Shuffles, red in the face with pa.s.sion; and the word hissed through his closed teeth.

”Well, just as you like: we won't quarrel about the meaning of words,”

replied Pelham, gayly; for he enjoyed the discomfiture of his rival, and felt that Shuffles deserved all he got, for the foul play of which he had been guilty on the ballot.

”You pledged yourself to be honest, and stand by the vote, fair or foul.”

”Very true, my dear fellow? and I do so. Give me your orders, and I will obey them.”

”But you have exposed the whole thing,” retorted Shuffles. ”What can we do now, when Kendall and the captain know all about it?”

”They don't know any more than the law allows. Besides, they are members. Didn't they vote for you? Didn't they know beans?” continued Pelham, in the most tantalizing of tones.

”Do you mean to insult me?” demanded Shuffles, unable to control his rage.

”Not I. I respect you too much. You are the captain--that is to be--of the s.h.i.+p,” laughed Pelham. ”The captain, the second lieutenant, and all the flunkies, voted for you? and, of course, I couldn't be so deficient in politeness as to insult one who----”

At that moment Pelham removed his hand from the sheet, and Shuffles, irritated beyond control at the badinage of his companion, gave him a sudden push, and the fourth lieutenant went down into the surges, under the bow of the s.h.i.+p.

As Pelham disappeared beneath the waves, Shuffles was appalled at his own act; for even he had not sunk so low as to contemplate murder. The deed was not premeditated. It was done on the spur of angry excitement, which dethroned his reason. The chief conspirator had so often and so lightly used the language of the League, about ”falling overboard accidentally,” that he had become familiar with the idea; and, perhaps, the deed seemed less terrible to him than it really was. When the act was done, on the impulse of the moment, he realized his own situation, and that of his victim. He would have given anything at that instant, as he looked down upon the dark waves, to have recalled the deed; but it was too late. Self-reproach and terror overwhelmed him.

”Man overboard!” he shouted with desperation, as he threw off his pea-jacket, and dived, head foremost, from the forecastle into the sea.

His first impulse had been to do a foul deed; his next, to undo it.

Shuffles was a powerful swimmer. The ocean was his element. He struck the water hardly an instant after Pelham; and the s.h.i.+p, which was under all sail, making nine knots, hurried on her course, leaving the rivals to buffet the waves unaided.

”Man overboard!” cried officers and seamen, on all parts of the s.h.i.+p's deck.

”Hard down the helm, quartermaster! Let go the life-buoys!” shouted Kendall, who was the officer of the deck.

”Hard down, sir. Buoy overboard,” replied Bennington the quartermaster at the helm.