“There was no fire,” said the captain.

Slade leaped in his chair.  “No fire!  But I saw her, I tell you.  When I went overboard she was one living flame!”

“You landed in the small boat.  Knocked you senseless,” said Trendon.  “Concussion of the brain.  Idea of flame might have been a retroactive hallucination.”

“Retroactive rot,” cried the other.  “I beg your pardon, Dr. Trendon.  But if you’d seen her as I saw her—­Barnett!”

He turned in appeal to his old acquaintance.

“There was no fire, Slade,” replied the executive officer gently.  “No sign of fire that we could find, except that the starboard rail was blistered.”

“Oh, that was from the volcano,” said Slade.  “That was nothing.”

“It was all there was,” returned Barnett.

“Just let me run this thing over,” said the free lance slowly.  “You found the schooner.  She wasn’t afire.  She didn’t even seem to have been afire.  You put a crew aboard under your ensign, Edwards.  Storm separated you from her.  You picked her up again deserted.  Is that right?”

“Day before yesterday morning.”

“Then,” cried the other excitedly, “the fire was smouldering all the time.  It broke out and your men took to the water.”

“Impossible,” said Barnett.

“Fiddlesticks!” said the more downright surgeon.

“I hardly think Mr. Edwards would be driven overboard by a fire which did not even scorch his ship,” suggested the captain mildly.

“It drove our lot overboard,” insisted Slade.  “Do you think we were a pack of cowards?  I tell you, when that hellish thing broke loose, you had to go.  It wasn’t fear.  It wasn’t pain.  It was—­What’s the use.  You can’t explain a thing like that.”

“We certainly saw the glow the night Billy Edwards was—­disappeared,” mused Forsythe.

“And again, night before last,” said the captain.

“What’s that!” cried Slade.  “Where is the Laughing Lass?”

“I’d give something pretty to know,” said Barnett.

“Isn’t she in tow?”

“In tow?” said Forsythe.  “No, indeed.  We hadn’t adequate facilities for towing her.  Didn’t you tell him, Mr. Barnett?”

“Where is she, then?” Slade fired the question at them like a cross-examiner.

“Why, we shipped another crew under Ives and McGuire that noon.  We were parted again, and haven’t seen them since.”

“God forgive you!” said the reporter.  “After the warnings you’d had, too.  It was—­it was—­”

“My orders, Mr. Slade,” said Captain Parkinson, with quiet dignity.

“Of course, sir.  I beg your pardon,” returned the other.  “But—­you say you saw the light again?”

“The first night they were out,” said Barnett, in a low voice.

“Then your second crew is with your first crew,” said Slade, shakily.  “And they’re with Thrackles, and Pulz and Solomon, and many another black-hearted scoundrel and brave seaman.  Down there!”