“Who was it!” Captain Cullen demanded.

“Mops, sir,” eagerly answered the sailor at the wheel.

Mops topped a wave astern and disappeared temporarily in the trough.  It was a large wave, but it was no graybeard.  A small boat could live easily in such a sea, and in such a sea the Mary Rogers could easily come to.  But she could not come to and make westing at the same time.

For the first time in all his years, George Dorety was seeing a real drama of life and death—­a sordid little drama in which the scales balanced an unknown sailor named Mops against a few miles of longitude.  At first he had watched the man astern, but now he watched big Dan Cullen, hairy and black, vested with power of life and death, smoking a cigar.

Captain Dan Cullen smoked another long, silent minute.  Then he removed the cigar from his mouth.  He glanced aloft at the spars of the Mary Rogers, and overside at the sea.

“Sheet home the royals!” he cried.

Fifteen minutes later they sat at table, in the cabin, with food served before them.  On one side of George Dorety sat Dan Cullen, the tiger, on the other side, Joshua Higgins, the hyena.  Nobody spoke.  On deck the men were sheeting home the skysails.  George Dorety could hear their cries, while a persistent vision haunted him of a man called Mops, alive and well, clinging to a life buoy miles astern in that lonely ocean.  He glanced at Captain Cullen, and experienced a feeling of nausea, for the man was eating his food with relish, almost bolting it.

“Captain Cullen,” Dorety said, “you are in command of this ship, and it is not proper for me to comment now upon what you do.  But I wish to say one thing.  There is a hereafter, and yours will be a hot one.”

Captain Cullen did not even scowl.  In his voice was regret as he said:—­“It was blowing a living gale.  It was impossible to save the man.”

“He fell from the royal-yard,” Dorety cried hotly.  “You were setting the royals at the time.  Fifteen minutes afterward you were setting the skysails.”

“It was a living gale, wasn’t it, Mr. Higgins?” Captain Cullen said, turning to the mate.

“If you’d brought her to, it’d have taken the sticks out of her,” was the mate’s answer.  “You did the proper thing, Captain Cullen.  The man hadn’t a ghost of a show.”

George Dorety made no answer, and to the meal’s end no one spoke.  After that, Dorety had his meals served in his stateroom.  Captain Cullen scowled at him no longer, though no speech was exchanged between them, while the Mary Rogers sped north toward warmer latitudes.  At the end of the week, Dan Cullen cornered Dorety on deck.

“What are you going to do when we get to Frisco?” he demanded bluntly.

“I am going to swear out a warrant for your arrest,” Dorety answered quietly.  “I am going to charge you with murder, and I am going to see you hanged for it.”