“All right, Cap’n,” said Mulhatton, “you know we’ll go with you.  But there’s no use in bein’ fools.  Take the tug in—­yes.  But how’ll you take her out again?”

Dan glared across the heaving waters with bloodshot eyes.  “No use; you couldn’t, couldn’t get her out again.  No, you couldn’t.”  He repeated this several times.  “Is there anything that could?” he added finally.

He looked at his men for the answer, but their eyes were still fastened on the wreck with almost hypnotic fascination.

“Her deck-load’s beginning to shift.  It’ll be clear off soon and that’ll take the other mast,” announced Noonan.

One of the men in the rigging, a giant, tow-headed fellow, suddenly went crazy,—­at least so it seemed.  For his lips writhed in a haunting scream as he whipped out his knife and cut his lashings.  Then he turned a bloodless face toward the Fledgling, uttered a short, rasping shout, and jumped into the sea.  A great wave seized him greedily and swirled him high.  Dan caught a fleeting glimpse of that face, turned reproachfully, it seemed, toward him.

It set him crazy too.  His mind was working like lightning.

“Mul,” he screamed, “launch the lifeboat, with you fellows holding on to a line from her bow!  We’re to windward, and she’ll drift right down to the wreck.  Then you can haul us back again.  It’s been done before.  God, why didn’t I think of it sooner!”

Mulhatton looked at his Captain closely.

“One chance in a thousand that our boat would live to make the trip, Cap’n,” he said.

Dan snarled his impatience.

“One chance in ten thousand, one chance in a million, I’ll take it!” he cried in a sharp, metallic voice.  “I never saw a man die until to-day—­I’ll see no more, God willing.”

Without a word Mulhatton turned and rushed for the lifeboat.

“Remember, I go in that boat,” yelled Dan as he followed his mate.  But Mulhatton only turned back a defiant look.  Together they wrenched the boat from its blocks and lowered it to Noonan, standing below on the main deck astern.  Crampton, the engineer, was at the wheel, while Whitey Welch stood by the engines.  As the lifeboat was straining on the top of a swell, Mulhatton attempted to leap in, but was viciously punched back by Dan, who then sprang out five feet and sprawled in the stern sheets.

“Damn!” cried the disappointed mate as he sprang to Noonan’s side and seized the line, which was already paying out.

Into the riot went Dan.  There was neither mercy nor tolerance in the waters,—­the waves ripped all about in wanton fury; the spume cloaked the face of them in wet clouds and the sea hollows lay like black pits.  But merciless and intolerant as were the waters, Dan asked no odds of them.  Crouching in the stern with one oar dug deep, he was hurled on his errand of mercy.  The Sovereign whistled its commendation, while ashore the spectators