get aroun' up here the past three nights," and the watchman muttered off into the blackness.

"The Shadow" pondered a long time as to what he could do for Chang, but he could come to no decision. The thought that he was in the ship cheered him though as he went to his room. That hand in the darkness and the hand-clasp of a frail woman in black—one with her cage in the zoo of life like himself—were the only friendly touches which had come to him. Elsie of Shanghai was grateful, and had sought him out the night of sailing to tell him so, because he had kept her alive. She would never forget that he had sheltered her from death in the Shanghai riots. Chang would lay down his life to pay the debt he considered he owed him for saving his yellow carcass from the knives of a drunken mob of sailors. Everybody wanted to cling to life and he smiled grimly to himself in the darkness at the thought. He had removed his overcoat and coat and as he put out his hand to grope for the electric flash he muttered, "What a comedy! What a comedy!"

The next instant he was pitched headlong against the side of the vessel by a shock which rattled her like an empty basket. A sea slapped through the open port of the room and choked him with its brine.

CHAPTER V

Lavelle dragged himself to his feet with his breath gone from him. For a moment he thought he was paralyzed—limbs, heart, nor brain seemed to respond. The night was filled with a multisonous orgy of sound.

Then, his strength returned to him as quickly as it had gone. He leaped to the door and plunged into the alleyway outside. He knew full well what had happened as he ran aft and up through the gangway which led from the main to the promenade deck. Another vessel had piled into the Cambodia. There was no land—there were no rocks in the liner's track; nothing but two, three, and four mile deeps on every hand. Lights sprang up in the staterooms as he passed. Somebody flashed them on in the reception hall as he went through there. Thence he took the social hall gangway and came to the boat deck in a bound.

A quartermaster—barely more than a boy—catapulted into his arms. Fear was driving him.

"Let me go!" he cried like a thing in a trap.

"Let me go!" and he cursed. Lavelle held him firmly.

"Stand fast, son! You're all right!"

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