be anything natural. He was standing on the deck of one of his fishing vessels, looking toward the east, when the ship gleamed suddenly in the rays of the setting sun. Yon watched it for a moment, then he grabbed a small brass telescope. It was a ship—no doubt about it!

Were they coming to rescue the other ship? Whatever it was, they were up to no good, and Yon didn't like to see the vision of his future power go glimmering. He didn't know exactly what he could do, but he knew he'd have to do something.

He turned and bellowed to his first officer: "Prepare to cast off! We're heading for Stone Island!"

Precisely what happened in the next ten days isn't too clear. The crew of the Caduceus was in no condition to record it, and their memories were evidently not too good.

This much has been established: Yon the Fisher visited the ship and offered his help. It took the doctors a little time—an hour or so—to decipher his strange dialect, but they finally found that the help offered was worthless. Yon professed no knowledge of the wrecked Morris. He was dismissed, and he returned to the mainland. Within the next week, every man jack aboard the Caduceus was down with the Plague.

Yon returned, in force, to try to capture the ship. He nearly succeeded, but the crew of the hospital ship fought him off, weak as they were. Yon had not counted on their being ill, evidently, or he would never have gone near them. It was lucky for him they were, or his whole force would have been wiped out.

Yon and his men managed to gain entrance into the ship, and the fighting raged for twenty minutes or so before he and the sailors with him were driven off.

The physicians aboard the Caduceus were not in the unfortunate position that the men on the Morris had been. They were able to use the medical supplies they had aboard, and came through with less than ten per cent dead, in spite of the Plague.

But the battle between the crew and Yon's men had done irreparable damage to the ship. It could neither leave nor communicate with the outside. The crew of the Caduceus was stranded.

They could hold off any attacks; they had plenty of power. But they couldn't, they didn't dare, leave the island. If the Plague struck again—and they had no way of knowing whether it would or not—they would not have enough medicine to be effective.

Stalemate.

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