reproaches him!"

"I shall not be a party to high treason," snapped Johnson.
"The regulations are explicit, and if the Coldwater crosses
thirty it devolves upon you to place Lieutenant Turck under
arrest and immediately exert every endeavor to bring the
ship back into Pan-American waters."

"I shall not know," replied Alvarez, "that the Coldwater
passes thirty; nor shall any other man aboard know it," and,
with his words, he drew a revolver from his pocket, and
before either I or Johnson could prevent it had put a bullet
into every instrument upon the bridge, ruining them beyond
repair.

And then he saluted me, and strode from the bridge, a martyr
to loyalty and friendship, for, though no man might know
that Lieutenant Jefferson Turck had taken his ship across
thirty, every man aboard would know that the first officer
had committed a crime that was punishable by both
degradation and death. Johnson turned and eyed me narrowly.

"Shall I place him under arrest?" he asked.

"You shall not," I replied. "Nor shall anyone else."

"You become a party to his crime!" he cried angrily.

"You may go below, Mr. Johnson," I said, "and attend to the
work of unpacking the extra instruments and having them