But this was not an ordinary circumstance. In the watery eyes was a look of shock, and horror, and honest indignation; the accents were those of an educated man; and the consequences hanging over himself and the company for which he worked—already complicated by and involved in his efforts to avoid them—which this man might precipitate, were so extreme, that such questions as insolence and difference in rank were not to be thought of. He must meet and subdue this Tartar on common ground—as man to man.

“Are you aware, Rowland,” he asked, quietly, “that you will stand alone—that you will be discredited, lose your berth, and make enemies?”

“I am aware of more than that,” answered Rowland, excitedly. “I know of the power vested in you as captain. I know that you can order me into irons from this room for any offense you wish to imagine. And I know that an unwitnessed, uncorroborated entry in your official log concerning me would be evidence enough to bring me life imprisonment. But I also know something of admiralty law; that from my prison cell I can send you and your first officer to the gallows.”

“You are mistaken in your conceptions of evidence. I could not cause your conviction by a log-book entry; nor could you, from a prison, injure me. What are you, may I ask—an ex-lawyer?”

“A graduate of Annapolis. Your equal in professional technic.”

“And you have interest at Washington?”

“None whatever.”

“And what is your object in taking this stand—which can do you no possible good, though certainly not the harm you speak of?”

“That I may do one good, strong act in my useless life—that I may help to arouse such a sentiment of anger in the two countries as will forever end this wanton destruction of life and property for the sake of speed-that will save the hundreds of fishing-craft, and others, run down yearly, to their owners, and the crews to their families.”