What he hoped or expected from following he did not know himself. The boat was so full they could not have made any room for him. He was all alone in the wide waste of waters with nothing but a spar between him and eternity, and the chances were all against his rescue. With his superb strength and skill he might keep afloat for hours--or, something might happen to end his life any moment, he could not tell. He was near enough now to see that there was some commotion in the boat as though of men struggling together in fierce dispute, and the rowers had much ado to keep it from being overset. In the next moment the struggle was ended by a horrible deed. Several men lifted and cast out of the boat into the sea the white-robed form of a woman that immediately sank! Shrieks and cries as of horror echoed from the boat upon the morning air! Then the rowers bent to their oars, the boat shot away, and Laurier knew that his efforts to save Jessie Lyndon had all been in vain--the heartless fiends, fearful for their own safety, had overpowered the more merciful minority and cast the unwelcome passenger into the ocean. Thrown into the boat in a fainting condition, Jessie was a most undesirable burden, and for the few that pitied her, there was a majority who scowled in anger, declaring that the additional weight would cause them all to lose their lives. “Oh, no, no, no!--let us be glad we can save her beautiful life!” cried the only one other woman in the boat, and dipping her hand in the water, she tenderly laved the girl’s pale brow, trying to restore animation to the still form. But it was a long, deep swoon, and no wonder--torn from her beloved father, leaving him to a most certain death, Jessie’s nerves had quite given way. She lay still and lifeless among them, heedless alike of bitter imprecations or exclamations of tender pity. The most of these men were the offscourings of the passengers and crew--coarse, brutal men, selfish to the last extreme, ignorant of sympathy or pity. One of these men cried loudly: “She is dead, and cannot be resuscitated. Let us cast her out!” “Yes, let us do it! It is ill luck carrying a dead body!” cried a superstitious sailor. Then the wrangle began, the woman and a few men declaring that the girl was yet alive and should be kept in the boat, others clamoring to get rid of the helpless burden. It ended in a struggle where the strong overpowered the weak, and amid the shrieks of the woman and the expostulations of the more merciful men, the unconscious form was torn from those who would have protected it, and thrown into the sea. Then the rowers bent to the oars, and under their efforts the boat shot away, leaving Frank Laurier in the distance, a horrified spectator of one of the most dastardly deeds ever committed by fiends in the form of men.