They agreed with him, nodding their heads and refusing to look at one another. Then followed a long dispute over the fairest manner of letting chance decide the choice. It was obvious that every man had a natural anxiety to feel assured of no loaded dice or marked cards in this momentous game. There were objections to the traditional lottery of high and low numbers, and finally it was decided that sixteen pieces of rope-yarn should be cut by the mate. Fourteen of these were to be of precisely the same length, one a little shorter, and another shorter still. The sixteen pieces of rope-yarn were to be shoved through a crack in the bulkhead of the steward’s storeroom, the ends all even and just long enough for a man to take one in his fingers and pull it through the crack. The one who pulled out the strand that was a little shorter was to be dished up for his messmates, and the man who drew the strand that was shorter still had the unpleasant duty of acting as butcher. The mate cut the rope-yarn, as requested, and arranged the sixteen lengths all in a row in the crack of the bulkhead. The men stood waiting the word, very reluctant to pluck out the ends of tarry cord, until Mr. MacCloud exclaimed: “My lads, let us put it off until to-morrow. We have endured thus far, and a few hours longer cannot make much difference. Who knows what Providence may have in store for us?” Some consented, while others were for going through with it at once. To-morrow came, and no help was in sight. They shambled into the steward’s storeroom and pulled the rope-yarns through the crack. Presently there was one man less on the muster-roll of the _Barrett_. Two or three days later the ceremony was repeated. Before it became necessary to doom a third man, the mate came below, a spy-glass in his hand, and he was trembling so violently that he clutched the table for support. “A sail,” he stammered, and they followed him on deck, where the winter day was dying into dusk. In desperate need of making some sort of signal, Mr. MacCloud emptied a powder-flask upon the windlass, fired a pistol into it, and a thick column of smoke billowed skyward. The other ship observed it, and hoisted an ensign. Twelve of the _Barrett’s_ company were alive, and they were safely transferred to the _Ann_ of New York, bound to Liverpool. The waterlogged _Barrett_ drifted on her aimless course, a derelict haunted by fearful memories, and from a crack in the bulkhead of the steward’s storeroom still hung the ends of a row of rope-yarns which had been made ready for the next game of chance.