“Orace and I,” said the Saint, “have brains, and Orace used to be a Sergeant of Marines, so he was able to provide the raw material for our ingenuity to work on. Before we started the picnic, we put your bilge-pump out of action and opened up one of the scuttles in the keel. My nautical knowledge is very scanty, and I’m not sure if that’s the way a sailor would describe the gadgets, but I expect Maggie will tell you what I mean. Anyway, a lot of water started pouring in, and we legged it out of the way without waiting to see what happened next. Still, I notice that we seem to have lost a lot of speed, and unless my eyes are failing I should say that we had developed what I understand is called a list to starboard, so I suppose the old tub really is going down. Check me up if I’m wrong. . . .” Maggs started up, and the others looked wildly about them. The Saint had spoken the truth. The list had developed very slowly at first, so that no one had noticed it in their absorption in more tempestuous things, but now that the Saint had called their attention to it the fact was indisputable. Suddenly there was a stampede for the door. Bittle leapt forward, raving like a maniac, and quelled the panic. He fought in between the terrified mob and the door, and held them off at revolver point. Then he himself opened the door and looked out. The ship had lost way considerably, and was now heeling over so much that it was difficult to walk on the sloping decks. Bloem was swaying drunkenly towards the door. “The gold!” he blubbered. “The gold! . . . It’ll sink! . . . Bittle, make them get the gold into the boats!” “You’re a fool!” Bittle pushed the man back—he was easily the calmest of them all. His rage had simmered down, now, out of visibility, but it gleamed behind his small pale blue eyes like the molten lava which oozes down the sides of a volcano when the eruption has died down. Both his guns went up. “You beat me in the end, Templar!” he shouted. “But I can see that you never enjoy it.” Like one possessed, he kicked aside a man who stood in his line of fire. “Laugh now, Templar!” he babbled. “It’s your last laugh!” And the Saint chuckled, throwing back his head joyously, for he had seen the final shock which he had allowed for dovetail in according to schedule. “_Put up your hands, Bittle!_” The voice cracked into the room like a bared sabre. Bittle turned and saw the man who had appeared in the doorway, and his revolvers thudded to the carpet from his nerveless fingers. He shrank away into the farthest corner, and his face had gone grey and horrible. Algy took a step into the room, a heavy automatic in each hand, and the men retreated before him. He swept them with hard, merciless eyes. “I think you all know me,” said Mr. Lomas-Coper, in the same metallic voice. He looked at the girl, and read bewilderment in her face. “I am the Tiger,” said Algy. Chapter XX The Last Laugh