Bill came up from the hold. He peered off through the fog toward the Crosby fleet. "Lordy!" he exclaimed, coming aft toward the captain. "If we'd moored them ourselves we couldn't have placed them better for disposing of 'em. Look at 'em! Less than eight fathoms between 'em. Now ain't that just like a fool tugboat skipper and a company of greenhorns!" Captain Bert bit his lip. Was he a coward? He--guided by the silly sentiments of a woman, a woman who had never gone to sea, who didn't own a packet that was to be run out of business; a woman who had bought shares in that damned Crosby fleet. Bill had gone back to the hold. The captain hated to think of having to give up the packet and of losing his genial new shipmate. He recalled the former mates whom he had shipped on his two schooners. He thought of how this new one had taken hold, his ability as a navigator, his reliability as a companion. Bill had suggested striking at the Crosby fleet largely to safeguard his own job. But in so doing also to stabilize the captain's packet business. And if the widow were deprived of the money she had invested in the Crosby Company, it would make her all the more willing to be his wife--when he was ready to ask her. Out of the hold wriggled a little braid of smoke. A small cloud puffed from the open hatch, followed by a dense black column that might have streamed from the funnel of an ocean liner. Bill emerged, coughing, and the crackling of burning wood sounded from below. "God almighty!" shouted the captain. "What have you done?" "The small boat's close to the companion," replied Bill calmly, designating the dinghy aft. "Head for the Crosby fleet--the nearest schooner." "You damned traitor!" snarled the captain, starting forward. Bill blocked his way. "I'm doing this--for you," he declared. "Those empty tar barrels in the hold--the _Mary's_ doomed. So is the Crosby fleet. It's self-preservation for you, sir. Such things have happened accidentally before. Nobody will ever suspect that this didn't. Get out the way; give me the wheel!" Captain Bert felt himself shoved aside by a quick-moving giant who dashed to the wheel and swung it--then the lurch of the schooner--the creaking of the boom. Flames from the hold licked out of the hatch, and smoke poured to leeward toward the fleet. "--the wind's right--their position's right. They're fresh with paint and varnish. Good-by, old Crosby fleet!" sang the fiend at the wheel. Captain Bert was upon him. He had been a skilled fighter in his day. He struck out with his left fist at Bill's grinning face. But the mate stepped nimbly aside, ducked, and letting go the wheel, floored the captain with an uppercut to the chin. "No time for fooling!" Bill roared. "Stay there, and do what I tell you. I'm in command until we've seen this thing through."