The lugger came tearing up. He could hear the swish of the waters, white at her foot; he could see the wet sail, the bucketing bows, the fore-deck awash. She would pass bang beneath his feet. He could see no man at the helm--only the jumping bowsprit, the thrashing foot, and that huge lug-sail, bellying over the water. Suddenly his mind flamed. In the white glare of it he saw the thing to do, and had done it, before cold reason could check him. He jumped. The boat and giddy waters rose up to meet him. He fell as on to a mattress, full of wind. It was the lug-sail he had struck. Down it he sprawled to the deck, there to find himself upon his hands and knees, something soft beneath him. One man was in the boat; and that man was staring him in the face. There was no mistaking him. He was black, with diamond eyes. The moon was on his face; and about his lips a queer snarling smile. Kit expected him to pounce; yet he did not, lolling back in the stern-sheets, very much at his ease. The tiller under his arm wobbled, and he wobbled with it. In spite of those staring eyes of his, there was a dreadful unsteadiness about the man. Was he wounded?--was he drunk? Somehow the boy was not very much afraid. It was all too dream-like. He heard his heart thundering far-away on the remotest shores of being. He heard his own voice speaking, and was surprised at it--how steady it was, and how small! It was saying, "I'm a King's officer. That's a King's ship. There are about a thousand men on board. It's all no go. D'you give in?" The man grinned sardonically. Then his head fell forward. He lurched horribly. The tiller slipped from under his arm. The lugger fell away, and lay on the water like a wounded bird. Then Kit understood. Black Diamond was dead. II The boy's mind relaxed like a burst bladder. He began to laugh. Where was he? Alone on the deep with a dead man. Well, well. It was not for the first time surely. A ghost, long-laid, walked again. A sudden lightning had flashed upon his past. In it he had seen and _remembered_. Something of a forgotten self floated to the surface. In turmoil, his Eternal Mind had thrown up on the sea of Time a memory from its imperishable hoard. Slowly he recollected himself, and looked about him. He was kneeling on something soft, and his hands were warm and slimy. He looked down, and jerked back with a scream. He was kneeling on a dead man, and his hands were crimson. A gust caught the lugger: she staggered forward with a flap and swing of her boom. Her master, her mate, was dead; and the spirit had gone out of her. No time for the horrors! he must be doing. In a moment he was at work with his dirk. The great lug came down with a rattle. Forward under the boom, he cut the sheet of the jib. It fluttered furiously, streaming lee-ward. Then he stumbled aft. The murdered helmsman still lolled in drunken stupor, smiling inscrutably.