The others hastened in the direction of his voice, to come to a horrified halt at the sides of the headless trunks of the two sailors. “Mon Dieu!” exclaimed the Frenchman, reverting to his mother tongue as he never did except under the stress of great excitement. “Who done it?” queried Red Sanders, looking suspiciously at the mucker. “Head-hunters,” said Theriere. “God! What an awful fate for that poor girl!” Billy Byrne went white. “Yeh don't mean dat dey've lopped off her block?” he whispered in an awed voice. Something strange rose in the mucker's breast at the thought he had just voiced. He did not attempt to analyze the sensation; but it was far from joy at the suggestion that the woman he so hated had met a horrible and disgusting death at the hands of savages. “I'm afraid not, Byrne,” said Theriere, in a voice that none there would have recognized as that of the harsh and masterful second officer of the Halfmoon. “Yer afraid not!” echoed Billy Byrne, in amazement. “For her sake I hope that they did,” said Theriere; “for such as she it would have been a far less horrible fate than the one I fear they have reserved her for.” “You mean--” queried Byrne, and then he stopped, for the realization of just what Theriere did mean swept over him quite suddenly. There was no particular reason why Billy Byrne should have felt toward women the finer sentiments which are so cherished a possession of those men who have been gently born and raised, even after they have learned that all women are not as was the feminine ideal of their boyhood. Billy's mother, always foul-mouthed and quarrelsome, had been a veritable demon when drunk, and drunk she had been whenever she could, by hook or crook, raise the price of whiskey. Never, to Billy's recollection, had she spoken a word of endearment to him; and so terribly had she abused him that even while he was yet a little boy, scarce out of babyhood, he had learned to view her with a hatred as deep-rooted as is the affection of most little children for their mothers. When he had come to man's estate he had defended himself from the woman's brutal assaults as he would have defended himself from another man--when she had struck, Billy had struck back; the only thing to his credit being that he never had struck her except in self-defense. Chastity in woman was to him a thing to joke of--he did not believe that it existed; for he judged other women by the one he knew best--his mother. And as he hated her, so he hated them all. He had doubly hated Barbara Harding since she not only was a woman, but a woman of the class he loathed. And so it was strange and inexplicable that the suggestion of the girl's probable fate should have affected Billy Byrne as it did. He did not stop to reason about it at all--he simply knew that he felt a mad and unreasoning rage against the creatures that had borne the girl away. Outwardly Billy showed no indication of the turmoil that raged within his breast.