Landon gave a shout which brimmed with incredulity as much as fear. His hand flew to his breast pocket fumblingly, but too late. Miller's grip was on his wrist; Miller's thrust flung him into the skipper's waiting arms. As Muhammed relinquished the helm and sprang forward, one of the deck hands ducked, tripped him, and rose between his legs--that deadly Mafiaist trick which never fails of its results. The other had closed in upon Landon as he struggled in the captain's grip. He assisted to drag him relentlessly towards the gunwale. Landon yelled again. His eyes glared out of the struggle at Miller in a very fury of amazement. He bellowed oaths, blasphemies, obscenities even, the fruits of instinctive passions and automatic to his wrath. And there was something almost devilish in the silence which his two assailants kept. They panted a little, by stress of effort, but they uttered no other sound. They merely edged their victim nearer and yet nearer to the side, forced him against the gunwale, stooped with concerted action for one last heave, and then--fell away from him with a little obsequious shrug. For Miller's voice had been heard again. "_Basta_--enough!" he had said, his voice still unraised. Landon lay where their relinquished efforts had left him, huddled against the gunwale, and staring up at his surroundings with fierce, incredulous eyes. Muhammed was stretched prone beneath his assailant who, as he tripped him, had deftly caught the Moor's right wrist and twisted it behind his back. He sat on his prisoner now, still holding the other's hand, but carelessly and without open concern, perfectly aware that the slightest movement from his human pedestal would break the delicate bone as pipe-clay breaks--in one clean snap. "Have I made myself plain?" asked Miller, equably. Landon used a moment of complete silence to stare round the deck, poising his glance on each of his companions in turn. It rested, at last, on Miller's entirely emotionless countenance. "Yes--and damn you!" said Landon, rising sullenly to his feet. Miller nodded. "An amateur cannot break into my particular class of business, my dear Landon," he said. "There are pitfalls for him at every turn. Membership of a dozen organizations is necessary, and they are close corporations; even their humbler servants, as you see, find them rigidly exacting." Landon shrugged his shoulders, produced his cigarette case and match-box, stuck a match in his mouth, and drew the cigarette across the roughened edge of the box. Miller suffered himself to smile.