Not a word had come from forward. Not a soul had seen her. Before any one on the main-deck knew of her whereabouts we were grinding along her stern, our yard-arms hooking into the vang of her spankergaff and tearing that spar out of her while our mainbrace bumkin tore away a piece of her taffrail. Hoarse yells came from her quarter-deck, and I heard distinctly a deep voice asking, “What ship is that?” but we went rushing onward without a word and disappeared. It was a close call. Benson turned his face toward me and I tried to catch the look of his eye, but it was too dark. “I reckon we’ll not hit anything more to-night,” I said. “I’m about tired out and will leave Brown on deck to call me if there is any change.” “All right,” he answered, coolly. And I went below. CHAPTER XX. On reaching the forward cabin, I turned to the table to see if there happened to be a bite of anything to eat upon it. There always had been in days past. In the darkness I could not tell, and I opened the door leading aft to see if I could get a little light from the captain’s room. The creaking of the straining bulkheads blended with the noise from the deck and in the semi-darkness made by Benson’s lamplight streaming through a door well aft, I seemed to hear the voices of the murdered as the shadows moved upon the deck. A figure flitted past me toward the door on the other side, and for a moment I believed I saw a ghost. The next instant I sprang across the deck and seized it. “Let me go, Mr. Gore. Don’t stop me,” said Miss Waters. “Good God, are you still alive?” I asked, more for something to say than anything else. She raised her hand to her head and leaned against the bulkhead, sobbing. “Yes, I’m alive,” she said, controlling herself, “I was not taught the trade of murder.” “I didn’t mean that,” I said, hastily, and I drew her to me. As I did so I felt a bandage upon her wrist. “Are you hurt?” I asked. “Has he injured you by trying to cut you?” “No, I did it myself. It was the only way I had--I used his knife on both arteries. But why torture me with it--” I said nothing for a moment. The anguish she suffered was clear to me. She continued in a low, strained voice which wrenched me the more. “He only insists that I belong to him, him alone--that is all--and he keeps me with him nearly all the time. I am his wife without any form of ceremony. Otherwise I’m well enough.” “Yes, it’s either that, or worse,” I spoke haltingly, yet with an effort at comforting her. “You might have killed me,” she sobbed, “you said you cared for me, and how did you show it--by letting me live like this?” “It isn’t easy to kill the woman you love.”