The heavy clang of Captain Peter Jenks' voice cursed once or twice amiably for the record, and consented. Shawn was right. He delayed _Artemis_ very little indeed. Her shortened sail holding her to a crawl, the sloop was rolling more. Her rising starboard side would close away Ben's view, and then it seemed to him, not that his own bound body was being moved, his eyes turned in spite of him to the sun and empty sky, but that the sharp bright field of agony across the water had been thrust down, rejected and overwhelmed: sea and sky would not own it nor allow it. He supposed he was not quite sane. Then with each contrary roll the vision would return, plainer than ever, and he was sane enough. Printed on his memory was a moment when Shawn and Jenks stood together on the deck of _Artemis_ in what seemed to be innocent palaver, the megaphone dangling idly from Jenks' hand, while the dory with Dummy at the oars was sliding astern--and then a roll of the sloop to larboard. Another moment--why, Jenks and Shawn had hardly moved, and Ben could recognize fat Tom Ball, and the carpenter Matthew Ledyard--but the dory had been made fast. Three rats like men were climbing. Surely the helmsman could see them! Or the red-haired man--yes, but what the devil was the cook doing on deck at a conference of captains, and with something black hanging from his right hand? Another roll to larboard--the sloop in her whimsy hung there, tormenting him through a time of sunny blindness and no breathing. Then Ben discovered why the red-haired cook was present. The same glance embraced the helmsman--anyway a human creature wearing a green kerchief around his head such as the helmsman had been wearing--tumbling strangely from the stem of the beautiful slow-gliding vessel, striking the water with no great splash, floating briefly with no struggle as of life, and disappearing. The sloop rolled to larboard. Ben in the sunlight could remember Reuben in the red gleam of burning houses, stricken and condemning himself because he had not prayed. _And I have not prayed. But--but...._ From the pain in his legs or the beating sun, Ben might have fainted for a while. Later he could recall no more of the dance of death; nothing until he was aware of the dory skimming back toward him, no one in it but Judah Marsh. Manuel came to release him. Marsh troubled himself with nothing aboard the sloop, not even the sails; his only errand was to bring the dory for Ben and Manuel, and herd them into it with the lash of a word or two. Manuel was obliged to drop Ben into it, his legs being still numb and useless.