doing the same thing. I am sorry--sorry that my plans failed.

I hate you."

He didn't die for a half-hour after that; nor did he speak

again--aloud; but just a few seconds before he went to meet his

Maker, his lips moved in a faint whisper; and as I leaned closer

to catch his words, what do you suppose I heard? "Now--I--lay

me--down--to--sleep" That was all; Benson was dead. We threw his

body overboard.

The wind of that night brought on some pretty rough weather with

a lot of black clouds which persisted for several days. We didn't

know what course we had been holding, and there was no way of

finding out, as we could no longer trust the compass, not knowing

what Benson had done to it. The long and the short of it was that

we cruised about aimlessly until the sun came out again. I'll never

forget that day or its surprises. We reckoned, or rather guessed,

that we were somewhere off the coast of Peru. The wind, which had

been blowing fitfully from the east, suddenly veered around into

the south, and presently we felt a sudden chill.

"Peru!" snorted Olson. "When were yez after smellin' iceber-rgs

off Peru?"

Icebergs! "Icebergs, nothin'!" exclaimed one of the Englishmen.

"Why, man, they don't come north of fourteen here in these waters."

"Then," replied Olson, "ye're sout' of fourteen, me b'y."

We thought he was crazy; but he wasn't, for that afternoon we

sighted a great berg south of us, and we'd been running north, we

thought, for days. I can tell you we were a discouraged lot; but we

got a faint thrill of hope early the next morning when the lookout

bawled down the open hatch: "Land! Land northwest by west!"

I think we were all sick for the sight of land. I know that I was;

but my interest was quickly dissipated by the sudden illness of

three of the Germans. Almost simultaneously they commenced

vomiting.

They couldn't suggest any explanation for it. I asked them what

they had eaten, and found they had eaten nothing other than the

food cooked for all of us. "Have you drunk anything?" I asked,

for I knew that there was liquor aboard, and medicines in the

same locker.