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own duty if he complied. Much as he condoned them for striking for freedom, he must uphold the white man's standards.

He knew all too well what Kenyon's reaction would be. Bred in the harsh school of a brutal whaler himself, he would be even more brutal in his treatment of the renegades. Nothing but death stared them in the face and that death probably by flogging, unless Chase could intercede for them.

He found the Albatross hove to with the stinking carcasses of two whales lashed to her side as she rolled and heaved in the swell.

"So you picked up my boat?" roared Captain Kenyon, clinging to the futtock shrouds with a great arm. "Well, set 'em aboard. That second whale's softenin' already and the first one ain't cut in yet. We'll be lucky if we can get 'em cleaned with all hands at it."

Then he allowed a triumphant grin to spread across his face. "How you doin', Cap'n Chase? Get any hands at Tali Mahi?"

"Enough and to spare, and a whale while we waited. Eighty-three barrels."

Kenyon guffawed loudly.

"Do you hear that, men?" he bellowed. "They think they're racin' with us and they've eighty-three barrels o' oil aboard. Do you know what I've got, Cap'n Chase? Four hundred barrels topped off and fifty coolin', to say nothin' o' these two whales alongside.'

Chase could not keep the hint of scorn from his voice. "And a first class case of mutiny to deal with, if I'm not mistaken. I picked up your boat as it was making for the island. Only four natives aboard."

He read the consternation in that staring face. The dark throat whiskers crushed against the shirt front as that jaw dropped in disbelief, giving the shaven portion of the face unusual length and a greenish pallor under the tan.

"But where's Mister Macomber and Nate Dring?"

"That's something we'll have to find out. My guess is that they're murdered and thrown overboard."

Flashy blades halted in mid air. Laboring bodies turned to statues. And the murmur of an angry undertone floated over the water from the weary workers.

"A pity it warn't Kenyon they got," called a shrill falsetto above that murmur. It was plainly a disguised voice, but it was full of meaning.

"Who said that?" roared Kenyon, turning upon them.

Nobody answered. Pleading eyes begged in vain for mercy as they centered on that stern face.

"Speak up, or I'll cut your rations in half until somebody does. I'll have that mutinous rascal triced up and flogged, or your empty guts'll stick to your backbones. Come on, who said it?"

Faces blanched in the awed silence. The dread of still further abuse was so strong that the men aboard the idling Petrel could sense it across the intervening stretch of water.

"They're already hard worked and none too well fed," suggested his mate placatingly.

"Stow your lip until it's asked for," snapped Kenyon. "Cookie?" Then, as the filthy cook looked up from where he had been waiting for some of the whale meat to cook for dinner: "Half rations for 'em until further notice."