A moment of awful silence followed the destructive work of the boulder. Even the wind seemed to pause in its flight and the sea in its surging to behold what man would do in the face of this disaster.  
Rowgowskii and the two coolies lay in a heap on a mass of loosened earth on which they had been swept down the hill in the wake of the rock. Emily had risen to her feet where Lavelle had left her seated. Her gaze was fixed on him. He stood with his back to her and facing the boat. Chang stood to the eastward of her, motionless. His gaze, too, was fixed on the master.
 
Lavelle was the first to move. A stride carried him to the boat. A glance revealed to him a hole in the starboard bilge through which he might have crawled without difficulty, big man though he was. Four of the ribs were smashed. The keel was shattered for half its length. Any but the stoutest heart must have admitted the craft to be an irreparable, hopeless wreck.
 
With a weird cry of insensate rage Chang, who had run to Lavelle's side, turned away toward Rowgowskii and the coolies. No one who saw him and the manner in which he carried his long knife could have doubted but that the serang meant to visit instant death upon the mutineers. His gigantic form trembled with the passionate intention of the slayer. Rowgowskii and the coolies stood in a paralysis of fear.
 
A word from Lavelle stopped the serang.
 
"More better kill! Now!" cried the giant to his master and with a characterization of the mutineers that was blood-chilling in its anathema.
 
"Give me that knife," ordered Lavelle quietly. Meeting his gaze and holding it for a moment Chang thrust the blade into Lavelle's hand. He was conquered, but the glow of an heroic splendor was upon him.
 
"Kill me—kill Chang, your servant, master."
 
There was a bare note of defiance in the Chinaman's voice. He dropped his hands at his sides in token of submission and bent his head for the blow he invited.
 
"I will kill when I choose to kill. Go. Clear out this boat," said Lavelle.
 
"You are master," answered the serang, and he turned to summon the mutineers.
 
Rowgowskii and the coolies under Chang's driving began a rapid transportation of all of the boat's provisions and equipment to a point halfway up the hillside indicated by Lavelle. The master knew that this was no time for punishment. He must have every ounce of strength he could command.
 
Straightening up from a contemplation of the hole in the boat, his brain busy with plans of repair, he looked toward the sea.
 
"I'm not beaten unless you drown me in the next three hours," he flung in a mutter at the growling deep.
 
Turning away, he found Emily Granville beside him. She was looking up at him through a mist of tears. Her own misery of body and soul had been swept away in the instant she had heard the boulder go crunching through the boat's thin skin. She could think only of what this cruel stab of fate must mean to the man captaining the handful of life which he had been chosen to save. Her capacity to think of another and not of herself in this common crisis was a sign of growth which would have pleased her if it had been possible to pause in self-analysis.
 
And this man, meeting her pitying eyes, smiled at her quizzically! If he had confronted her with a hopeless curse she would not have been surprised. Now she could but gasp ............