ordered, and every eager villain in the band knew now what fate awaited Rufe. The schooner, not being square-rigged, was badly fitted for the operation of keel-hauling; but Dolores’s inventive brain had devised a refinement of even that refinement of torture. She waited for the rope end, and when Spotted Dog brought it aft, on the weather side, passing clear from the gaff to leeward, under the keel and up to windward, she stood aside so that the yachtsmen could witness all.

“Tie his hands, Milo!” she said. It was carried out, in spite of Rufe’s fierce fight against it. “Now place the noose about his throat tightly.” That, too, was done, and now the rope led from Rufe’s neck, over the weather rail, under the schooner, and up to the gaff. Three men stood by the hauling part of the