How difficult! How difficult! But why do the eyes of Corkey bulge
with excitement? Oh, yes, the ship is foundering because Corkey is in
the way of this great business. Corkey should be flung in the sea and
well rid of him. As the ship is foundering we will go on deck, but
when a man is so conspicuous as David Lockwin, how can he commit
suicide--how can he disappear?

There are words, indistinctly heard. It is Corkey crying to Lockwin to
climb up the steps to the hurricane deck. Indeed it is a clever
riddance of that uncomfortable man. Ouf! that brutal sneeze, that
jargon, that tobacco, that quaking of head and hesitancy of expression!
It distracts one's thoughts from an insoluble problem; How to shuffle
off this coil--not of life, but of respectability, conspicuity,
environment!

But what is this? This is not a wave. If David Lockwin hold longer to
this stanchion, he will go to the bottom of the sea. This must be what
excited Corkey. Something has happened.

The red fire of drowning sets up its conflagration.

Lockwin has time for one regret. His estate has lost $75,000. He
enters the holocaust and passes into nothingness, feeling heavy blows.

He awakes to find himself still with Corkey. His brain is dizzy and he
relapses into lethargy. In the faint light of the dawn, totally
benumbed by the night's exposure, he is again passing into nothingness.

Corkey questions the sinking man, and Lockwin tries to tell of the