But in a moment Albert’s better feeling was uppermost.  The horribleness of murder came distinctly before him.  He shuddered that he should have entertained the thought of suffering it.

“You see, Mr. Charlton,” said Gray, with eyes having that strange mysterious look that only belongs to the eyes of people who are at least on the borders of insanity, “you see this ’ere pistol’s got five bar’ls, all loadened.  I tuck out the ole loads las’ night and filled her up weth powder what’s shore to go off.  Now you leave that air matter to me, will you?”

“Let me see your revolver,” said Albert.

Gray handed it to him, and Charlton examined it a minute, and then, with a sudden resolution, he got to his feet, ran forward a few paces, and hurled the pistol with all his might into the lake.

“Don’t let us commit murder,” he said, turning round and meeting the excited eyes of the half-insane poet.

“Well, maybe you’re right, but I’ll be hanged ef I think it’s hardly far and squar and gentlemanly to wet a feller’s catridges that-a-way.”

“I had to,” said Albert, trembling.  “If I hadn’t, you or I would have been a murderer before morning.”

“Maybe so, but they ain’t nothin else to be done.  Ef you don’t let me kill the devil, why, then the devil will pack your sister off, and that’s the end on’t.”

The moon shone out, and still the boat went sailing up and down the lake, and still the party in the boat laughed and talked and sang merry songs, and still Charlton walked up and down the shore, though almost all the rest of the spectators had gone, and the Poet sat down in helpless dejection.  And still Smith Westcott sat and talked to Katy.  What he said need not be told:  how, while all the rest laughed and sang, the Privileged Infant was serious; and how he appealed to Katy’s sympathies by threatening to jump off into the lake; and how he told her that they must be married, and have it all over at once.  Then, when it was all over, Albert wouldn’t feel bad about it any more.  Brothers never did.  When he and Albert should get to be brothers-in-law, they’d get on splendidly.  By George!  Some such talk as this he had as they sailed up and down the lake.  Just what it was will never be known, whether he planned an elopement that very night, or on Sunday night, or on the night which they must pass in Red Owl Landing, nobody knows.  Isabel Marlay, who saw all, was sure that Smith had carried all his points.  He had convinced the sweet and trusting Katy that an immediate marriage would be best for Brother Albert as well as for themselves.

And as the boat sailed on, tacking to and fro, even the pilot got over his anxiety at the overloading which had taken place when Westcott got in.  The old tar said to Towle that she carried herself beautifully.

Five minutes after he made the remark, while Westcott was talking to Katy, and playfully holding his fingers in the water as he leaned over the gunwale that almost dipped, there came a flaw in the wind, and the little boat, having too much canvas and too much loading, careened suddenly and capsized.