The truce still held.  As the ship rolled, water washed about the foot of the ladder and lapped against the cylinders.  The Chief tried desperately to drive him up to the deck and failed.

“It’s no place for you alone,” said the Red Un.  His voice had lost its occasional soprano note; the Red Un was a grown man.  “I’m staying!” And after a hesitating moment he put his small, frightened paw on the Chief’s arm.

It was that, perhaps, that roused the Chief—­not love of life, but love of the boy.  To be drowned like a rat in a hole—­that was not so bad when one had lived and worked.  A man may not die better than where he has laboured; but this child, who would die with him rather than live alone!  The Chief got up on his usable knee.

“I’m thinking, laddie,” he said, “we’ll go fighting anyhow.”

The boy went first, with the lantern.  And, painful rung by painful rung, the Chief did the impossible, suffering hells as he moved.  For each foot he gained the Red Un gained a foot—­no more.  What he would not have endured for himself, the Chief suffered for the boy.  Halfway up, he clung, exhausted.

The boy leaned down and held out his hand.

“I’ll pull,” he said.  “Just hang on to me.”

Only once again did he speak during that endless climb in the silence of the dying ship, and what he said came in gasps.  He was pulling indeed.

“About—­that airtrunk,” he managed to say—­“I’m—­sorry, sir!”

* * * * *

The dawn came up out of the sea, like resurrection.  In the Quartermaster’s boat the woman slept heavily, with tears on her cheeks.  The Quartermaster looked infinitely old and very tired with living.

It was the girl, after all, who spied them—­two figures—­one inert and almost lifeless; one very like a bobbing tomato, but revealing a blue face and two desperate eyes above a ship’s lifebelt.

The Chief came to an hour or so later and found the woman near, pale and tragic, and not so young as he had kept her in his heart.  His eyes rested on hers a moment; the bitterness was gone, and the ache.  He had died and lived again, and what was past was past.

“I thought,” said the woman tremulously—­“all night I thought that you——­”

The Chief, coming to full consciousness, gave a little cry.  His eyes, travelling past hers, had happened on a small and languid youngster curled up at his feet, asleep.  The woman drew back—­as from an intrusion.

As she watched, the Red Un yawned, stretched and sat up.  His eyes met the Chief’s, and between them passed such a look of understanding as made for the two one world, one victory!