As he pressed forward, Jim felt something under his foot.  He ducked quickly, as if to dodge Chatelard’s hand, and on the downward swing he picked up the rusty marlinespike.  It was a weapon of might, indeed.  Jim’s blow caused Chatelard’s arm to drop, limp and nerveless.  But in gaining his enemy’s weapon, Jim was forced to drop his own.  He put a firm foot upon the spike, however, while he held Chatelard at arm’s length and looked into his face.

“So we meet once more, after all!” he cried.  “And once more I have the pistol.”  Even as Jim spoke, his adversary made a spring that almost enabled him to seize the weapon again.  Jim eluded his clutch, and quick as thought threw the gun overboard.  It struck far out on the smooth water.

It was a sorry thing to do, as it proved, for Chatelard, watching his chance, stooped, wrenched the spike from under Jim’s foot, and once more stood defiantly at bay.  And at this point, he opened his thin lips for one remark.

“You’ll go to hell now, you pig of an American!”

“But after you, Monsieur!” Jim cried, and with the words, his arms were about the other in a paralyzing grip.

Had Jim been as strong as when the two men measured forces weeks before, in the fo’cas’le of the Jeanne D’Arc, the result might have been different.  But the struggle was too long, and Jim’s strength insufficient.  Chatelard freed himself from his antagonist sufficiently to wield the spike somewhere about Jim’s head, and there came over him a sickening consciousness that he was going down.  He dropped, hanging like a bulldog to Chatelard’s knees, but he knew he had lost the game.  He gathered himself momentarily, determined to get on his feet once more, and had almost done it, when sounds of approaching voices mingled with the scuffle of their feet and their quick breathing.  Before Jim could see what new thing was happening, Chatelard had turned for one alert instant toward the port side, whence the invading voices came.  He was cut off from the stairway, caught in the stern of the yacht, his weapon gone.  He gave a quick call in a low voice to the boat below, stepped over the taffrail and then leaped overboard.

Propped up on an elbow, dazed and half blinded, blood flowing down his cheek, Jim stretched forward dizzily, as if to follow his disappearing enemy.  He heard the splash of the water, and saw the rowboat move out from under the stern, but he saw no more.  He thought it must have grown very dark.

“Blest if he didn’t jump overboard hanging on to that marlinespike!” said Jim stupidly to himself.  And then it became quite dark.

When Jimsy regained sight and consciousness, which happened not more than three minutes after he lost them, he found himself supported affectionately against somebody’s shoulder, and a voice—­the Voice of all voices he most loved—­was in his ears.

“Here I am, dear.  Do not die!  I have come—­come to stay, if you want me, James, dearest!” And bending over him was a face—­the very Vision of his dream.  “Look at me, speak to me, James, dear!”