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“Give me something,” he begged. “Medicine, quinine, give me something to keep my head straight until it’s finished. Go, quick,” he commanded. His teeth were chattering, and his body jerked with sharp, uncontrollable shudders. The captain ran, muttering, to his medicine- chest.

“We’ve got one drunken man on board,” he said to the mate, “and now we’ve got a crazy one. You mark my words, he’ll go off his head at sunset.”

But at sunset Channing called to him and addressed him sanely. He held in his hand a mass of papers carefully numbered and arranged, and he gave them up to the captain as though it hurt him to part with them.

“There’s the story,” he said. “You’ve got to do the rest. I can’t–I- -I’m going to be very ill.” He was swaying as he spoke. His eyes burned with the fever, and his eyelids closed of themselves. He looked as though he had been heavily drugged.

“You put that on the wire at Port Antonio,” he commanded, faintly; “pay the tolls to Kingston. From there they are to send it by way of Panama, you understand, by the Panama wire.”

“Panama!” gasped the captain. “Good Lord, that’s two dollars a word.” He shook out the pages in his hand until he found the last one. “And there’s sixty-eight pages here,” he expostulated. “Why the tolls will be five thousand dollars!” Channing dropped feebly to the bench of the chart-room and fell in a heap, shivering and trembling.

“I guess it’s worth it,” he murmured, drowsily.

The captain was still staring at the last page.

“But–but, look here,” he cried, “you’ve–you’ve signed Mr. Keating’s name to it! ‘James R. Keating.’ You’ve signed his name to it!”

Channing raised his head from his folded arms and stared at him dully.

“You don’t want to get Keating in trouble, do you?” he asked with patience. “You don’t want the C. P. to know why he couldn’t write the best story of the war? Do you want him to lose his job? Of course you don’t. Well, then, let it go as his story. I won’t tell, and see you don’t tell, and Keating won’t remember.”

His head sank back again upon his crossed arms. “It’s not a bad story,” he murmured.

But the captain shook his head; his loyalty to his employer was still uppermost. “It doesn’t seem right!” he protested. “It’s a sort of a liberty, isn’t it, signing another man’s name to it, it’s a sort of forgery.”

Channing made no answer. His eyes were shut and he was shivering violently, hugging himself in his arms.

A quarter of an hour later, when the captain returned with fresh quinine, Channing sat upright and saluted him.

“Your information, sir,” he said, addressing the open door politely, “is of the greatest value. Tell the executive officer to proceed under full steam to Panama. He will first fire a shot across her bows, and then sink her!” He sprang upright and stood for a moment, sustained by the false strength of the fever. “To Panama, you hear me!” he shouted. He beat the floor with his foot. “Faster, faster, faster,” he cried. “We’ve got a great story! We want a clear wire, we want the wire clear from Panama to City Hall. It’s the greatest story ever written–full of facts, facts, facts, facts for the Consolidated Press–and Keating wrote it. I tell you, Keating wrote it. I saw him write it. I was a stoker on the same ship.”

The mate and crew came running forward and stood gaping stupidly through the doors and windows of the chart-room. Channing welcomed them joyously, and then crumpled up in a heap and pitched forward into the arms of the captain. His head swung weakly from shoulder to shoulder.

“I beg your pardon,” he muttered, “I beg your pardon, captain, but your engine-room is too hot. I’m only a stoker and I know my place, sir, but I tell you, your engine-room is too hot. It’s a burning hell, sir, it’s a hell!”