"He ees gone!"

It happened in the twinkling of an eye. Martin wheeled about at the sight and sound. He had no time for reflection, but he knew instantly that his escape had been discovered, that the light above came from the big room where he had bearded Carew, that they had opened the door and found him gone.

Feet trampled in the room. A man's figure was framed in the lighted window—a bloated bulk that he knew was Spulvedo. A flame shot from that figure into his very face. The missile struck the roof close to his side and splattered shingle and dirt in his face. Without hesitation, he straightened his own arm and fired point blank at the living mark. Spulvedo emitted a stifled shriek and fell from sight.

The window was empty again. Not until long afterward did Martin recall that his conscious mind never received the sound of those two shots.

A dark figure brushed past him and dropped over the edge of the roof to the street. The boatswain followed. Little Billy was by his side, grasping his shoulder.

"Come on—roll off!" the hunchback was urging.

The second window overhead was suddenly alight, and a booming voice was cursing in the room. Martin rolled off the edge and fell into the boatswain's arms.

Then he was on his feet, running, by the boatswain's side. Just in front of him raced the hunchback, and a queer figure in man's clothes, whose long hair streamed behind. He heard men shouting.

They passed the corner and started across the Embarcadero toward the wharves. Far down the street a police whistle was blowing shrilly. Behind them, the Black Cruiser was spewing forth its brood.

The street was wide. They were not nearly across when these sounds of pursuit reached Martin's ears. He heard the pounding of feet behind him, and the sound of shots. He heard the hunchback fling over his shoulder:

"Hold them back, bos! We'll get the boat free!"

The boatswain stopped short and wheeled about. Martin's momentum carried him several steps farther, then he too checked his stride. Intuitively, he knew his place was at the boatswain's side.

The boatswain was on one knee, shooting rapidly at a cluster of retreating figures. The Black Cruiser was still emptying itself. Everywhere before the saloon, it seemed to Martin, were darting forms.

From behind telegraph poles, from kneeling figures, came the spurting flames of revolver shots. The reports were a sharp rattle. Martin dropped to his knee and raised his arm. The gun in his hand leaped like a live thing as he pulled the trigger. He was given entirely over to the battle lust of the moment. He was cool, he was happy, he laughed aloud, and he shot rapidly, with intent to kill, at the enemy figures yonder.

The police whistles sounded insistently, more shrilly. Martin sensed there was a commotion a block or so down the street—approaching police, he knew.

The boatswain was on his feet and backing toward the dock. His voice warned Martin——

"Avast there, nipper!"

Martin found his feet also and commenced to retreat. One of the enemy figures was coming straight for them, ignoring the shots. There was something distinctive, contemptuous, about that charge. Martin knew the approaching figure was Carew. He took aim, crooked his finger, and found his weapon empty. He drew back his arm and hurled the gun straight at the other, and at the same instant the charging man shot. And darkness enveloped Martin as he fell.



CHAPTER VII

THE MATE OF THE BRIG Cohasset

Martin returned to consciousness gradually, and via the nightmare route. He was being put to torture. He was bound, helpless, and a steel band encircled his head, and sharp spikes were probing his brain.

He was surrounded by gibbering and leering slant-eyed yellow faces; they screamed at him without letup, and his ears rang with their fiendish outcry. But mingled with, and woven into, that barbarous howl was a softer and friendlier note, at which his groping wits clutched eagerly; it was a clear, musical chant, and somehow, it soothed his hurts, and gave him courage to face his torturers. The yellow faces grimaced horridly at him. He was being roughly rolled about. So, he opened his eyes.

He was staring upward at the bare, wooden bottom-side of a bunk. It was a long moment before he could identify that blank expanse. Then he discovered that he was lying in a bunk, and there was something the matter with his couch, it bounced about, and his feet were, as often as not, higher than his head.

He was in a room. Just before his eyes was a little round window in the wall, and through it filtered a feeble daylight when his feet were ascendant, and when his head was uppermost he glimpsed racing, green water on the other side of the thick glass circle. It was strangely unaccountable.

His eyes roved. The mists were clearing somewhat from his mind. He was in a room, yes, the queerest little cubby-hole he had ever seen. There was a lamp in a rack against the wall, and the lamp remained stationary and upright while the wall behind it reeled drunkenly.

Clothes dangled from pegs as if inhabited by dancing ghosts. Somewhere, crockery rattled. There was an alarming creaking, as if great timbers were grinding together. And there was, over all, a shrill, menacing, unceasing howl—the same dread sounds that had made part of his dream.

Also persisted the singing voice that had drawn him safely out of his marish visions. His eyes, continuing their sweep, passed by a tiny desk, a rack of books, a swinging wash-basin, and encountered the source of that musical chant. The hunchback, Little Billy, was seated crosslegged upon the floor, sewing on some piece of wearing apparel, and, as he deftly plied the needle, he crooned his ditty in the pure tenor that had before charmed Martin.

"A-roving, a-roving, Since roving's been my ru-u-in——"

So far he got, when he looked up and saw Martin's eyes fixed upon him. He promptly threw his work aside, leaped to his feet and bent over the bunk. His impish, friendly face was wreathed in a cordial smile.

"Why, hello, old scout! Had your sleep out? How do you feel?" was his cheerful greeting.

Martin had been fully occupied in receiving impressions during the few moments he had been awake, and until Little Billy spoke, he had not considered himself. But at the other's words, he suddenly discovered that something was the matter with his body. He was sick. His head hurt, and something terrible was happening to his inner man—he was ascending to great heights only to drop swiftly to great depths. It was his stomach, his stomach was performing a rapid and continuous journey between his throat and the soles of his feet. He ached all over. He felt it was the end; it was approaching dissolution.

"My inside—my stomach. I'm dying!" he managed to gasp.

Little Billy's elfish grin grew wider. The wretch even chuckled as he contemplated Martin's misery.

"Oh, that is nothing," Martin heard him say. "Just a little bout with our old friend Mister Mal de Mer. You'll be all right once you get on your feet and get some warm food inside of you. How is the head?"

The mention of food was nauseous, but the remark anent the head acquainted him with a new ill. He touched the place where his hair should have been, and instead of hair his hand caressed a bandage. He discovered that beneath the bandage was the seat of the throbbing pain that bothered him. Also, memory began to stir in the chaos of his mind—head bandaged, street fight, Black Cruiser, shots.

"What—what," he stuttered.

"You were shot," little Billy replied to that interrogatory stare. "The bosun picked you up and carried you to the boat, and we brought you aboard with us. You were creased. The narrowest squeak I ever saw. The bullet just plowed over your skull. We thought at first you were gone—fractured skull, you know—but you came out of your trance and fell asleep. You have been lying in that bunk for about fifteen hours. It is midafternoon now, and we have been to sea since midnight."

"T-to sea!" gasped Martin.

The hunchback's matter-of-fact announcement fairly took his breath. The latter's chuckle became more pronounced at Martin's blank amazement.

"Yes, my legal friend, you have invaded the troublous domains of old King Nep.," he continued genially. "As the bosun remarked this morning, when a few playful tons of H2O rolled him along the main deck, ''Ere we are, swiggle me stiff, safe and sound at sea again!'" Little Billy struck an oratorical pose, and declaimed musically:

"O, we're running free with a gale abaft, And we're bound for the End o' the World!"

"But—why did you bring—" mumbled Martin.

"We had to fetch you along," interrupted Little Billy. "If the bosun had left you behind, those yellow devils would have finished you, or else the police would have nabbed you. The police were at our heels when we made the getaway from the wharf, as it was. By Jove! It was for your own benefit we shanghaied you—you realize, don't you, that a street fight with guns in a civilized town like Frisco, with wounded, perhaps dead, men lying around, makes a rather serious business? But don't you worry any about the future. Everything is rosy. We are safe at sea, and booming along with a gale at our backs. The law may have gobbled up Wild Bob Carew and his crew—hope it did, but suspect my haughty captain squirmed out of it as he usually does. We have made our getaway, anyhow."

At sea! Disturbing visions were dancing through Martin's mind. At sea!

It was one thing to stand in an office window, idly watching passing ships, and longing to be at sea. It was quite another thing to awaken without foreknowledge, in a stuffy and careening berth, on a strange ship that was plowing through a storm, possessed of a wounded head and a gadabout stomach, and be informed casually by a grinning gnome that he was fleeing the law—that he had been kidnaped so he would avoid the consequences of a wild and deadly street brawl.

A man accustomed to rough buffets and fickle fortune might well blink his eyes over such a situation. To Martin, the clerk, to whose law-abiding existence both fights and police had hitherto been strangers, the information was more than a shock. It was an earthquake. His world was tumbling about his ears.

The jolt galvanized him to action. He sat up in his bunk and swung his legs over the side. For a second he had some wild idea of rushing forth, and somehow stepping ashore, and back into yesterday. Then he steadied himself.

"But what will I do?" he demanded of the hunchback. "Where are you going? I am not a sailor, I am a clerk—and my job——"

"My friend," said Little Billy, "I think you may definitely assume that your connection with the legal profession is severed. Your job is close on two hundred miles astern. But as I told you a moment since, you need not worry about your future. Why, you have already been adopted into the happy family—you are already one of the jolly company of the brig Cohasset, with equal rights, and an equal share. And if we have decent luck with this job ahead of us, you will have no cause to grieve at being yanked out of your berth ashore. It isn't so bad, is it? We know you leave no family behind—oh, yes, we know quite a lot about you, Martin Blake, we had to look you up—and I think you will be blessing us in a day or two for prying you out of your rut. You are the right sort. You were never cut out for a clerk! By Jove! You should hear the bosun tell how you bowled over Carew, himself, with your empty gun! You are a nervy one, all right. I'll wager this business ahead of us will be more to your liking than the one you leave behind."

"What is it?" asked Martin. "Where are you going?"

"Not my story—I can't tell you, now," answered Little Billy. "You'll find out tonight, after supper. There will be a pow-wow in the cabin, and the Old Man and Miss Ruth will enlighten you then."

"Miss Ruth!" echoed Martin, thinking for the first time of the girl who had innocently got him into this mess. "That is the girl! Then we got the girl safely?"

"Oh, yes, she is aboard, and safe enough. She dressed your head—neat job of bandaging she does. Well, Blake, I'll have to be about my duties. I'm steward, you know. This is my room. You are to bunk with me. I would advise you to get up on deck if you can manage it. There is no cure for seasickness like being on your feet in fresh air. Don't worry about your head—it is only a flesh wound, and it will heal in a couple of days. And after supper you'll hear all about it. So long."

The door closed behind the sprightly little figure, and Martin was left alone.

Alone, but with thoughts enough for company. He sat there with his legs swinging over the side of the bunk, nursing his sore head and trying to digest the information Little Billy had imparted.

He was troubled, yet somehow not depressed. His coward fears of a few moments ago were gone, and he could face the situation now with considerable aplomb. Of course, it was disturbing to learn that he was probably a fugitive from justice; and with his knowledge of the law he could very well appreciate the probably serious consequences of last night's affair. Why, there were likely dead men in the city morgue as a result, and old Smatt, judging himself betrayed by his clerk, might swear him a murderer. He was a vindictive old man, Martin knew. And Spulvedo—he knew he had shot Spulvedo; he had seen the man drop.

Martin felt a qualm at that remembrance—shooting a man was a new and terrible experience, and his conscience had scruples concerning the sanctity of human life. If Martin Blake could then have seen a few months into the future....

Yet he had no regrets for the part he had played. He had been headstrong, he knew, in so unreservedly joining forces with the strange people of this strange ship. But what else could he have done and retained his self-respect? A man, by George, owed it to himself to be willing to fight for a woman in distress—especially such a good-looking girl as this mysterious Miss Ruth. Little Billy, and these people, seemed to be at outs with the police, but he knew he was on the right side.

And so he was one of the jolly company of the brig Cohasset! This craft seemed to have been fated to enter his life. He recalled how interested he had been when the boatswain first mentioned the name, last night, in Johnny Feiglebaum's. Last night! Why, it seemed a year ago! "Happy ship," the boatswain had called her, and Little Billy had referred to the "happy family." A queer outfit he had fallen in with. Well, at least he would see that "blessed, bleedin' little mate" the boatswain was so exercised about.

Brig Cohasset! What kind of a ship was a brig, anyway? He would see.

Arrived at this conclusion, Martin felt better. He rolled clear of the bunk and balanced himself on the swaying floor. He was going to take the hunchback's advice and look over this new home of his, and take the tonic prescribed for his peripatetic stomach. Already, he felt much better. He even contemplated food without disgust.

He had been undressed, and he discovered his clothes hanging on the wall. While he donned them, his spirits continued to mount. He was done with fright and worry.

Things were not so bad. It was true there was no one ashore to grieve at his disappearance, save good Mrs. Meagher. But how in the world did the hunchback discover that fact? Come what might, he was done with his old drab life, done with musty legal forms, done with the job he so loathed. There was a jubilant tinge to his thoughts. Why, he was just where he had so often longed to be—"Out There where Things happened!"

That all-pervading screaming that rang in his ears—why, that was the wind whistling through the rigging, overhead, the storm king's brazen voice that he had so often dreamed of hearing. And that disconcerting lurching beneath his feet—why, that was the heaving deck he had so lusted to press foot upon.

What matter if it did play havoc with his midriff. That would pass; already he was feeling fit. Now he would go out and get acquainted with his shipmates—ah, shipmates! He smacked his lips over the word. Already he knew the hunchback and the boatswain—fine fellows. And the girl—he had seen her once and would never forget her face. That shining mass of hair....

And Martin laved himself in the basin, spruced himself before the little glass, and let himself out of the room.

Martin stepped into the ship's cabin. He knew it was the cabin, because he had often read passages descriptive of just such a room.

There were several doors on either side. They led to the berths. There was the curve of the ship's stern in the after wall, portholes, and a divan which followed the half-round. Chairs, a large table, swinging lamps, a skylight overhead. There was the companion ladder, leading to the deck above.

He made for the ladder. At its base he stopped. Some one was descending. A hale, white-bearded, rosy-cheeked old man came down from the deck. He had a serene and smiling countenance.

Martin waited expectantly, with half-extended hand. This must be the "Old Man" of the hunchback's reference. But the old man's wide-open eyes stared over his head, or through him. He walked past within a foot of Martin and gave not the least indication that he noticed Martin's presence. A second later he disappeared through a door on the farther side of the room.

Martin's hand dropped to his side. He was nonplused and somewhat piqued. It was unbelievable that he had been unseen. Why, the man had passed within touching distance and had looked straight at him! If this were the captain of the jolly brig...

However, just now he was eager to reach outdoors. He mounted the ladder and found himself in a box-like hatch. He thrust aside a canvas flap and stepped out on deck.

A blast of cold wind slapped his face and almost took his breath for a moment. He was facing aft, looking out over the stern of the ship, and his eyes beheld a tumbling chaos, a fearsome waste of leaping waters.

In the foreground of this picture, just across the skylight from him, stood the man at the wheel. He was an integrant feature of that wild scene, felt Martin. In Heaven's name, what manner of outlander was he? Squat and bulky in oilskins, broad-faced, high-cheeked, brown-colored, his forehead was tattooed, and ridges of horrible scars disfigured both plump cheeks. His eyes were small, feral; he gave Martin a fleeting, incurious glance, and turned his attention to his work. He stood impassive, clutching the wheel-spokes.

The deck was wet and slippery. The ship lunged down the slope of a sea, and Martin slid to leeward. He fought his way up-deck again and grasped the side of the hatch for support. The mishap had turned him about. He now faced forward, and the wheelman was forgotten.

He was on the poop, and he overlooked the length of the ship. The brig Cohasset was before his eyes, as much of her as was above water. But, as a matter of fact, and as he was later informed, he did not look upon a brig at all; the Cohasset was a brig only by virtue of sailors' loose habits of speech. She was in truth "a rig what ye rarely see, lad, a proper brigantine, a craft what I'll be swiggled stiff if ye can mate 'er anyw'ere for sailing and comfort."

But nice distinctions of rig did not bother Martin on this, his first, view of his new home. He was looking through his landsman eyes.

He saw, over the break of the poop, a sweep of deck that careened till the lee rail dipped, and green seas lolloped aboard and swirled, foam-flecked, aft. He saw the long jib-boom, now stabbing the leaden sky, now plunging into the depths. He saw the pyramid of bellying canvas on the foremast, the great foresail, the topsails, and the bare spars above.

He saw the great boom above his head, and the vast expanse of the mainsail, a tremendous canvas, even though reefed. He saw the straining, board-like staysails. He heard the harsh scream of the wind aloft, the vibrant thrumming of tautened stays, the banging of a block, the crash of boarding seas. Grim sounds, and an outlook to daunt a young man whose maritime experience consisted of an occasional ferry-boat trip.

Martin was aghast. The ship was a chip in a maelstrom, lost, tossed about, sport of those monster waves. The ticklish game of "carrying on" was beyond Martin's present ken. He was thinking in the terms of his favorite literature. He was awe-struck by the fury of the elements, by the limitless expanse of upheaving waters, by the long, white-crested seas racing down the wind. He was beholding the raging main!

"Hello, Mr. Blake! Glad to see you about. Nice little puff we have had for a starting boost—about blown out, I'm afraid."

The words, rich, throaty, tinged with amusement, came down the wind to Martin's ears. Martin turned his head. Opposite him on the sloping weather deck, regarding him with a smile, stood the girl—"Miss Ruth."

Martin stared. Had he heard aright, "little puff"? This battle of wind and wave a little puff! And she who regarded this cataclysmic scene with such contempt—that brave and confident figure, swaying so easily to the deck's reel, that bizarre costume, that sparkling face—was she the distressed maid he had fought for the night before? Yes, he remembered that vivid, expressive face. By George, she was a beauty!

She was, without doubt, an uncommonly pretty girl, and the strange costume she wore accentuated, rather than hid, her charms. A serge skirt came but little below her knees, and beneath it Martin saw feet and ankles encased in stout, trim, absurdly small sea boots.

She wore a sailor's pea-coat, open at the front and disclosing a guernsey covering a swelling bosom. The great mass of dark hair Martin remembered so well was knotted and piled atop her head, and a blue, peaked cap perched saucily aslant the mass.

Her face was alive, vivacious. The eyes were large, dark, bright, the lips were ripe and smiling, the cheeks weather-bronzed but not swarthy.

Martin drank in the details of her appearance greedily, and they left him tongue-tied. Yes, by George, she was a beauty! Her carriage was regal, and there was about her an air of competence, of authority. She was not disturbed by her surroundings—she laughed. What had she called the storm? A puff! She seemed, by George, like a sprite of the storm! Like the steersman yonder, she seemed to belong to this setting of laboring ship and tumultuous sea. Here she came toward him with hand outstretched.

She walked easily, body inclining gracefully to the ship's whims, disdaining aid of skylight or hatch. Martin clung to the hatch with one hand and extended his other.

He thrilled to the warm clasp she gave him. He glowed at the friendly light in her eyes. She was tall, taller than she looked at a distance, almost as tall as he. She did not seem to raise her voice, yet her words reached him distinctly above the howl of the wind. He had to shout his answers.

"How does your head feel?" were her first words.

He answered reassuringly, and remembered of a sudden that it was those brown, shapely fingers that wrapped the bandage.

"I am Ruth Le Moyne," she continued. "I would like to thank you for what you did last night. You were splendid! Little Billy has told us how promptly you volunteered your aid, when you knew it meant danger to yourself. It was brave of—oh, words are so tame! But you can guess what it meant to me—I, a girl, and Carew——"

Yes, Martin knew. He hastened to shout that he knew. The girl's attitude made him uncomfortable. He shouted that he knew all about it, and that it was nothing, really nothing. He would like to do it again; he was really glad to be at sea on such a jolly little ship; the bump on his head was nothing; no, his seasickness was past; what he had done was nothing, by George, not worth mentioning!

So he said, while he held Ruth Le Moyne's hand and looked into her eyes—dark brown eyes, he noticed, not bright now, but misty with gratitude—-and he meant what he said.

"Of course, you feel strange and lost," she said. "But you will get quickly used to ship life, and I know you will like it. You know, we call ourselves the 'happy family.' You are one of us, now. You share in the venture, and if we are successful—but you will hear all about it after awhile."

She broke off abruptly, looked aloft, then turned to the helmsman.

"Watch your eye, Oomak!" she called.

The savage-appearing steersman inclined his head submissively and pulled upon the wheel spokes. Martin stared, surprised. What had this entrancing bundle of femininity to do with the steering of the ship?

She turned to him again.

"We are losing the breeze," she said regretfully. "I suppose, though, we shouldn't complain. We have gained a good offing."

Losing the breeze!

"Do you mean—is the storm passing?" asked Martin.

"The storm?" She stared, then smiled. "Oh, yes—see!"

Martin looked up. Rifts of blue sky showed in the leaden blanket overhead. But the sea seemed as wild, his ear sensed no decrease in the wind's howl. This girl seemed very sure.

"I'll set the t'gal'n's'l and shake a reef out of the mains'l at eight bells," she continued. "Just a few moments of the time, now. You know, we are cracking on."

"Oh—of course," said Martin blankly. He didn't know just what she was talking about, but the salty words rolled off her tongue very glibly. "W-what are you on the ship, Miss——"

"Oh, I forgot that you didn't know," laughed the girl. "Why, I am the mate."

The mate! This radiant, laughing creature the mate! This slip of a girl! Oh, ho, no wonder the boatswain wept and spoke of posies, and the hunch-back waxed poetical in description. This girl...

Martin suddenly gulped. He remembered the prim, mutton-chopped little man of his imaginings, the gentle, senile little mate of the brig Cohasset. He winced and blushed at the recollection of his idle thoughts. But a woman for mate! Why—and he stared about him—this girl must be in practical command of the ship. His life, the lives of those oilskin-clad figures he saw lounging forward, all the lives on the ship, were in her hand, dependent upon her skill. Mate! He had never heard——

"You seem rather surprised," she rallied him. "I see disapproval in your face. But I assure you, I am a very good mate. I even have a master's ticket."

Martin stuttered in his confusion and tangled himself in a web of denial. Then came a blessed interruption. Up through the companion hatch, to which he still clung, arose a white head, and then the man. It was the serene-faced old man who had passed him by in the cabin.

"The captain!" announced the beskirted mate. "Captain, here is Mr. Blake—Mr. Blake, meet Captain Dabney."

The old man stepped out on deck and turned his head about uncertainly. His hand wandered an instant, and then met Martin's. His face wreathed in a cordial smile.

"Glad to meet you, lad," he said.

Martin found himself without words. He was fascinated by the captain's eyes, those serene, blue eyes that stared at him without seeing him. Captain Dabney was blind.



CHAPTER VIII

AROUND THE CABIN TABLE

Martin lounged upon the divan, on edge with impatience, his attention divided between the faces of his companions and the face of the clock hanging on the forward bulkhead. The two big lamps, upright in their gimbals, shed a warm, bright glow about the cabin.

The supper remains had disappeared. Little Billy was completing his steward's task by spreading over the table the damask cloth that graced the board between meals. The blind captain sat in a chair, quietly puffing a pipe. The clock showed a quarter of eight. At eight o'clock, eight bells would strike overhead, the bosun would relieve the mate, the mate would come below, and then his burning curiosity was promised satisfaction.

The mate! Martin's thoughts buzzed around the girl like a moth around a candle-flame. Not yet could he reconcile Ruth with her duties as ship's first officer. It seemed so absurd. She and the giant bosun divided the watches between them. What an ill-assorted brace! And she was the superior. She was the right arm, and the eyes of the old blind man. Oh, she was a proper sailor, right enough!

Yes, she had set the t'gal'n's'l and shaken the reef out of the mains'l. He knew now what she had meant.

What a superb figure she was, standing there on the windswept deck, singing her orders. Yes, singing—that full, contralto halloo of hers was naught but a song. And how the wild men of the crew had leaped to obey! Wild men—he had seen but few white faces forward—wild islanders of some sort.

He would never forget his first dogwatch, spent by the boatswain's side, pacing the poop deck. How niftily he had gained his sea legs! He had easily learned the trick of throwing his body to meet the ship. He had learned lots, besides, from the deep voice rumbling in his ear.

"A smart little 'ooker lad, and a smart crew, all married to 'er. Swiggle me! Ain't many 'er size can show 'er a pair o' 'eels. Ay, small, but big enough for 'er work—'undred thirty ton. Great trader, the Old Man is. 'Square Jim' Dabney, 'e's called, from the Arctic to 'Obart Town, and across Asia side; except them Rooshuns—they call 'im the 'Slippery Devil.' Says I, fine 'auls we've 'ad, seal and fur, from them Rooshuns.

"Blast o' dynamite, lad, took the Old Man's sight. Fine 'aul this time if we 'ave luck. Swiggle me stiff, it'll set us up ashore for bleeding toffs! ... ye'll 'ear about it later.... Ay, that's the royal, lad—topmost spar—be shakin' that rag out afore long.... Ay, mate, and a proper fine mate she is, bless 'er bleeding little 'eart! Grew up at sea—proper shark for navigation—Old Man never 'ad 'er 'ead for figures.... See—them's the 'alyards, lad! ... Ay, prime sailorman, she is, too...."

Such was the burden of the boatswain's discourse throughout the dogwatch. A shark for navigation, and a prime sailorman, bless her bleeding little heart! Oh, she was the apple of the boatswain's eye! And of other eyes. And the boatswain had called her "mister" when he came on deck——

"'Ow's she going, mister?"

She grew up at sea! So the boatswain had said. Had been able to "take a sight at ten year, lad, an' work out a position, which, swiggle me, I can't do for all my size and years!" Could even match the red giant at sailorly work with ropes and wires.

What a strange upbringing for a girl! He had gathered that Ruth was the granddaughter of the blind man, Square Jim Dabney, that she was orphaned; that this cockleshell of a vessel had been her home since babyhood. Bred of seamen and to the sea. No wonder she paced the deck so confidently, and flung a laugh into the East Wind's very face!

She was of the breed of the silent old man who bore his affliction so steadfastly. Martin studied the patient figure of the blind man with a new interest. What a pity, that hale, active man caged in darkness! What misery, what despair, thought he, might lurk behind those fine, unmarred eyes! Yet the face was happy enough. Indeed, it was serene, unscarred by impatience or passion; the race of one who awaits Fate fearlessly. Martin had difficulty in connecting that kindly and peaceful figure with the "Old Man" of the boatswain's talk.

What stirring adventures the boatswain's casual words had hinted at! In what a bald, matter-of-fact manner had the Cohasset's various activities been mentioned! Pearl shell and island trade; "a bit o' filibustering now and then," to Mexico and South America; seal and fur poaching on the Siberian coast, in open defiance of the Czar's mandates!

Square Jim Dabney, might be the captain's name from the Arctic to Hobart Town, but some of the exploits the boatswain had boasted of suggested "Freebooter Jim" Dabney to Martin's mind. How about that affair where the captain had lost his eyesight? Raiding a gold-bearing reef in the Louisiades with dynamite, the boatswain had said, in derisive revolt against the Australian mining laws.

It had happened but a few months before, and a premature explosion of a dynamite charge had been the unusual fruit of the raid—unusual because when the boatswain and others had rushed to recover what they thought was their captain's mangled body, they discovered their leader unmarred by the blast but stone-blind from the shock. An injured optic nerve, the San Francisco specialists had said, a hopeless case.

Yet even permanent blindness did not place a period to the career of this venerable Pacific freelance. Was he not engaged in some wild venture even now? Some mysterious business that had begun with bloodshed, and would end—how? What had Little Billy said? "Bound for the End o' the World!" And what, pray, would they find at the End o' the World?

Well, he didn't care what they found there, but he was very glad to be able to voyage to the world's end with this company. He was glad he had been pitched head foremost into the affair, little as he yet understood of it all; he was glad to be at sea and shipmates with the "happy family." No longer was he a despised quill-pusher.

Just what he was at present, Martin could not decide, but he was determined to become a valued and accomplished member of this adventuring household. He was determined—like the moth to the flame, Martin's thoughts came back to the girl—he was determined to win the respect of Ruth Le Moyne, to match her self-reliance. He would show her, by George, that he did not lack for courage; that stranger though he was to sea life, he could acquit himself creditably in the face of any danger he might encounter in his new environment!

The boatswain came out of his room and paused at the foot of the companion-ladder to fill his pipe. He looked like some huge, red-shagged bear, thought Martin, a well-fed, contented bear. The hands of the clock were almost on the hour—in a moment the bosun would be on deck, and Ruth would come below. Then...

The boatswain's enormous sea boots disappeared through the hatch, and a moment later eight bells struck overhead.

Martin sat up expectantly. Little Billy grinned at him from across the room. Confound the fellow! He had insisted on treating Martin as an invalid during the supper, had been absurdly solicitous about the wounded head and the turbulent stomach, when Martin had forgotten the existence of both; he had persisted in interrupting when Martin wanted to talk to Ruth. Here she came!

A light step, a little boot poked into view, and Ruth bustled down the ladder. By George, she was a beauty!

"Due west—setting more canvas," she announced briskly to Captain Dabney.

The latter turned his sightless eyes on the rosy face that bent above him; the serene, white-bearded face was suddenly beautiful with its welcoming smile. The blind man's hand reached out and gently stroked the girl's arm. Martin saw there was complete agreement between the two.

Ruth divested herself of the heavy pea-coat she wore, tossed it upon the divan, and drew up a chair beside the captain's.

"Well, let us commence at once with our tales of woe, and our council of war," said she laughingly. "I am quite sure Mr. Blake is perishing with curiosity. I know I would be in his place."

It was an odd assortment that gathered about the table—a girl, a blind man, a hunchback, and a clerk. A strange company for a ship's cabin, at sea.

But the incongruity escaped Martin. For the moment he had eyes but for the figure opposite him, for the trim figure revealed by the tight-fitting guernsey, for the vivid face that bloomed above. Ruth bore his gaze with composure; she even smiled at him, with a twinkle in her eye. Martin blushed.

Little Billy had brought to the table a small, locked cash-box, made of light steel. He set it carefully in the center of the table, and then took a seat by Martin's side.

Ruth spoke.

"First of all, we had better tell the whole story of the Good Luck, and the code, and the log, to Mr. Blake. It is unfair to keep him in darkness any longer."

"Yes—that will be best," said Captain Dabney. "I will tell you about finding the wreck. But Billy must finish the tale—he is the more used to yarn-spinning. Billy, have you the box there?"

"Yes—here," answered the hunchback.

He rapped the cash-box with his fingers, and the captain nodded at the metallic sound. Then Little Billy drew a key from his pocket and unlocked the box. He threw an envelope out upon the table.

Martin blinked. He knew that plain wrapper. Yesterday afternoon, old Smatt had handed him that envelope, and last night at the Black Cruiser he, himself, had delivered it to Captain Carew. Now, it was here before his eyes!

Little Billy chuckled at his amazement. Even Ruth smiled at him.

"Hello! Our friend seems to recognize Exhibit A," bantered the hunchback. "Well, Blake, without waiting for counsel's advice, I will admit that you probably have seen this very envelope before. But I bet the contents are stranger to your popping eyes!"

With that, Little Billy spread the envelope's contents upon the table.

Martin saw a plain sheet of paper, written upon by Smatt's angular hand, and a strip of some kind of animal skin, or gut, about 4x5 inches in size, and of a leprous-white color. The skin was covered with what he took to be a multitude of faint, red scratches, but upon a second look he saw that the scratches were figures.

Ruth indicated the skin with her finger.

"The secret of Fire Mountain," she said.

"Yes, the secret of Fire Mountain," echoed Little Billy. "And this—" he pointed to the paper containing Smatt's writing—"is the secret kindly bared for us by that genial gray vulture of the law, Mr. Smatt. The envelope also contained Wild Bob's clearance papers—cleared for Papeete, the slick devil—but we presented them to the gulls off the Farallones. They can go a-voyaging on them if they wish."

"A little thing like a clearance will not keep Bob Carew in port," interposed Captain Dabney.

"No, I suppose not," replied Little Billy, his face sobering. "He is on our heels now, I dare say. However, we have had the satisfaction of putting a good one over on him."

"But—but what—" stammered Martin, his eyes still upon the envelope; the others' reference were Greek to him.

"So friend Blake is puzzled!" exclaimed the hunchback, his light humor returned. "Are you not beginning to see light, Blake? Observe—" he tapped the skin with a finger—"this cryptic skin contains the secret of Fire Mountain. Ichi, the wily one, abstracts it from its discoverers and rightful owners and carries it to that fine legal rascal who employed you; fine legal rascal gives it to clerk to deliver to Wild Bob Carew. Wild Bob Carew has rakish schooner ready to scoot for loot, but needs code translation, and latitude and longitude; friend Blake carries code in pocket, friend Mate carries position in head—so, there is plot and counterplot; gumshoeing and shanghaiing. You, my friend, at the center of one storm circle. Devious and devilish machinations assail you—at first with failure, for the mate lost her wits, and the boatswain lost his balance. But Little Billy Corcoran, King of Legerdemain, succeeds. With his prattling tongue and dexterous fingers he effects the substitution, and the lost is regained."

Little Billy finished triumphantly, and beamed at Martin's blank face.

"Substitution!" exclaimed Martin.

"Yes. Must I place a tack upon your head, and smite it with a hammer, in order to drive the point home? Do you not comprehend? Little Billy sat upon a fire hydrant and very carefully picked a young gentleman's pocket."

"Why, then it was you placed the envelope containing the blank paper—" commenced Martin.

"Exactly. Your intuition is remarkable," stated the hunchback. "But—please—do not look so shocked. I assure you I do not commonly pick young gentlemen's pockets. It is a vulgar pastime, and I am an accomplished villain. Why, once upon a time, I wrote an epic poem. What mere larceny can compare with that fell deed! Besides, this particular outrage upon the sanctity of your overcoat was not without justification. Observe: Ichi, the beast, picks Little Billy's pocket, and the way to Fire Mountain is lost; Little Billy picks Mr. Blake's pocket, and the way to Fire Mountain is regained! Is it not beautifully simple?"

"Way to Fire Mountain! But I don't understand," answered Martin.

"Oh, don't listen to him," interrupted Ruth. "Billy, you shut up! You will have plenty of chance to talk after awhile. Captain, you tell about finding the Good Luck."

"Squashed!" sighed Little Billy.



CHAPTER IX

THE MOUNTAIN IN THE SMOKY SEA

"It won't take me long to tell my part of the story," commenced Captain Dabney. "It happened last Summer, up in Bering Sea. I dodged out of the fog-bank, where I had been playing hide-and-seek with the Russian gunboat, and saw the sun for the first time in a week, and at the same time clapped eyes upon Fire Mountain. Ay, I had my eyes then—good eyes, too."

The captain drew his hand across his sightless eyes. He had spoken in the inflectionless voice of the blind, but Martin sensed a note of bitterness, of revolt, in his voice. Ruth patted his shoulder comfortingly, and the old man continued.

"Fire Mountain, lad, is a volcano. It is a volcanic island sticking up out of the water several hundred miles off the Kamchatka coast. But I guess I had better tell you how we came to be in Bering last Summer.

"You know, lad, I am a trader. Fur is a mighty profitable trade, if you can get enough fur, and at reasonable prices, and for the last ten years I have traded every Summer along the Kamchatka and Anadyr coasts. I have left the seal rookeries alone—they are too well guarded nowadays—and traded with the natives for their furs.

"The Russian Chartered Company has a monopoly of the fur trade in Eastern Siberia, and, like any monopoly, they gouge. They insist upon about five thousand per cent. profit in their dealings with the natives. Naturally, the natives are more than anxious to trade with a free-lance. The Russian Government keeps a little tin-pot gun-boat cruising up and down to prevent poaching, and if you are caught it means the mines for all hands. But, Lord! Any live Yankee can dodge those lubbers. They have chased me every year for ten years, and I have won free every time.

"The last chase they gave me was last August. We sighted the Russian just as we were coming out of a little bay below Cape Ozerni, where I had had business with a tribe of Koriaks. There was a nice little offshore, ten-knot breeze blowing, and we cracked on and made for the fog-bank.

"The fog, you know, lad, is the poachers' salvation in the Bering. In the Summer, the fog lies over the water in banks, either low and thick, or high and thin, caused by the Japan current meeting the Arctic streams. They call those waters the Smoky Seas, sometimes. You don't see the sun for weeks on end.

"This was a low-lying and thick bank we made for, and we slipped into it with the Russian about three mile astern of us. We were safe enough then, though he entered after us. We played a game of 'catch me, Susie,' for three days. It was funny. We had enough wind to drive us at about four knots; the fog was so thick you couldn't see half a cable-length in any direction; and the bank seemed of limitless width.

"We could hear the gunboat's screw miles away, but he couldn't hear us—though we'd give him a blat out of our patent fog-horn every now and then, just to let him know we were still around. Three days he rampaged around, looking for us, and then he gave us up for a bad job. The second morning after, we slipped out of the western rim of the bank and found ourselves in sunshine, and almost on top of as wicked a looking saw-tooth reef as I ever want to see.

"The reef encircled a mountain that stuck straight up out of the sea for about two thousand feet. It was an old volcano—still smoking. We sailed around it, and on the south side discovered a break in the reef, a little bay bitten narrowly into the mountain, and a beach.

"Well, volcanic islands are common in Bering Sea. But we were interested in this one, both because of its strange appearance, and because it was unmarked on the chart. That last was not so unusual, though. The charts of that section of Bering are mostly guesswork.

"We got a boat over the side, and Little Billy and I were pulled ashore, while Ruth kept the brig standing by. I wanted to make a closer inspection of the place, and the landing seemed good.

"The break in the reef was quite wide, and we sounded and found a channel, and good holding ground inside. We landed on a shell and black-sand beach, about forty yards wide at high water, and a couple of hundred long.

"The mountain stuck up sheer in front of us and on either side of the bay. It was full of caves—riddled like a sponge. A strange place! The mountain sides were overlaid for an unknown depth with black lava, from ancient eruptions; and this lava had hardened and twisted into all manner of shapes, all the way to the still smoking crater. That is what formed the caves—and formed also, tremendous columns, and castles, and animals' heads.

"On the level with the little beach were several cave openings. One was a jutting rock that looked just like an elephant's head carved out of the black lava, and beneath the outflung trunk, was a black opening leading into the mountain. There was the sound of running water from within, and the wind howled like a sabbath of witches. We didn't investigate—no torches. At one end of the beach we found three springs of hot water squirting out of the rock—tasted sulphurous.

"The beach contained quite a bit of driftage, and some old timbers we knew were from a wreck. Then, 'way up on the beach, and behind some big bowlders, we discovered the ribs of a whaleboat, a rust-eaten sheath-knife, and a board that contained part of a ship's name. The lettering was almost effaced; we made out the letters LUC— and beneath it the word, BEDFORD.

"Well, the discovery of that wreckage told us that we weren't the first to visit the place. The word 'Bedford' was a good clew—it meant that a New Bedford whaleship had been there at some time; and the wreckage meant that she had probably been wrecked upon the reef. There was nothing else to be found, though we searched for evidences of castaways. But the wreck had happened a good many years ago, we could tell from the appearance of the whaleboat's remains, and if there had been any castaways, all signs of them had disappeared.

"We snooped around a little bit longer, felt a baby earthquake, and then went back aboard the ship. I marked the location on the chart, and we squared away for the Kamchatka coast. An hour later, the fog shut the smoking mountain from our view and from my mind until Little Billy made his discovery in Honolulu a few months ago.

"Now, Billy, you commence—it is your yarn from now on!"

The captain heaved a contented sigh, settled himself into a listening attitude, and turned his blind face to the hunchback.



CHAPTER X

THE WHALEMAN'S LOG

"My turn to talk?" exclaimed the lively hunchback. "Fine! Talking is my favorite sport. But before I commence, I will show friend Blake, here, Exhibit B."

He reached into the cash-box and drew out a little book. Martin observed that it was apparently a pocket notebook, a cheap, dog-eared thing with cracked cardboard covers. Little Billy held it up before Martin's eyes.

"This is Exhibit B," he continued. "Read this, on the fly-leaf!"

Martin leaned closer and saw written in faded ink on the fly-leaf the inscription,

John Winters, His Log.

Bark Good Luck of New Bedford. 1889.

No. 2.

"Ah, I see your mind is leaping to conclusions!" went on Little Billy, as surmise and understanding flitted across Martin's face. "And correct conclusions, I have no doubt. But before I confirm your suspicions, by reading excerpts from John Winters's Log, I had better tell you how this little book came into our possession.

"So then, let us jump from Bering Sea to Honolulu, and from August to January. My narrative commences with the night I spent in Kim Chee's Chamber of Horrors, while recovering from my semi-annual drunk.

"Oh, don't try to shield me—" as Ruth attempted to interpose—"Blake may as well be made acquainted with my failing. He would find out anyway."

Martin was taken aback by the violent interjection. A grim cloud rested for a moment on the hunchback's sunny face, and the man looked suddenly aged. Martin saw that Ruth's face was soft with sympathy. But Little Billy's next words were enlightening.

"Perhaps I could justly pass the buck to my begettors," he said. "I came into the world handicapped—a crooked back, and a camel's desire and capacity for liquids—alcoholic liquids. I am a periodical drunkard. Every six months, or so, I am constrained by the imp within me to saturate myself with spirits and wallow in the gutter, like a pig in a sty."

"Oh, don't believe him—-it is not so bad as that!" cried Ruth.

"It is indeed," asserted Little Billy. "As witness this time, when I fought the 'willies' in Kim Chee's rubbish room. It must be admitted, though, that this particular spree had a fruitful ending, for it was in Kim Chee's that I discovered the secret of Fire Mountain. It was this way:

"When we came down from the Bering in September, we sold our furs to a Jap syndicate in Hakodate. The captain has dealt regularly with that Jap firm—they pay good prices, and ask few questions. Then we left Hakodate on our Winter trip—captain had the idea that he might run across something worth while in the neighborhood of Torres Straits. But, let me mention in passing, before we sailed we shipped a cook. He was a Jap named Ichi, an affable little man who couldn't speak very good English, who seemed rather dull-witted for his race. More of him, later on.

"Down South we had the accident, and the captain's eyes were injured. We made a record passage to Honolulu, arrived there the first week in January, and the captain went ashore to the hospital. The bosun and I snugged down everything on board, and then I succumbed to my habit. I went ashore and tried to place Honolulu in the dry column by swallowing all the whisky in town. I suppose I had a glorious time—I don't remember much about it. But about a week later I came to one evening in Kim Chee's place, with a dollar and five cents in my pocket, a blazing stomach, and a troupe of goblins affixed to my person as a retinue.

"Kim Chee is the oldest, most wrinkled-up Chinaman in the world. He has had that drinking den in Honolulu for forty years—ran it in the old days when the King and the Opium Ring governed Hawaii. It has always been a sailor resort; in the old days it was a whalemen's rendezvous. Fine old gentleman, Kim Chee.

"I couldn't drink any more, and I was jumpy. So Kim Chee ushered me into his Chamber of Horrors. The Chamber of Horrors is an institution at Kim's place. It is a rubbish room, filled with the junk the old Chinaman has collected during a lifetime, and whenever one of his patrons gets the horrors from imbibing his bottled dynamite, Kim chucks him into this room to die or get over it as the Fates decree.

"So I found myself in this room, with an old lantern for light. I was in a bad way. I was seeing things. Not alligators or monkeys, such as the conventional drunk is supposed to see, but Things, faceless formless Things who brushed against me and leered at me out of the corners. Urrgh! The memory makes me quake.

"I was afraid of losing control of myself, and to keep myself occupied, and my tormentors in the background, I commenced to paw over the junk pile. I was searching for something to read.

"Well, there was an assortment in that room that would have gladdened the heart of any collector—native weapons from all the islands of the Pacific, carved whalebone from the North, knickknacks from wherenot, everything that a couple of generations of sailormen could leave behind them. There were sea-chests and sea-bags that belonged to men who, I doubt not, were drowned before I was born. But nowhere did I find what I sought—something to read.

"I was about to give up the search when I picked up a small package, oilskin-wrapped and securely tied with marlin. It had lain in that corner for a long, long time. It was covered with dust, and the oilskin was brittle dry. The package felt like a book. I opened it, and found I had John Winters's diary in my hand.

"I read that inscription on the fly-leaf, but I must confess that I didn't think of Fire Mountain at the moment. That came later. But I was interested—a sailor's private log always interests a man who knows the sea. I sat down on one of the old chests, drew the lantern close and commenced to read. And as I read, I forgot my ills entirely.

"Now, I'll read you portions of this little book. Afterward, if you wish, Blake, you may read it through yourself. It is worth while—the record of a whaling voyage. But just now I will confine myself to the parts that directly affect us. Queer thought, isn't it, that the words this chap wrote a quarter of a century ago, whose face none of us has ever seen, who is also twenty-five years dead, should affect our several destinies? Fate is a strange jade!

"But first, a word about the author of this log. This John Winters was the second mate of the whaling bark Good Luck of New Bedford, one gleans from reading the book. The inscription on the fly-leaf mentions the date, 1889, also the figure 'No. 2.' The number two means that this is the second log on the voyage. Research through some old 'Marine Bulletins' the captain owns told us that the whaleship Good Luck left New Bedford on her last voyage in the year 1887, and that she refitted in Honolulu in the Fall of 1889, reported missing, with all hands, two years later. Winters's log commences with the departure of the ship from Honolulu in November, '89.

"The first entry that interests us is made several months later, on March 23rd, 1890. Position given as 158 deg. E. 9 deg., 18' N. That places the Good Luck somewhere in the Carolines, on the sperm whale grounds. It goes:

This day Westphal fell from the fore rigging and broke his arm. Still no sign of fish. The Old Man is in a bad temper because of our poor luck, and he is talking of going north already. Mr. Garboy says there is a Jonah aboard. I think he is the Jonah. Westphal is a Dutch lubber.

"I read this entry mainly to acquaint you with John Winters," continued Little Billy. "You see, this was his private journal, and he was given to expressing his true feelings concerning his shipmates. This Mr. Garboy he mentions was the chief mate of the Good Luck. The next entry I have marked is dated March 26th, and they are still on the Caroline grounds.

This day I did cover myself with glory, and did take Garboy down a peg. This morning we raised fish, a big school of cachalot, about three mile to leeward. We lowered four boats. I had Silva for harpooner, the best man on the ship. The mate had Lord Joe, the Jamaica nigger.

Murphy and Costa bore south to head the school, and Garboy and I bore straight for them. Raced to see who would first back, and I won. Backed a big bull, and Silva gave him the iron deep. He flurried without sounding, and I did not have to lance. Garboy backed his whale and Lord Joe made a poor cast, and they lost the fish. I backed a cow, and made fast. She sounded, but we overhauled at her first blow, and I lanced. Short flurry. Two fish in less than hour!

Garboy went for a big bull. He had put Lord Joe at the sweep, and was going to harpoon himself. He backed, and made a fine cast. But the fish, instead of sounding, turned on their boat, and took it in his mouth. They all spilled clear except Lord Joe; the poor nigger was caught. Then the fish sounded, and made off with a tub of line. I picked up Garboy and his crew, all except Lord Joe—the nigger was gone—and I made fast to the wreckage. Garboy was wild. I never heard better swearing.

Costa and Murphy both made a kill, making four fish. And Costa picked up a lump of amber grease near his kill. Captain Peabody was very pleased with my work, but he dug into old Garboy. The mate squirmed, and it tickled me, because he has bragged so much about his record. He damned Lord Joe mightily, but Lord Joe don't mind, he is with Davy Jones. The ambergrease weighs twenty-five pounds. A fine day's work!

"There you are, 'a fine day's work,' and the pestiferous Mr. Garboy taken down a peg. I read the entire entry, but the part that really concerns us, is the part about the ambergris they picked up. Tell me, Blake, do you know anything about ambergris?"

"No, never heard of the stuff," answered Martin.

"Then we will have to digress a moment, while I attend to your neglected education," said Little Billy. "Because, from tonight, you will think of ambergris by day, and dream of it by night—ambergris in kegs, oodles of it! I don't suppose your legal training acquainted you with the technical details of the perfume industry?"

"No, I must plead ignorance," conceded Martin.

"Then pay attention," admonished Little Billy. "Ambergris, my friend, is the stuff John Winters calls ambergrease, like the good whaleman he was. It is a waxy substance, very light weight, that forms inside of a sperm whale, and which friend whale belches forth when he gets the colic from feasting too heartily upon squid. Squid, otherwise cuttle-fish, is a horrid monster, all arms and beak, which the cachalot considers a most dainty tidbit. Scientific sharks disagree as to the exact process that forms ambergris, but they all agree that it comes from an overindulgence in squid. Ambergris is very rarely obtained, especially nowadays when the whaling industry is almost dead, and it is actually worth double its weight in gold.

"It is used as a base in the manufacture of the finest perfumes. It is the best perfume base obtainable—it has the virtue of making the odor super-fine and enduring. The demand for it is insistent, and unsatisfied—doubly insistent at the present time, for the supply of the best substitute for ambergris, the sac of the Himalayan musk deer, has also been steadily waning, and has now almost been dried up by the European War. Today there is an almost unlimited market for ambergris, and the lucky seller can command his own price. The stuff is precious. We looked up prices in Frisco and found that forty dollars an ounce will be paid without haggling.

"So now you know what ambergris is, and its connection with the perfume industry. Soon you will see its connection with us. Meanwhile, let us to John Winters's journal again.

"The next relevant entry is five days later, March 31st:

This day we picked up another piece of ambergrease, floating past overside. Silva spotted it, and he gets ten pounds of tobacco as a reward. It weighed ten pounds. The Old Man is very joyous; he says it means good luck. This afternoon we raised two islands, well wooded. Captain Peabody knows these islands. They are uninhabited, and the north one is well watered. Tomorrow we wood and water.

"And then, comes the smashing denouement, the very next day, April 1, 1890:

This day there did happen to us the like which no whaleman aboard can remember. I will write it down like it happened.

This morning, at dawn, we came through the channel into the lagoon of the north island. It is a very difficult channel. A current sweeps the shore and runs through it like it was a big funnel, and all the driftage hereabouts comes into the lagoon. We let go anchor in ten fathoms, a half mile from the beach.

I was given the wooding, and Costa was told off to water. We towed the casks ashore, and landed on a fine, white beach, that was littered with driftage. While the men were rolling the casks up to the spring Captain Peabody told us about, Costa and I took a walk along the beach. We came upon a great squid lying dead. He had been bitten in two by a cachalot, and had only three arms left, but they were of tremendous length. Then we saw pieces of other squid all along the beach.

Suddenly Costa ran forward, and gave a great shout, and bent over what I had taken to be a big jelly-fish. "By Gar—grease!" says he. It was a big lump of ambergrease, the biggest any man aboard has ever seen. It weighs 198 pounds.

But this was not all. Costa and I danced around our find like madmen, and the hands came running up. Then Silva gave a shout, and we found he had discovered a lump of grease. Then we looked along the beach, and we found it was dotted with the precious stuff.

I sent Costa straightway to tell the captain, and he and Mr. Garboy came ashore in a great hurry. I never saw anybody take on like Garboy. The Old Man brought everybody ashore, except the cook and chips, and we combed the beach all the way around the lagoon, and around the seaward rim of the island. But we didn't find any grease except inside. By nightfall we had a big boatload, and we went aboard. The captain and Mr. Garboy are on the poop now, helping the cooper stow it, themselves, so afraid are they that some of it will be smuggled forward. The Old Man is dancing with joy.

"There you are—all of that entry. Just think of those two chaps dancing around their find, beside a giant dead squid! I wager that was the supreme moment of their greasy lives. I wager that old spouter seethed with excitement and gossip that night. No wonder the Old Man danced! How would you like to stumble on a windfall like that, Blake? But let us get on.

"I'll read the entry for three days later. In the interim, they had lain to anchor in the lagoon, and continued their search for more ambergris.

We did not get any more grease today, though we raked and scraped the beach. There is no more. The Old Man says he is satisfied, and we leave tomorrow morning. Everybody is speculating about how so much grease came to be here. Nobody knows for sure. Garboy says that this is a great place for squid, and that the school of Cachalot we were in a couple of weeks ago had been here feeding. He says that something was the matter with the squid and that the fish got sick and vomited the grease.

I don't know, it may be so, the stuff is full of squid beaks. But Garboy is too cocksure. Anyway we have the stuff, and stowed safe in the lazaret. Counting what we picked up before, we have 1,500 pounds. A great fortune for the owners, and a fine bonus for us. When I get home, I will buy a farm, and settle down ashore.

"So—1,500 pounds, and worth more than half a million dollars, according to prices paid in those days—today, worth a million. John Winters might well indulge in dreams of bucolic bliss; the whalemen, you know, received a substantial bonus on ambergris finds, over and above their regular lay.

"The log for the next few days is filled with the various speculations rife as to the origin of the treasure, of visions of quiet farm life in New England, and of hopes concerning a girl named Alice. Then, on April 25th, 144 deg., 48' E. Longitude, 20 deg. 33' N. Latitude—that shows they were at the northern limits of the Ladrones—he writes:

We are to have another season up north, in Okhotsk and Bering seas. The Old Man and Mr. Garboy have had a fine argument about it. Garboy says we have enough to make the owners happy, and give us all a fine lay, and that we can't trust the foremast hands with all the grease aboard.

Captain Peabody says he is going home with a full ship, grease or no grease, that the hands may be ——, that they haven't the guts to get at the grease anyway, and that it isn't the mate's place to give him advice. So Garboy shut up, and we are bound north after the baleen. Well, I think Garboy is right, though he hasn't any business offering advice to the Old Man. I am glad the Old Man shut him up. Anyway, a full ship means more dollars, and I will need plenty of dollars to start life ashore with. I will have enough to buy the old Wentworth place. I think Alice will take me, and if she don't, there are plenty of other girls in the world.

"You see, friend Winters is indulging in the time-honored pastime of spending his payday before he has it; and of vowing the usual sailor vow to leave the sea and buy a farm. Well, perhaps the poor devil was in earnest; but he didn't have a chance to achieve his ambition.

"Now we will skip to the last regular entries in the book. They are dated several months later, August of 1890, and the Good Luck has been on the northern grounds for some time. No position is given, for reasons you will appreciate. First is dated August 15th:

Still in the fog. We have been three weeks without a sight, fogbound, and blundering God knows where. The breeze holds from the southwest at about three knots, but the bank is moving with the wind. It is so thick we can not see a ship's length in any direction. The current is strong and westerly.

I know the Old Man is worried, because the Kamchatka coast is close a-lee. Garboy says he was in a bank in these seas one time for ten weeks. I think he is a liar. I am thinking a lot about Alice.

"Next entry two days later, August 17th," said the hunchback.

Still fogbound. Heavy groundswell from sou'east. Garboy says it means a sou'east blow, and I think he is right. Well, anything to blow away this cursed fog! The Old Man is drunk today. The old skinflint never hands out a swig to any of us, though. We must be near land, for we hear birds flying above the fog. All hands standing by, and we are keeping the best lookout possible. The Old Man should sober up, and attend to business.

"There, that is the last regular entry, the last one he wrote upon the ship. Here is the next one—observe the different ink! This is written in red, the same color as those figures upon the skin. I think Winters wrote with one of those red writing-sticks you buy on the China coast; he probably had one in his pocket. This entry tells of tragedy—mark how it begins:

May God have mercy! I will write down our plight, though I know there is small chance of these words reaching civilization. I sit in the window of the dry cave, on the Fire Mountain, and write by the light of the midnight sun!

Manuel Silva and I are the sole survivors of the wreck of the Good Luck. Thirty-five were lost. We are cast away on a barren island. It is a volcanic mountain, filled with black caves. There is a bottomless hole that belches steam, and the earth shakes. We do not know our latitude or longitude. God help us, we only know we are cast away in the empty Bering sea, near the Asia coast!

It happened a week ago. I had the deck. We were running before a hard gale from the sou'east, and the Old Man was drunk. It was very thick, and impossible to keep a good lookout. Then, just after two bells in the middle watch, I heard breakers. I had only time to order the wheel up, when we struck. We jammed between two monster rocks, and the masts went by the board, and the ship broke in two. The fore part went to pieces, and all the hands forward, except Silva, who was at the wheel, went to.

The stern was wedged fast. Garboy and Costa gained the deck from the cabin. The others must have drowned in their bunks. We launched the quarterboat, but it swamped, and we were spilled into the boiling sea. I was washed free of the reef, and made the beach. I found Silva there.

We were 'most frozen, and bruised badly. I got out the matches I had in the waterproof packet I carry this log in, and we made a fire of driftwood in one of the caves, and warmed ourselves. Then, we looked for the others, it being daylight, except for the couple of hours after midnight. But we found not a body.

We salvaged all the wreckage we could reach. It was not much, for the currents swept most of the stuff to sea. We got a cask of beef, and one of biscuit. The quarterboat came ashore, only a little damaged. We also got the wreckage of No. 4 whaleboat, and her gear, and some timbers, and a handy billy.

That day the gale was spent, and next day was clear and calm. We repaired the quarterboat with stuff from the whaleboat, and she is tight. Then we pulled off to the wreck, and succeeded in boarding her. Then the Devil entered into us, and we were possessed by greed. We had planned to get clothes, and stores from the lazaret; but when we got into the lazaret, we had no thought but for the treasure of ambergrease. We spent all the day getting the ambergrease to shore. We were greatly tired by the labor, and, since the wreck showed no signs of breaking up, we went into a cave and turned in.

While we slept, it came on to blow again. When we awoke, the seas were breaking over the wreck. The bay was quiet, sheltered by the mountain, so our stuff on the beach had come to no harm. But during the day the wreck broke up, and swept to sea. We salvaged but one box of candles—not a particle of the clothes and food we so sorely need. So, doth Providence justly punish us for our greed!

Silva was greatly disheartened, but I braced him up. We set about to explore the caves, with the candles; for we wanted a dry cave to sleep it, and to stow the ambergrease in. The ground-level caves are all wet from steam, though they are warm. So, we went into the mountain through the Elephant Head, toward the great noise. We came to a windy cave, where there was a great Bottomless Hole, that the noise came out of. Silva went half mad with terror, for he is very superstitious, but I saw it was steam. But it is an evil place. And afterward we found the hole in the roof that led to this dry cave.

This window I write by is the only daylight opening of the dry cave, and it is full forty feet above the beach. But we had no nerve to look deeper into the black guts of this awful place, and we decided to use this cave. So, I rigged the handy billy, and we hoisted all the grease in through the window, and stowed it. And we have taken up our quarters here, and I have made a ladder from the rope of the handy billy, so we can come in through the window, and don't have to pass through that fearsome place where the hole is.

"There—that was written a week after the wreck," said Little Billy. "The next one, three days later:

We have been here ten days now, and I think things look mighty black. Silva's nerve is gone, and I have to fight to keep mine. The mountain shakes continuously, and we fear it will erupt. And always, there is the noise, the moaning in the hole, and the great rumble. It has got Silva.

Silva has gone down to the beach to get shellfish. We are saving the beef, as much as we can. I am glad Silva is out of my sight. He is mad—and, God help me! I fear I am going mad, too. He sits and looks at me by the hour, just looks, looks, and says not a word, and his eyes burn.

I am feared of him. He is a murderer. He told me so, when his conscience mastered him. He told me why he feared the hole. He drank of the hot spring, and when he got a bellyache, he thought he was dying. Then he told me that he was one of the hands on the Argonaut, a dozen years ago, and that there was mutiny, and that he strangled the captain with his hands. And he says the moaning down in the hole is the captain calling him. He is very superstitious. Now he prays by the hour, and then curses horribly. And he goes down to the edge of the hole and howls at the captain. I try to talk with him, and plan to reach the mainland in the quarterboat, but he shakes his head, and just looks, looks. I have taken his sheath knife, but I fear to wake and find him strangling me. But I will leave here, whether he will go or not. Better to die at sea, than in this black place!

"Now—the next entry. Day or two later, I judge," said Billy.

He is gone! He was sitting opposite me, and suddenly he sings out something in his own lingo, and sprang to his feet, and rushed down toward the hole leading to the windy cave. He was laughing awfully. I followed—but could not catch him. He jumped into the hole and the noise stopped. And I stayed through the shake, and saw the lights from the pit. God help me, I wanted to jump, too!

I am going to leave this place tomorrow. I have repaired the quarterboat, and hopeless or not, I will try to reach Kamchatka. It is better than to stay here, and go mad, and follow Silva!

I have written the secret of the cave on a piece of the lining of my parka, though God knows if I shall ever need it. I have a little beef, and biscuit, and the breaker from the wreck of the whaleboat. Little enough! If I only had the latitude and longitude of this place, I might guess my chances. But—not even a compass!

"The next entry is just a scrawl," said Little Billy. "It is barely legible."

I am in the fog—the terrible gray fog! No water! I see Alice in the fog!

"And then—the end."

I see Silva sitting opposite me. He looks, looks! Lord God, hast thou deserted me?



CHAPTER XI

THE CODE

There was a moment's silence as Little Billy finished reading. There was in the hunchback's face, and in the faces of the girl and the old captain, a somber understanding of John Winters's fate.

The whaleman's pitiful experience was a commonplace of the sea, and it required no effort of mind on their part to vision the tragedy of an open boat on an empty sea. But Martin was more sharply impressed. The sea held as yet no commonplaces for him, and the poignant question that ended the castaway's chronicle kindled a flame of pity. Martin had the picture mind, and a habit of dramatizing events.

As Little Billy read, Martin had unconsciously followed the narrative with his mind's eye, building a series of vivid, connected pictures. He had witnessed the battle with the whales, the finding of the treasure, had peered baffled into the blanket of Bering fog, had seen the leaping breakers at the base of the smoking mountain, had excursioned through the caves by Winters's side, and, at last, had beheld clearly the little open boat, with its despairing occupant, disappear into the gray mist.

"The poor devil!" cried Martin.

His words broke the spell of silence that was upon the table.

"Yes—the poor devil!" echoed Little Billy. "My very words, as I finished reading, there in Kim Chee's place. 'The poor devil!' A fitting epitaph."

"But why an epitaph?" asked Martin quickly. Visions of an eleventh-hour rescue were surging through his mind. He felt one was necessary to round out his reel of pictures. "Could he not have been rescued after making that last entry? Why, he must have been rescued! How else could the journal have reached Honolulu?"

"He was picked up," interposed Ruth.

"By another whaler," added Little Billy. "Sick to death, and completely lunatic. He never recovered his reason. He died in Kim Chee's place. But I will continue my yarn, and you will see.

"You can imagine, of course, the progressive transformation I underwent, while curled up on that old sea-chest, perusing the log. I began merely with the intention of forcing my mind away from myself, and thereby quieting my booze-jangled nerves; in a moment, I was interested; then I was excited by the whalemen's discovery of the ambergris, and lastly I was overwhelmed by the fact that John Winters's Fire Mountain was identical with the Cohasset's Fire Mountain. The description clinched that fact. And to make more certain, I recalled the wreckage the captain and I had come across, and the board with the nearly effaced lettering upon it. The letters upon that board were, 'LUC,' and beneath, the word 'BEDFORD.' Of course, it was the remnant of 'Good Luck, of New Bedford.'

"It was about four o'clock in the morning when I finished the book. I summoned the Chinaman, straightway. Kim was asleep, and he came grumbling, in answer to my call. He thought I wanted drink, but John Winters had effectually doused the flame in my vitals. I had happened upon the probable clew to a vast treasure, and the thought of it obsessed me.

"I put the question to Kim as to how the journal came to be in the Chamber of Horrors. It was a poser for Kim. His old yellow face wrinkled into a thousand dark creases, in the lantern's dim light, and his shrewd, beady eyes wandered uncertainly between the book and my face. But at last he remembered, and in his forcible and inimitable manner he enlightened me.

"'Why flor you sing out? Me catchie one piecie dleam. You no catchie 'lisky? Why flor you want? Me savvy blook. Long time—one time come glease ship. Up no'lth, sailorman he catchie one fellow walk about one piecie boat alone. Velly sick. Catch 'im bats in 'liskers. Bring um Kim Chee. Sailorman go 'way— —— 'tief! No pay. Qleer fellow velly sick. No eat, no dlink, velly 'ot—all time tlalk, tlalk, about plecie glease. —— fool clazy! Bimeby die. Flind piecie blook under clothes. Kim Chee no savvy. Why flor you want blook? 'Ow much you got? Dolla flive—-all light, you take. Me go bed.'

"From which discourse, I gathered that Kim Chee had been rudely interrupted in the midst of a sweet dream; that he could not fathom my sudden distaste for whisky; that a long time ago a whaleship had come into port with a sick man aboard, whom they had picked up in an open boat, up north; that they had brought the sick man to Kim, and departed without paying over any money; that Kim Chee had cared for the sick man, until the latter died; that the sick man had been out of his head, had talked constantly of 'grease,' had been crazy; that Kim had removed the diary from the man's body, after death; that he would let me have it gladly for a dollar and five cents; that he was going back to bed and didn't want to be disturbed again by the unaccountable vagaries of a dipsomaniacal white man.

"I didn't bother Kim again. Indeed, I clasped my cheaply purchased treasure close, hied myself with speed to the docks, and had myself pulled off to the brig. My spree was ended, and I felt that I held in my hand the best piece of fortune that had befallen the happy family in many a day.

"I reasoned, you see, that the treasure of ambergris was still in its hiding-place on Fire Mountain—and subsequent events have not shaken that belief. I reasoned that Winters had been picked up some time after he had made his last entry in the log, that he was out of his head when rescued, and that he never regained sanity.

"His rescuers apparently did not bother to search him, or else, with the cunning of the crazed, Winters concealed from them his journal. If they had happened upon it, they would surely have appropriated it. Their dumping him off on Kim Chee was not so heartless as it sounds—the sick man was undoubtedly better off ashore in Hawaii than aboard a cruising whaler, and Kim Chee is famed for his charity from one end of the Pacific to the other.

"At breakfast that morning, I acquainted Ruth with the discovery, and read to her the passages I read to you. It was an exciting breakfast.

"We were waited upon by Ichi, the little Jap we shipped as cook in Hakodate. Polite, stupid, unfamiliar with the English language, we did not think it necessary to guard our speech against him. Indeed, we never gave him a thought, and we discussed my find pro and con very freely. We dwelt upon the value of the treasure, verified the Good Luck's reported loss by research, congratulated ourselves upon our knowledge of the position of Fire Mountain—all in the hearing of the self-effacing Ichi. We were only daunted by the prospect of searching blindly through that cave-riddled mountain. Then, Ruth found the code."

"Yes, it was pure luck," interposed Ruth. "I was examining the book, and I noticed a crack in the length of the cover. I looked more closely and discovered that the cover had been slit lengthwise, and that a piece of skin had been inserted."

"That is it—Exhibit A," said Little Billy. He pointed to the white strip on the table. "We recognized it instantly as the piece of parka lining Winters mentions using to write upon the secret of the cave. It is a piece of the skin of an unborn reindeer. The Kamchatka tribes line their fur garments with that skin, and Winters had evidently obtained his parka from them. The writing, you see, is all numerals."

Martin picked up and inspected the skin curiously. Unborn reindeer skin! He rubbed the glossy substance between his fingers. It felt uncanny to his touch, this relic of a long-past tragedy, this message from the world's end. And the message seemed to be no more than a faded jumble of figures. He read them carefully, searching in vain for some hint of meaning.

43344544536153314612151113236243361531153523113344 62315111464643441142123411421465224331454613115115 62635344244611313421446333442442361334423315426144 254613115115

[Transcriber's note: the first two rows of the above numbers in the source book had been defaced to the point of being almost unreadable. A best guess was made on some of them.]

"But how do you know this is a code?" Martin asked curiously.

"Three excellent reasons," said Little Billy. "First, John Winters mentions writing down the secret of the treasure's location, and we discover this skin; second, your genial former employer deciphered these figures for the affable Ichi; third, Ruth and I proved the correctness of the deciphering this morning.

"I guess I had better acquaint you with the method of this means of communication. I don't know how a simple seaman, like John Winters seems to have been, could have become familiar with the art of cryptography—probably from reading, possibly devised the thing himself. It is very simple once you have the key—quite useful, too. Ruth and I talked to each other through a wall by this code, back there in Bob Carew's lair. Consultation with Poe's Gold Bug, and an hour's application that morning after breakfast, gave me the key, though I had no chance that day to discover more. It is what is called a 'checker-board' code. Here, I will draw it out!"

The hunchback turned to a blank space in the diary and rapidly sketched a diagram. He handed it across, for Martin's interested inspection, and Martin beheld the following:

1 2 3 4 5 1 a b c c e - - - - - 2 f g h i j - - - - - 3 l m n o p - - - - - 4 q r s t u - - - - - 5 v w x y z

Number 6 for spacing between words

"You will observe that the letter 'k' is missing," said Little Billy. "You use 'c' for 'k,' and to write a message, you merely write down the line the letter is on, and its position on that line. Thus, in Winters's message, the first two numerals are '43.' That means, fourth line, third letter, or the letter 's.' You see, you take the numbers in pairs—that is, until you reach a number 6.

"There are no numbers in the code above 5, so Winters used a 6 to indicate the spaces between words. To illustrate: Winters's secret begins with the numbers 43344544236. Pair these numbers off, and we have 43-34-45-44-23-6. Decipher with the diagram, and we have, 4th line 3rd letter, or 's,' 3rd line 4th letter, or 'o,' 4th line 5th letter, or 'u,' 4th line 4th letter, or 't,' 2nd line 3rd letter, or 'h.' That makes s-o-u-t-h, or the word 'south.'

"But there is no need of my continuing the translation. Friend Smatt has kindly attended to that for us. Here it is."

Martin took the proffered piece of paper, the piece of paper covered with Smatt's handwriting, that had come out of the envelope. He read in Lawyer Smatt's bold, angular hand,

South end beach—in elephant head—4 starboard—windy cave—2 port—aloft—north corner dry cave.

"That marks the location of our prospective, odorous loot," continued the hunchback. "No doubt about it. The captain and I remember very well the cave opening in the rock shaped like an elephant's head, on the south end of Fire Mountain's beach. It is up to us to get there first."

"But how did Smatt—" commenced Martin.

"How did Smatt come to be in possession of the skin? I am coming to that. The Jap, Ichi, brought it to him.

"That morning, after Ruth and I had discussed the diary, Ruth set out for shore to visit the captain in the hospital. She took Winters's book along with her to read to the captain—good thing she did, as it turned out. I stayed aboard and tackled the code. As I said, I discovered the key after an hour's or so application. That is, I had fathomed the checkerboard, had drawn a diagram, and had begun to decipher. Then my much-abused body went on strike.

"You remember, I was just at the end of an extended spree. For a week I had swum in stimulants and gone without rest. I was near a breakdown when Kim Chee took me in hand. The discovery of the log braced me up. But all of a sudden, while I was working here in the cabin, over that scrap of reindeer skin, I collapsed.

"I called for Ichi and ordered black coffee. I remember he answered my call by materializing almost instantly at my side. He must have been lingering behind my chair—though I do not recollect seeing him about the cabin after Ruth left for shore. He brought me a large cup of black coffee. I drank it, and went promptly to sleep. It may have been a drug, or it may have been nature having her way with me."

"It was drugged coffee the Jap gave you," stated Captain Dabney with finality. "I know those yellow imps!"

Martin started at the blind man's sudden interjection into the conversation. Since he had concluded his story, Captain Dabney had sat listening, immobile and silent. At times Martin had suspected him of dozing. But now, his emphatic outburst proved that he had followed Little Billy's words closely.

"That Ichi lad was no dunderhead," continued the captain. "He was playing a part aboard here. He was commissioned by that Hakodate crowd to discover our trading points—if this ambergrease affair hadn't turned up and tempted him, he would have stayed with us and made the trip north this Summer. Then next year a couple of Jap schooners would have gone ahead of us, peddling booze to the tribes, and killing the goose that laid the golden egg. Blast their yellow hides! I never traded with a trustworthy Jap in my life."

"Yes, he was doubtless a spy of the syndicate," assented Little Billy. "Certainly he was playing a part aboard here, for when I ran across him yesterday morning, in Frisco, he was anything but the cookie of a wind-jammer, and his English showed a remarkable improvement.

"In any event, whether Ichi drugged my coffee or not, I was dead to the world as soon as I swallowed it. When the boatswain came aboard—he had been ashore for a couple of days, searching for me—in the middle of the afternoon, he found me asleep in my chair. He thought I was drunk, and he picked me up and carried me to my bunk. When Ruth came aboard later, bringing the captain with her, it was discovered that Ichi had vanished, and Ruth had to prepare the cabin supper that night. I slept till morning. When I awoke, I discovered that Winters's code had vanished with the cook."

"We also discovered that Ichi had tried unsuccessfully to open the safe in the captain's room," said Ruth. "He was undoubtedly after the old log book that contained the entry about the discovery of Fire Mountain, including the latitude and longitude."

"Well, he was successful enough in making off with the code," said Little Billy. "We combed Honolulu for him that day, without result. Two ships had left the afternoon before—one bound for the Orient, the other for California. Our missing cookie appeared upon the passenger list of neither vessel, but we concluded that he had taken steerage passage for Yokohama.

"The loss of the code was a serious matter. Of course, we knew the location of the island, and we were determined to square away for Fire Mountain as soon as the season permitted, but we were rather dismayed by the prospect of having to search blindly through that labyrinth of caves for the Good Luck's treasure. That Winters and Silva had stowed the stuff in some well-concealed place was evident from the entry in the log, and from the use of a code. We were dubious of success in our quest until last night.

"Jump from Hawaii to San Francisco. We came up to Frisco, you know, to consult some specialists about the captain's eyesight. Yesterday, the captain came aboard from the hospital. We were lying off Angel Island, ready for sea, and awaiting the captain's word to up anchor and away for the Bering—it will be the open season up there by the time we have completed the passage.

"Yesterday was a holiday with us. It was the occasion of our revered and beloved chief mate's twenty-first natal day, and in the morning, the boatswain and I set forth for shore in search of suitable offerings."

"I know—you were setting forth to buy flowers," broke in Martin. "Bosun told me—you got——"

"We got lost from each other; intentionally lost on my part, as I confessed to you. Well, friend Ichi was the innocent cause of that harrowing separation.

"It happened in one of the many thirst parlors that line Market Street. The bosun and I had stepped in to wet our whistles, and, looking out of the open door, I was astounded to perceive our truant cookie pass by. The bosun was occupied at the moment with a nickel poker machine. I did not disturb him—he is a hasty, straightforward person and unfitted for a subtle pursuit. I slipped through the door and fell into the wake of the Jap. But what a metamorphosed sea-cook I trailed! Resplendent in fine feathers, Ichi looked more like a diplomat or banker than anything else.

"I trailed him through the streets for an hour. Once he stopped before a news-stand and purchased a paper, and I was close enough to overhear him speak perfect English to the clerk. He finally led me into an office building, up an elevator, and to the office of one Josia Smatt, Attorney at Law. Ichi entered this office. I, following by the elevator's next trip, saw him disappear through the door. I applied my eagle eye to the aperture intended for keys and spying, and saw you, my dear Blake, direct the Oriental blossom into an inner office.

"Along the hall meandered one of the loquacious brotherhood, book under arm, conquest in his eye. Inspiration struck me a thump. I fell in the way of the book agent and became a ready victim of his wiles. For a consideration, I became owner of the volume. As soon as he had my money, the agent made for the stairs, evidently fearing I would repent my bargain. When he had disappeared, I adopted his role and burst in upon the hapless clerk of Lawyer Smatt with the matchless 'Compendium of Universal Knowledge.'

"You know what transpired then, for you were that very hapless clerk. You were very pleasant to the poor book agent, Blake, but you refused to be seduced by the alluring description I gave my wares."

"By George! You talked like a sure-enough book pest," asserted Martin. "But I noticed something phony about you—your tanned face, and the tattoo marks on your arms. I remember, I wondered how a book agent came by such ornaments."

"Yes, and I noticed you wondered why my eyes were roving around your office," added Little Billy. "I was looking for Ichi. I placed him in that inner office, heard his voice, and the voice of your employer. I was wondering what to do to get past you and attempt to spy upon them, and then Smatt helped me out by summoning you. Do you recollect, when you dismissed me and entered the inner office, you saw me leaving the outer office? Yes, you did—not. You had no sooner closed the inner office-door behind you than I was at the keyhole.

"I tried first to overhear. Nothing doing. Couldn't distinguish but an occasional word. Then, I placed my eye to the keyhole. I saw you standing before the desk, Ichi staring at you, and Smatt addressing you. I saw Smatt hand over the envelope. I was morally certain it contained the code, from the care Smatt exercised and the interest Ichi showed. Then you started for the door, and I had to beat a hasty retreat. I guess I reached the hallway about the same instant you opened the door from the inner office."

"I felt your presence!" cried Martin, recalling of a sudden his feeling of that moment the previous afternoon. "I remember I looked out——"

"—Into the hall," finished Little Billy. "Yes—I was concealed around the corner of the cross corridor. I saw you. I left the building at a double quick and made for the water-front. I went aboard and told Ruth and the captain what I had discovered. Then Ruth and I went ashore.

"I was sure you had the code in your possession, and I had overheard enough to know that you were to deliver the envelope to somebody, some place, last night. So, you were the unconscious burden of our thoughts, the prospective victim of our wiles.

"I had obtained your name from the janitor of the office building, by pretending I was searching for a friend who worked in one of the offices. Consultation of the city directory gave us your home address, and we headed in that direction. First, though, we picked up the bosun, hard by where I had deserted him. His condition was rather bibulous, but owing to his hollow legs and ivory dome, he was clear-headed and able to fall in with our plans. A shrewd-enough person is the bosun, an actor of no mean ability. His strategy served us well in the evening.

"Well, having the bosun, we set forth to gather information concerning your own estimable self. We went to your boarding-house. I donned the role of census-taker for the new city directory, and interviewed the chatty Mrs. Meagher. From her I learned the names and occupations of all the boarders in the house; specifically, I was informed of your orphaned and comparatively friendless condition, your age, your lodge, your studious habits, and your very, very respectable residence. From another source we later learned of your adorable curly brown hair, your calm, gray eyes, your strange aversion for the dangerous sex, even though they be 'puffick loidies.' A fellow lodger of yours gave us most of our information—or, let us say, a companion lodger. A lady, a 'puffick loidy,' a gimlet-eyed and talkative maiden, with a glorious crown of golden hair—though, alas, I fear 'tis a drug-store gold."

"Good Lord—Miss Pincher!" exclaimed Martin.

He felt his ears burning, and knew he was blushing. Confound that manicure girl! "Adorable hair—calm eyes" indeed! He shot a glance at Ruth. She was laughing at his discomfiture.

"We discovered she lodged in your house and we trailed her to the beauty parlor where she labors. Ruth pumped her."

"Oh, you are a fine favorite of hers," rallied Ruth. "She swears by you, Mr. Blake. I happened to casually mention your name, and she was charmed by the coincidence of your being a mutual friend. She gave you a very fine character indeed, though, she hated to admit, you were not as gallant as you might be. 'Regular goop with goils,' I believe she said."

"Silly little mush-head," mumbled Martin, greatly confused. "Suppose she told you everything she knew about me."

"Yes, and then some," remarked Little Billy. "Oh, Ruth has your entire history, Martin Blake. But I would not blush about it. Indeed, if my record were as good as yours, I would straighten my back. Ruth came out of that beauty-parlor with a record that goes something like this: very good-looking, muscular, studious, poor but honest, does not drink or smoke to excess, though has been known to swear violently and indulge in combat on occasion of coalman flogging horse up a hill, is impervious to wiles of beskirted siren, be her hair ever so yellow, and her eyes ever so blue.

"Frankly, we were disappointed by your uncompromising rectitude, friend Martin. We were, you see, greatly desirous of obtaining that envelope you had in your pocket. We had hoped to discover some weakness, some vice, in your composition—a fondness for drink, or for women, or for cards—something we might use as a leverage to pry loose from you that envelope. We failed in our quest, and we had to abandon our safe scheme of cunning in favor of more direct and violent methods.

"We hired an automobile for the day—I'll wager that garage man was peevish when he discovered his machine abandoned in an alleyway, today—and Ruth and the bosun departed for that neighborhood that lodged you. I waited around the office, and when you left I trailed you home.

"I met Ruth and bosun, and we hit upon a plan. I went to a clothing store and purchased a suit of men's clothes, and overcoat, and a cap. Ruth donned them in the privacy of the car. Then, she and I took up our position in the dark doorway of the vacant house next door to you."