"Yes, she is a fine ship," answered Luke, with a momentary thought of the Terrific.

"Tell me," went on Carr, confidentially plucking Luke's sleeve, "when she is going to the bottom, and I'll do a line for you—make your fortune for you. You'd not be the first man who has come to me, with his hair hardly dry, for a cheque."

Luke laughed and went away in answer to Mrs. Harrington's beckoning finger.

Fitz was coming towards Agatha and her companion.

"Holloa!" exclaimed Carr, "I'm blowed if here is not a second edition of the same man."

"His brother," explained Agatha, who saw Fitz coming, although she was apparently looking the other way.

"Royal Navy," muttered Carr.

"Yes."

"Then I'm off. Can't get on with Royal Navy men, somehow."

With a jovial nod and something remarkably near a wink, Willie Carr left her, shouldering his way through the crowd with that good- natured boisterousness of manner which is accepted by the world for honesty.

Agatha was looking the other way when Fitz came to her, and he was forced to touch her and repeat his desire to be accorded a dance before she became aware of his proximity.

"Certainly," she answered rather carelessly, "if you want one. I— "—she paused with infinite skill and looked down at her own dress— "I thought I had displeased you."

Fitz looked slightly surprised.

"What an absurd thing to think!" he said rather lamely.

She glanced up with pert coquetry.

"Then it was only oblivion or indifference."

"What was only oblivion or indifference?" he asked, still smiling as he compared cards.

"Your very obvious delay in coming," she answered. "Considering that we have known each other since we were children, it is only natural that I should want to dance with you."

"Considering that we have known each other since we were children," he said, repeating her words and tone, "may I have a third?"

"Yes," with a frank nod. "And"—she paused, and looking round saw Luke going away in the opposite direction with Mrs. Harrington—"and will you take me to have some coffee now? I am engaged for this dance, but no matter."

Fitz gave her his arm and turned to hitch his sword higher. He made sure that the blade was well home, shutting in the little red spot of gathering rust—a tear.

When they had at length passed through the eager crowd and found a resting-place in a smaller room, Agatha looked up at Fitz as he handed her her coffee, and did not pretend to hide the admiration with which she regarded him.

"You know," she said, "you are a great favourite with Mrs. Harrington."

"She is always very kind to me."

Fitz was a difficult person to gossip with by reason of his quiet directness of manner. He had a way of abruptly finishing his speech without the usual lowering of the voice. And it is just that small drop of half a tone that invites further confidence. In such small matters as these lies the secret of conversational success, and by such trivial tricks of the tongue we are daily and hourly deceived. The man or the woman who lowers the tone at the end of speech defers to the listener's opinion, and usually receives it. The manner with which Fitz broke off led his listener to believe that he was not attending to the conversation. Agatha therefore baited her hook more heavily.

"Like many women, she thinks that sailors are superior to the rest of mankind," she said, with just enough lightness of tone to be converted into a screen if necessary. But she heaved a little sigh before she drank her coffee.

Fitz had not decided whether all this referred to himself or to Luke. He hoped that Agatha had, so to speak, brought her guns to bear upon him, because of himself he was sure, of Luke he was doubtful. As a matter of curiosity he pursued the conversation.

"And you," he said, "look upon such mistaken persons with the mingled pity and contempt that they deserve?"

"No," she answered, with audacious calmness, as she rose and passed before him; "for I think the same."

She cleverly deprived him of the opportunity of answering, and pushed her way through the crowd alone, allowing him to follow.

Before she danced with him again, she danced with Luke, and her humour seemed to have undergone a change.

There are some men who, like salmon, never go back. They push on, and that which they have gained they hold to though it cost them their lives. Luke FitzHenry was one of these, and Agatha found that in the London ball-room she could take back nothing that she had given on board the Croonah. Luke, it is to be presumed, had old- fashioned theories which have fallen into disuse in these practical modern days wherein we flirt for one night only, for a day, for a week, according to convenience. He could not lay aside the voyage to Malta and that which occurred then as a matter of the past; and Agatha, surprised and at a loss, did not seem to know how to make him do so.

She learnt with a new wonder that the rest of this ball—namely, that part of his programme which did not refer to her, the dances he was to dance with partners other than herself—counted as nothing. For him this ball was merely herself. There was not another woman in the room—for him. He told her this and other things. Moreover, the sound of it was quite new to her. For the modern young man does not make serious love to such women as Agatha Ingham-Baker.



CHAPTER VI. THE COUNT STANDS BY.

La discretion d'un homme est d'autant plus grande qu'on lui demande davantage.

"I want you to ask me to dinner!"

The Count de Lloseta bowed as he made this remark, and looked at his companion with a smile.

At times Mrs. Harrington gave way to a momentary panic in respect to Cipriani de Lloseta—when she was not feeling very well, perhaps. Her situation seemed to be somewhat that of a commander holding an impregnable position against a cunning foe. For every position of such a nature is impenetrable only so long as it can meet and defy each new engine of warfare that is brought against it. And one day the fatal engine is invented.

Mrs. Harrington looked into his face with a flicker in her drawn grey eyes. Then she gave a little laugh which was not quite free from uneasiness.

"Why?" she asked sardonically. "Have you fallen in love with some one at last?"

She knew that this taunt would hurt him. Besides, she liked to throw it at the memory of a woman whom she had hated—Cipriani de Lloseta's dead wife.

"I should like to be of your party to-night," he said quietly.

She gave another scornful laugh, with that ring of malice in it which thrills in the voice of some elderly women when they speak of young girls.

"Eve is to be of our party to-night," she said. "Ah—that would be too absurd—a new Adam! You! But, mind you, Agatha will be here too. You will have to be careful how you play your cards, Don Juan! However, we dine at eight, and I shall be glad to see you."

De Lloseta took up his hat and stick. With Mrs. Harrington, and with no one else perhaps in London, he still observed the stiff Spanish manner. He bowed without offering to shake hands, and left her.

Mrs. Harrington—cold, calculating, essentially worldly—looked at the closed door with deep speculation in her eyes. They were hard eyes, such as are only to be seen in a woman's face; for an old man has usually picked up a little charity somewhere on the road through life.

Then she looked at a hundred-pound note which he had tossed across the table to her with a silent Catalonian contempt earlier in the proceedings.

"I thought he was rather easy to manage," she said, examining the note. "I thought he wanted something. He has paid this—for his dinner."

The Count moreover appeared to consider the entertainment cheap at the price, if his manner was to be relied upon. For he entered the drawing-room at eight o'clock the same evening with an unusually pleasant air of anticipatory enjoyment. He shook hands quite gaily with Mrs. Ingham-Baker, who bridled stoutly, and thought that he was a very distinguished-looking man despite his dark airs. He received Agatha's careless nod and shake of the hand with a murmured politeness; with Eve he shook hands in silence. Then he turned rather suddenly upon Fitz and held out his hand gravely.

"I congratulate you," he said. "When I last had the pleasure of seeing you, I did not suspect that I was entertaining a great man unawares—you were too humble."

Fitz involuntarily glanced towards Eve, knowing that the speaker had a second meaning. Eve was watching the Count rather curiously, as if wondering how he would greet Fitz. Every one in the room was looking at the Count de Lloseta; for this quiet-spoken Spaniard was a distinct factor in the life of each one of them.

They fell to talking of commonplace matters, and presently Mrs. Harrington rustled in. The servants were only awaiting her arrival to announce that dinner was ready.

She looked round.

"We are short of men," she said. "We miss Luke, do we not?"

She looked straight at Agatha, who returned her stare with audacious imperturbability. It was only Luke's presence that unsteadied her. When he was away, she could hold her own against the world.

"I have never seen Luke," said Eve to the Count, who had been commanded to offer her his arm. "I am so sorry to have missed him."

Agatha, who was in front, beneath them on the stairs, turned and looked up at her with a strange smile. She either did not heed the Count, or she undervalued his powers of observation.

"You would undoubtedly have liked him," said the Spaniard.

At the table there was considerable arranging of the seats, and finally De Lloseta was placed at one side with Mrs. Ingham-Baker, while the two girls sat side by side opposite to them.

Fitz was at the foot of the table.

In the course of conversation the Spaniard leant across and said to Agatha -

"Have you seen this month's Commentator, Miss Ingham-Baker?"

An unaccountable silence fell upon the assembled guests. Eve Challoner's face turned quite white. Her eyes were lowered to her plate. No one looked at her except the Count, and his glance was momentary.

"Yes—and of course I have read the Spanish sketch. I suppose every one in London has! It makes me want to go to Spain."

Mrs. Ingham-Baker bridled and glanced at the Spaniard. Agatha might be a countess yet—a foreign one, but still a countess. Fitz was looking at De Lloseta. He naturally concluded that it was he who had written the article. He was still watching his face when the Spaniard turned to him and said -

"And you, Fitz? You know something about the matter too!"

And Eve Challoner betrayed herself completely. No one happened to be looking at her except Cipriani de Lloseta, and he saw that not only had she written the celebrated articles, but that she loved Fitz. Fitz's opinion was the only one worth hearing. In her anxiety to hear it, she quite forgot to guard her secret.

"Yes," answered Fitz, wondering what De Lloseta was leading up to. "I have read them both, of course. I hope there are more. The man knows what he is writing about."

"He does," said the Count, smiling across the table at Eve.

The girl was moistening her lips, which seemed suddenly to have become dry and feverish. Her hands were trembling. She had evidently been terribly afraid of the opinion so innocently asked by the Spaniard.

De Lloseta changed the subject at once. He had found out all that he wanted to know, and more. He had no intention of forcing a confidence upon Eve.

The burthen of the conversation fell upon his shoulders. Fitz, no great talker at any time, was markedly quiet. He had nothing to offer for the general delectation. His remarks upon all subjects mooted were laconic and valueless. The duties as temporary host occupied him for the moment, and his thoughts were obviously elsewhere. His attitude towards Eve had been friendly, but rather reserved. There was no suggestion of sulkiness, but on the other hand he had failed to take advantage of one or two opportunities which she had given him of referring to the past and to any mutual obligations or common interests they had had therein. It happened that Agatha had heard her give him these openings, and had noticed his lack of enterprise.

Agatha Ingham-Baker had long before conceived a strange suspicion— namely, that Eve and Fitz loved each other. She had absolutely nothing to base her suspicions upon, not so much even as the gossips of Majorca. And nevertheless her suspicions throve, as such do, and grew into conviction.

Agatha had come down early to the drawing-room on purpose to establish her right over Fitz. She found De Lloseta in the hall, and he followed her into the room. Whenever she attempted to demonstrate her right to the attention of the only young man present by one of those little glances or words with which women hurt each other, De Lloseta seemed to step in, intercepting with his dark smile. At dinner, when Fitz was absent-minded, Agatha managed to show the others that she alone could follow him into the land of his reflections and call him back from thence. But on several occasions, when she was about to turn to him with a smile which was especially reserved for certain young men under certain circumstances, Cipriani de Lloseta spoke to her and spoilt the small manoeuvre.

Eve saw it all. She saw more than the acute Spaniard. Firstly, because she was a woman. Secondly, because she loved Fitz. Thirdly, because the inken curse was hers in a small degree, and people who dabble in ink often wade deep into human nature.



CHAPTER VII. A VOYAGE.

And hence one master passion in the breast, Like Aaron's serpent, swallows all the rest.

Life is, after all, a matter of habit. In those families where rapid consumption is hereditary, the succeeding generations seem to get into the habit of dying early. They take it, without complaint, as a matter of course. Sailors and other persons who lead a rough and hazardous life seem also to acquire this philosophy of existence. Luke FitzHenry went to sea again on the day appointed for the Croonah to leave London, without so much as a snarl at Fate.

It was a great wrench to him to leave Agatha again so soon, in the first full force of his passion. But he left her almost happily. His love for her was rising up and filling his whole existence. And it is not those lives that are frittered away in a thousand pastimes that are happy. It is the strong life wholly absorbed by one great interest, be it love or be it merely money-making.

Luke had hitherto been rather an aimless man. He was a brilliant sailor, not because he set himself to the task, but merely because seamanship was born in him, together with a dogged steadiness of nerve and a complete fearlessness. It was so easy to be a good sailor that he had not even the satisfaction of having to make an effort. His heart was empty. He had indeed the sea, but his love of it was unconscious. Away from it, he was ill at ease; on its breast, he was not actively happy—he was merely at home. But he had no career. He had no great prize to aim for, and his combative nature required one. He had no career to make, for he was already near the summit of the humble ladder on which Fate had set his feet.

Then came Agatha, and the empty heart was filled with a dangerous suddenness.

The pain which this parting caused him had something of pleasure in it. There are some men and many women who doubt love unless it bring actual pain with it. Luke had always mistrusted fate, and had love brought happiness with it he would probably have doubted its genuineness. He hugged all his doubts, his jealousies, his passionate thoughts to himself. He had nothing to cling to. Agatha had never told him that she loved him. But she was for him so entirely apart from all other women that it seemed necessary that he also should not be as other men for her. Not much for a lover to live upon during four or five months!

Agatha had given him a photograph of herself—a fashionable picture in an affected pose in evening dress—but she had absolutely refused to write. This photograph Luke put into a frame, and as soon as the Croonah was out of dock he hung it up in his little cabin. His servant saw it and recognised the fair passenger of a former voyage, but he knew his place and his master too well to offer any comment.

Unlike the ordinary young man, whose thoughts are lightly turned to love, Luke was no worse a sailor for his self-absorption. All his care, all his keen, fearless judgment were required; for the Croonah ran through a misty channel into a boisterous Atlantic.

He stood motionless at his post, as was his wont, keen and alert for the moment, but living in the past. He saw again Mrs. Harrington's drawing-room as he had last seen it, with Agatha sitting in a low chair near the fire, while Mrs. Harrington wrote at her desk, and Mrs. Ingham-Baker read the Times.

"I have come," he remembered saying, "to bid you good-bye."

He heard again the rustle of Mrs. Ingham-Baker's newspaper, and again he saw the look in Agatha's eyes as they met his. He would remember that look to the end of his life; he was living on it now. Agatha, in her rather high-pitched society tones, was the first to speak.

"If I were a sailor," she said, "I would never say good-bye. It is better to drop in and pay a call; at the end one might casually mention the words."

"Oh! we grow accustomed to it," Luke answered.

"Do you?" the girl inquired, with an enigmatical smile, and her answer was in his eyes. She did not want him to grow accustomed to saying farewell to her.

Luke FitzHenry was not inclined to sociability—the stronger sort of man rarely is. On board the Croonah he was usually considered morose and self absorbed. He did his duty, and in this was second to no man on board; but he was content to get the passengers to their destination, looking upon the Croonah as a mere conveyance for a certain number of chattering, gossiping, mischief-making live- stock. He utterly failed in his social duties; he did not cultivate the art of making his ship a sort of floating "hydro".

The boisterous weather kept the decks fairly select until Gibraltar had been left behind in the luminous haze that hangs over the mouth of the Mediterranean in a westerly breeze. But in the smoother waters of the Southern seas the passengers plucked up courage, and one morning at breakfast Luke perceived a tall, heavy-shouldered man nodding vigorously, and wiping his mouth with a napkin, which he subsequently waved with friendly jocularity.

"Morning—morning!" he cried.

"Good morning," replied Luke, passing to his seat at the after-end of the saloon. He had recognised the man at once, although he had only exchanged a few words with him in a crowded ball-room. Everything connected with Agatha, however remotely, seemed to engrave itself indelibly on his mind. This was Willie Carr, the man to whom Agatha had introduced him at the naval orphanage ball. Willie Carr was on board the Croonah, evidently quite at home, and bound for India, for he was seated at the Indian table.

It was not necessary for Luke to make inquiries about this passenger, because his brother officers soon began to speak of him. By some means Carr made himself popular among the officers, and gradually began to enjoy privileges denied to his fellow passengers. He frequently visited the engine-room, and was always to be seen after meals in, or in the neighbourhood of, the smoking-room, in conversation with one or other of the Croonah's officers, who were generally found to be smoking Carr's cigars.

Despite many obvious and rather noisy overtures of friendship, Luke FitzHenry held aloof until the Aden light was left behind. He succeeded in limiting his intercourse to an exchange of passing remarks on the weather until the Croonah had rounded Pointe de Galle and was heading northwards. Then arose circumstances which brought them together, and possibly served Willie Carr's deliberate purpose.

Carr was travelling without his wife—he was the sort of man who does travel without his wife. She, poor woman, had made one initial mistake, namely, in marrying him, and such mistakes are sometimes paid for by a life of atonement to the gods. She remained at home to care for an ever-increasing family on a small housekeeping allowance, which was not always paid.

This wife was the only point in his favour which had presented itself to Luke's mind, for the latter resented a certain tone of easy familiarity, which Agatha seemed to take as a matter of course.

Luke was afraid of being questioned about Agatha, and he therefore kept Carr at a respectful distance. He harboured no personal dislike towards the man, whose bluff and honest manner made him popular among his fellows.

It was the evening of the first day in the Bay of Bengal that a steamer passed the Croonah, running south, and flying a string of signals. The Croonah replied, and the homeward-bound vessel disappeared in the gathering twilight with her code flags still flying.

"What did she say?" asked the passengers.

"Nothing," replied the officers; "only the weather. It is the change of the monsoon."

At dinner the captain was remarkably grave; he left the table early, having eaten little. The officers were reticent, as was their wont. Luke FitzHenry, it was remarked and remembered afterwards, alone appeared to be in good spirits.

After dinner a busybody in the shape of a too intelligent young coffee-planter, who possessed an aneroid barometer, brought that instrument to the smoking-room with a scared face. The needle was deflected to a part of the dial which the intelligent young planter had hitherto considered to be merely ornamental and not intended for practical use. His elders and betters told him to put it away and not to tell the ladies. Then they continued smoking; but they knew that they had just seen such a barometer as few men care to look upon.

The word "cyclone" was whispered in one corner of the cabin, and a white-moustached general was understood to mutter -

"Damned young fool!" as he pulled at his cheroot.

The whisperer did not hear the remark, and went on to give further information on atmospheric disturbances. Suddenly the field-officer jumped to his feet.

"Look here, sir!" he cried. "If we are in for a cyclone, I trust that we know how to behave as men—and die as men, if need be! But don't let us have any whispering in corners, like a lot of schoolgirls. We are in the care of good men, and all we have to do is to obey orders, and—damn it, sir!—to remember we're Englishmen!"

The general walked out of the smoking-saloon, and the first sight that greeted his eyes was Luke FitzHenry, quick, keen, and supernaturally calm, standing over a group of Malay sailors who were hard at work getting in awnings. The white-haired soldier stood and watched with the grim silence which he had showed to death before now. He was of the Indian army. He had led the black man to victory and death, and he knew to a nerve the sensitive Asiatic organisation. He saw that it was good and not for the first time he noted the sheep-like dependence with which the black men grouped themselves round their white leader, watching his face, taking their cue in expression, in attitude, even in their feelings from him.

"Good man," muttered the general to himself.

He stood there alone while the ship was stripped of every awning, while the decks were cleared of all that hamper which makes the passenger an encumbrance at sea. There was no shouting, no confusion, no sign of fear. In a marvellously short time the broad decks were lying bare and clear, all loose things were stowed away or made fast, and the Croonah stood ready for her great fight.

All the while an arc of black cloud had been growing on the horizon. There was not a breath of wind. From the engine-rooms the thud of the piston-rods came throbbing up with a singular distinctness. The arc of cloud had risen halfway to the meridian. There were streaks in it—streaks of yellow on black. Far away to the north, at the point of contact with the horizon, a single waterspout rose like a black pillar from sea to cloud. Dwellers in the cool and temperate zones would have thought that the end of the world was about to come. Men, standing quite still, felt the drops of perspiration trickling beneath their ears. The air taken into the lungs seemed powerless to expand them. The desire to take a deeper breath was constant and oppressive.

A quartermaster brought a message to the general that he must go below or else come up to the lower bridge. He could not stay where he was. The captain said that the cyclone might break at any moment. The old soldier nodded, and made his way to the lower bridge. Before he had been there long he was joined by Carr, who carried a mackintosh over his arm. The two men nodded. The general rather liked Carr. He was a Harrovian, and the general's son was at Harrow.

"Going to see it out on deck?" he inquired.

"Rather. I'm not going to be drowned like a rat in a trap!" replied Carr, jovial still, and brave.

Luke came to the bridge and took up his position by the side of the captain. No one spoke.

From the distant horizon—from the north where the waterspout still was—a long groan floated over the water. There was a green line on the black surface of the ocean, dark green flecked with white; it was spreading over the sea, and coming towards them. Luke turned and said one word to the quartermaster. The man went to the wheelhouse and brought out three long black oilskin coats—two for the captain and Luke, the other for himself.

The groan, like that of an animal in pain, was repeated. It seemed farther off. Then a sound like the escape of steam from an engine came apparently from the sky.

Luke said something to the captain, and pointed with his right hand. They consulted together in a whisper, and the captain made a signal to the two steersmen motionless in the wheelhouse. The well-greased chains ran smoothly, and the great black prow of the Croonah crept slowly round the horizon pointing out to sea, away from the land. Ceylon lay astern of them in the darkness which was almost like night.

The captain and Luke stood side by side on the little bridge, far above the deck. They had exchanged their gold-braided caps for sou'westers. The outline of their black forms was just distinguishable against the sky. They were looking straight ahead into the yellow streaks, out over the flecked sea. And not a breath of wind stirred the leaden atmosphere.

Looking down on the broad decks, it would seem at first that they were deserted, but as the eye became accustomed to the gloom, men standing like shadows could be perceived here and there—at their posts—waiting.

All the skylights had been doubly tarpaulined. Some of them had been strengthened with battens lashed transversely over the canvas. All that mortal brain could devise mortal hand had done. The rest was with God.

The decks were quite dark, for the skylights were covered, even those of the engine-room, and the men at work down there in the stifling heat knew not what the next moment might bring. They had nothing to guide them as to the moment when the hurricane would strike the ship. For the last five minutes they had been holding on to their life-rails with both hands, expecting to be thrown among the machinery at every second.

Still there was no breath of wind. The darkness was less intense. A yellow glow seemed to be behind the cloud.

Then a strange feeling of being drawn upward came to all, and strong men gasped for breath. It was only for a moment. But the sensation was that the air was being sucked up to the sky, leaving a vacuum on the face of the waters.

Suddenly the captain's voice startled the night, rising trumpet-like above the hiss of the steam.

"Stand BY!" he cried.

Luke looked down to the lower bridge.

"You had better hold on to something," he called, and as he spoke the hurricane struck the Croonah. It can only be described as a pushing smack. She rolled slowly over before it, and it seemed that she would never stop.



CHAPTER VIII. A GREAT FIGHT.

Who knows? The man is proven by the hour.

The sea seemed to rise up and fall on the disabled ship with a wild fury. There was a strange suggestion of passion in every wave as it crashed over the bulwarks. In the roar of the hurricane there was a faint sound of crackling wood. The deck was at an angle of thirty. The port boats on their davits were invisible; they were under water. If the Croonah righted quickly those boats would break up like old baskets.

The two men on the lower bridge stood on the uprights of the rail, leaning against the deck as against a wall. The crackling sound like breaking matchwood seemed to come from above. Carr looked up and saw the captain and Luke at the wheel. The wheelhouse had collapsed like a card house; it had simply been blown away, and one of the helmsmen with it. The other was lying huddled up at the lower end of the narrow bridge.

For a moment the darkness lifted and the survivors saw a weird sight. One of the starboard boats, attached to the davit by only one fall, was held by the wind like a flag straight out over the deck. Already two men were clambering to the upper bridge to take the place of the helmsmen who were dead. Relieved from the wheel, Luke dragged himself up to the ladder leading from the upper to the lower deck. A few moments later they saw him cutting with a hatchet at the ropes holding the boat to the davit. There were four, for it was a heavy boat, held by a double block. He cut two at a stroke: the others ran out instantly. The boat disappeared to leeward like a runaway hat, and fell with a splash into the foaming sea.

The Croonah seemed to feel the relief. She rose a little to windward, but her lee-rail was still under water. Down in the scuppers, in the tangle of ropes and splintered wood, sundry dark forms, looking more like bundles of dirty rags than anything else, rolled and tossed helplessly. These were dead and drowning men. Already the European sailors were at work, some cutting away useless top-hamper, others attempting to drag the terror-stricken Malays to a place of comparative safety. Luke FitzHenry took command of these men, as was his duty, working like one of them, with infinite daring. He could only communicate with his captain by signs, speech being impossible. It was a seaman's fight. Each man did that which seemed to him expedient for the safety of the ship. The Croonah was fully equipped for fine weather—for cleaning brasses and swabbing decks and bending awnings; but for bad weather—notably for a cyclone—she was perilously undermanned. Half of the native crew were paralysed by fear, many were killed, others drowned from a mere incapacity to hold on.

The other officers of the ship had their hands more than full. The doctor was below in the saloon surrounded by a babel of shrieking women and white-faced men; the engineers were on watch at their deadly posts in the heart of the ship.

Carr turned and clambered down the iron ladder to the upper deck. He was half a sailor and quite an Englishman. Moreover he came from Harrow, where they teach a certain bull-dog courage.

Luke, working half blinded by spray and salt water, presently found a strong man working at his side. Together they cut away the submerged boats, standing to their waists in water, at infinite peril of their lives; together they made their way forward to help the chief officer and his devoted gang, who were cutting away the foremast and the wreckage of forward boats.

Through the long hours of the night these dauntless men worked unceasingly, and—incongruous practical details—the stewards brought them food at stated intervals, while two men served out spirits all the while. Slowly, inch by inch, they righted the ship, bringing her stubborn prow gradually into the wind; and all the while the engines throbbed, all the while the grimy stokers shovelled coal into the furnaces, all the while the engineers stood and watched their engines.

Dawn broke on a terrific sea and a falling wind. The night was over and the dread Bay had had her thousand lives and more, for a cyclone simply wipes out the native craft like writing on a slate. The Croonah had been right through the corner of the worst cyclone of a generation. Luke crawled back to the bridge where the captain stood, as he had stood all night, motionless. Sheer skill and a great experience had pulled the Croonah through.

When the danger was past those who were on deck saw a man in shirt and trousers only, his grey hair ruffled, his clothes glued to his limbs by perspiration, emerge from the bowels of the ship. He came on deck, passed by those who scarce knew him without his gold braid, and slowly climbed the ladder to the bridge. There, in the early morning light, the two men who had saved three hundred lives—the captain and the chief engineer—silently shook hands.

"I had to keep you down there for the safety of the ship," said the captain gruffly.

"All right, old man, I knew that."

The old engineer turned and looked fore and aft over the wrecked decks with a curious smile as if he had come back from another world.

While they stood there the saloon doors were opened and a haggard row of faces peered out. A quarter-master held the passengers back, for the decks were unsafe. Railings and bulwarks were gone, boats smashed, awning stanchions twisted and bent. No landsmen could be trusted to move safely amid such confusion.

And all the while the engines throbbed, and the Croonah held proudly on her course to the north—battered, torn, and sore stricken, yet a victor.

After changing their clothes, Luke and Carr breakfasted together at the after-end of the second officer's table in the saloon. With a certain humour the captain allowed of no relaxation in the discipline of the ship. The breakfast bell was rung at the usual time, the meal was served with the usual profusion, even the menus were written as carefully as ever; and some good ladies opined that the captain must be a godless man, because forsooth he did not cringe beneath the wing of the passing Angel of Death.

"I am glad I saw that," said Carr, neat and clean, hearty and smiling as usual.

Luke looked up from a generous plate. He thought that Carr was indulging in bravado, but he relinquished this opinion when he saw the man's face and his helping of bacon and eggs. Carr seemed to have enjoyed the cyclone, as he had no doubt enjoyed many a game of football in his youth, and many a spin across country later. For this man kept his hunters. He was moved thereto by that form of self-respect which urges some men to live like gentlemen, to, as they express it, "do themselves well," whether their mere monetary circumstances allow of it or no; and some one usually pays for these philosophers—that is the annoying part of it.

"By gad! I didn't think it could blow like that, though!" Carr went on, with his mouth full.

"I don't think it can often," replied Luke. He could not help liking this man, despite his first prejudice against him. Besides, they had stood shoulder to shoulder, with death around them, and such moments draw differing men together. It is the required touch of Nature, this same death, which frightens us before it comes and seems so gentle when it is here.

"I always wanted to see a cyclone," went on Carr conversationally, "and now I'm satisfied. I have had enough. I shouldn't have cared for more. Pass, cyclones!"

"It is not many men who have your laudable thirst for experience," said Luke. "It is rather a strenuous form of pleasure."

"Pleasure!" answered Carr, with one of his sharp glances. "Pleasure, be d—d! It's business, sir, business. I mean to make money out of cyclones."

"How? Bottle them up and make them turn a windmill?"

"No, sir."

Carr turned round to make sure that he could not be overheard.

"No, sir. Your idea is not bad in the main, though hardly practicable. No. I know a dodge worth two of that! I told you before that I am in the marine insurance line. Now, the funny part of the marine insurance line is that the majority of the men engaged in it do not know their business. Now I propose to teach these gentlemen their business."

"Will they thank you for it?" asked Luke.

"They'll pay me for it, which is better, by a long chalk! Ha, ha! Butter, please."

"And what have cyclones got to do with it?"

Again one of the sharp glances which sat so strangely on Carr's open countenance.

"I understand there is a science of cyclones," he said quietly.

"Yes."

"Which means that you chaps knew what was coming forty-eight hours ago?"

"Yes," replied Luke.

"That that steamer flying signals yesterday was talking to you about it?"

"Yes."

"And that when you got into it you knew exactly whereabout you were in it; where the centre was, and which was the shortest way out of it, to get clear away from the vortex and beyond the axis line, so as not to get into it again?"

"Yes. You're quite a Fitzroy."

Carr winked cheerily.

"And all this is a certainty?"

"A dead certainty," replied Luke. "It is a science."

Carr laid down his knife and fork.

"Suppose," he said, "that the next cyclone sends forty ships to kingdom come, and I've got a line of five hundred or a thousand insured on every one of them. I'll study these jolly old cyclones. It will be easy enough to know about when they'll be coming. When one is about I'll have a line on every ship at sea between Colombo and Penang—do you see? I'll get a man on the coast here to watch the weather. When there's a cyclone in the Bay of Bengal he will wire me home one word, 'Milksop,' or 'Spongecake,' or something soft and innocent. I'll do the rest, my boy."

Luke was only pretending to eat. The desire to make money was strong upon him—as indeed were all his desires—it was almost a passion; for money meant Agatha, and Agatha had grown to be the one absorbing passion of his heart. Agatha had been at the back of the superhuman fight which he had waged all night against death. Agatha was behind Carr's words. The thought of her was tempting him through the man's arguments.

"But what will you insure?" he asked.

"Profit," replied Carr, in a whisper. "It is done every day—policy proof of interest—the fools!"

"What is policy proof of interest?"

"It means that they admit your insurance to be valid, whether you have anything on board the ship or not. It is not legal, but they know it when they sign the policy; and they know that it would ruin them if they refused to pay an 'honour policy.' I tell you they don't know their business and they have no combination. They all distrust each other, and tell lies to each other about their profits and their losses. If I insure profit I have only to say that I shall lose money if the ship does not reach her destination and deliver her cargo safely. The cargo may be mine; I may be buying it or selling it; no one can tell, and the underwriters don't ask. They pocket their premium, and if they have to pay, and think they have been rooked, they keep it to themselves, because each man is against his neighbour."

"But do they know nothing about cyclones?" inquired Luke.

"My good sir, they hardly know the difference between Calcutta and Bombay. Half of them think that a cyclone and a monsoon are the same thing, and not one in ten could tell you the difference between a brig and a barquentine."

Luke gave a little half-convinced laugh. The man was so open and honest that his arguments had nothing underhand or crafty in them.

"It sounds very simple," he said.

"It is; d—d simple! So are the underwriters; but that is not our business. You see, FitzHenry, in all commerce there are a certain number of fools for the wise men to outwit. In marine insurance there are a large number. All insurance is nothing but a bet, and betting is a matter of intelligence. We bring more intelligence to bear upon it than the other chap, therefore we win."

He helped himself to marmalade with a jaunty hand. Luke hardly noticed the easy transition from "I" to "we." He had had no intention of suggesting a partnership in this easy manner of making money, but the partnership seemed to have formed itself.

"But—" Carr paused, holding in the air an emphatic spoon. "But, my boy, we want capital, we want to lay our hands on fifty thousand pounds."

"I am afraid I could not lay my hand on fifty thousand pence," said Luke.

Carr glanced at him sharply. There was a little pause while Carr ate marmalade and toast.

"Oh yes, you could," he said in a low tone. "Between us we could raise fifty thousand as easy as winking."

As if to demonstrate the facility of the latter, he looked up and closed his left eye confidentially.

"You're a sailor," he went on to say, "and a ripping good one at that. You know the perils of the deep, as the parsons say. It wouldn't be hard for you to tell when the Croonah was running into a tight place like yesterday. All you have to do is to wire home one word to me. My telegraphic address is 'Simple, London.' Say you wire home 'Milksop.' We could fix on 'Milksop'; it sounds so innocent! In twenty-four hours I'd have fifty thousand done on the Croonah in London, Glasgow, Liverpool, New York, Paris, and Germany- -spread about, you know. In four or five days the Croonah goes to the bottom, and we scoop in, your name never appearing—see?"

There was a little pause.

"See?" repeated Carr, in little more than a whisper. Luke looked up. He met Carr's eyes and knew that he was dealing with a villain. The strange part of it was that he felt no anger. He could not free his mind from the thought of Agatha. There was one corner of the steamer which was almost sacred to him—the little space behind the deckhouse where he had held Agatha in his arms for one moment of intense happiness—where she told him that she could not be poor.

Carr rose and threw down his table napkin with a certain grand air which was his.

"It would be the making of you," he said. "It is worth thinking about."

He threw back his shoulders—a trick common enough with strongly built men who incline to stoutness—nodded, and left him. He passed down the length of the saloon, seeking his cigar-case in the pocket of his coat, exchanging loud and hearty greetings with those among the passengers whom he knew. He was popular on account of the open British frankness which he cultivated, and which is supposed to be the outward sign of an honest heart. He seemed to be thinking of his great scheme no longer, but he left Luke to brood over it—to try and chase the word "Milksop" from his brain, where it seemed to be indelibly engraved.

He left Luke to fight against a great temptation alone and heavily handicapped, for Luke FitzHenry was held as in a vice by his passionate love for Agatha. It is not all men who can love. It is only a few who are capable of a deep passion. This is as rare as genius. A man of genius is usually a failure in all except his own special line. The man who can and does love passionately must be a good man indeed if his love do not make a villain of him.



CHAPTER IX. THE EDITOR'S ROOM.

The greater man, the greater courtesy.

The Count de Lloseta and John Craik were sitting together in the editorial room of the Commentator.

It was a quiet room, with double windows and a permanent odour of tobacco smoke. An empty teacup stood on the table by John Craik's elbow.

"Name of God!" Cipriani de Lloseta had ejaculated when he saw it. "At eleven o'clock in the morning!"

"Must stir the brain up," was the reply.

"I would not do it with a teaspoon," De Lloseta had answered, and then he sat down to correct the proof of Eve's fourth article on "Spain and Spanish Life."

They had been sitting thus together for half an hour in friendly silence, only broken by an occasional high-class Spanish anathema hurled at the head of the printer.

"A dog's trade!" ejaculated De Lloseta at last, leaning back and throwing down his pen, "a dog's trade, my friend!"

"It is mine," replied Craik, without looking up. In fiction he was celebrated for a certain smartness of dialogue. His printed conversations were pretty displays of social sword-play. It had become a sort of habit with him to thrust and parry quickly; but the sudden smile on his lined face, the kindly glance from behind the spectacles, always took away the sting and demonstrated that it was mere "copy," to fill up the dull columns of life and throw in a sparkle here and there.

"Have you finished?" he inquired.

"Yes, thank Heaven! I was not intended for a literary calling. That is number four, and I am not paid—I am not paid; there lies the sting."

"Number four, yes; two published and two in hand," replied John Craik. His mind was busy elsewhere; it was with the creatures of his own imagination, living their lives, rejoicing with them, sorrowing with them.

The Count rose and walked gravely to the hearthrug, holding the proof-sheets in his hand.

"Number four," he reiterated. "Will they go on, my friend?"

John Craik looked up sharply.

"No."

"How many more will you accept?"

"Two more at the outside, making six in all. The public is like a greedy child, it must be stopped before it makes itself sick. Nausea leaves a lasting distaste for that which preceded it."

The Count nodded.

"And this worldly wisdom—is it the editor or the man who speaks?"

"The editor. The editor is a man who lives by saying 'No.'"

"And you will say 'No' to any more from this—writer's pen?"

"To any more about Spain I most certainly shall."

The Count reflected. What little light the London day afforded fell full upon his long narrow face, upon the pointed Velasquez chin, the receding iron-grey hair brushed straight back.

"And the fact that the writer is supporting herself and a worn-out old uncle by her pen will make no difference?"

John Craik hesitated for a moment.

"Not the least," he then said. "You seem to know the writer."

"I do, and I am interested in her."

"A lady?" John Craik was dotting his i's with the contemplativeness of artistic finish.

"Essentially so."

"And poor?"

"Yes, and proud as—"

"A Spaniard," suggested John Craik.

"If you will. It is a vice which has almost become a virtue in these democratic days."

John Craik looked up.

"I will do what I can, Lloseta," he said. "But she is not a great writer, and will never become one."

"I know that. Some day she will become a great lady, or I know nothing of them."

Craik was still busy touching up his manuscript.

"I have never seen her," he said. "But the impression I received from her manuscripts is that she is a girl who has lived a simple life among a simple people. She has seen a great deal of nature, out-of-door nature, which is pure, and cannot be too deeply studied. She has seen very little of human nature, which is not so pure as it might be. That is her chief charm of style, a high-minded purity. She does not describe the gutter and think she is writing of the street. By the way, I am expecting her here" (he paused, and looked at the clock on the mantelpiece) "in exactly two minutes."

The Count rose quickly and took his hat. As he extended his hand to say "Good-bye" there was a rap at the door. The discreet youth who told John Craik's falsehoods for him came in and handed his master a slip of paper with a name written thereon.

Craik read the inscription, crumpled up the paper, and threw it into the waste-paper basket.

"In one minute," he said, and the liar withdrew.

Cipriani de Lloseta, with a quiet deliberation which was sometimes almost dramatic, stooped over the paper basket and recovered the crumpled slip of paper. He did not unfold it, but held it out, crushed up in his closed fist.

"Miss Eve Challoner," he said.

John Craik nodded.

De Lloseta laughed and threw the paper into the fire.

"I must not be seen. Where do you propose to put me?"

"Go upstairs instead of down," replied John Craik, as if he had been asked the same question before. "Wait on the next landing until you hear this door close; you may then escape in safety."

"Thanks—good-bye."

"Good-bye."

When Eve entered the room, John Craik was writing. He rose with a bow savouring of a politer age than ours, and held out his hand.

"At last," he said, "I have prevailed upon you to come and see me. Will you sit down? The chair is shabby, but great men and women have sat in it."

He spoke pleasantly, with his twisted laugh, and when Eve was seated he sat slowly, carefully down again. He was thinking not so much of what he was saying as of his hearer. He saw that Eve was undeniably beautiful—the man saw that. The novelist saw that she was probably interesting. As he had just stated, great women had sat in the same chair, and it was John Craik's impulse to save Eve from that same greatness. He had, since a brilliant youth at Oxford, been steeped, as it were, in literature. He had known all the great men and women, and he held strong views of his own. These were probably erroneous—many women will think so—but he held to them. They were based on experience, which is not always the case with views expressed in print and elsewhere. John Craik held that greatness is not good for women. That it is not for their own happiness, he knew. That it is not for the happiness of those around them, he keenly suspected. Some of Eve's celebrated predecessors in that chair had not quite understood John Craik. All thought that he was not sufficiently impressed—not, that is, so impressed by them as they were themselves when they reflected upon their own renown.

He looked at Eve quickly, rubbing his hands together.

"May I, as an old man, ask some impertinent questions?" he inquired, with a cheerfulness which sat strangely on the wan face.

"Yes."

"Why do you write?" he said. "Take time; answer me after reflection."

Eve reflected while the great editor stared into the fire.

"To make money," she answered at last.

He looked up, and saw that she was answering in simple good faith.

"That is right."

He did not tell her that he was sick and tired of the jargon of art for art's sake, literature for literature's sake. He did not tell that—practical man of the world that he was—he had no faith in literary art; that he believed the power of writing to be a gift and nothing else; that the chief art in literature is that which is unconscious of itself.

"Do you feel within yourself the makings of a great author?"

Eve laughed, a sudden girlish laugh, which made John Craik reduce his estimate of her age by five years.

"No," she answered.

He sat up and looked at her with a kind admiration.

"You are refreshing," he said, "very, especially to a man who has seen stout and elderly females sit in that same chair and state their conviction that they were destined to be George Eliots or Charlotte Brontes, women who had written one improper or irreligious novel, which had obtained a certain success in the foolish circles."

"Do you think I have," asked Eve, "the—the makings of an income?"

John Craik reflected.

"A small one," he said bluntly.

"That is all I want."

Craik raised his eyebrows.

"And renown," he said, "do you want that?"

"Not in the least, except for its intrinsic value."

Craik banged his hand down on the arm of his chair and laughed aloud.

"This is splendid!" he cried. "I have never met such a practical person. Then you would be content to work for a sufficient income without ever being known to the world?"

"Yes, provided that the work was genuine and not given to me out of mere charity."

The editor of the Commentator looked at her gravely. He had suddenly remembered Cipriani de Lloseta.

"Oh, you are proud!" he said.

Eve laughed with a negative shake of the head.

"Not more than other people," she answered.

"Not more than other people. Well, we will have it so. And not ambitious."

"No, I think not."

"You may thank God for that," said John Craik, half to himself. "An ambitious woman is not a pleasant person."

There was a little pause, during which John Craik rubbed his chin reflectively with his bony fingers.

"And now," he said, "that I know something about you, I will tell you why I asked you to be good enough to come and see me. To begin with, I am an old man; you can see that for yourself. I am a martyr to rheumatism, and I frequently suffer from asthma, otherwise I should have done myself the pleasure of calling on you. I wanted to see you, because lady authors are uncertain creatures. A large majority of them have nothing better to do, and therefore write. Others do not care for the money, but they do most decidedly for the renown. The nudge and whisper of society is nectar to them. Others again are brilliant in flashes and dull in long periods. Few, very few are content to work with their pen as their poorer sisters are forced to work with their needles. In that lies the secret of the more permanent success of men journalists and men authors. The journalism and the authorship are not the men, but merely the business of their lives. Now will you be content to work hard and steadily without any great hope of renown—to work, in fact, anonymously for a small but certain income?"

"Yes," answered Eve, without hesitation.

Craik nodded his head gravely and thoughtfully. He was too deeply experienced to fall into the error of thinking that Eve was different from other women. He did not for a moment imagine that he had secured in her a permanent subscriber to the Commentator— possibly he did not want her as such. He was merely doing a good deed—no new thing to him, although his right hand hardly knew what his left was doing. He liked Eve, he admired her, and was interested in her. Cipriani de Lloseta he was deeply interested in, and he knew, with the keen instinct of the novelist, that he was being drawn into one of those romances of real life which exists in the matter-of-fact nineteenth century atmosphere that we breathe.

So Eve Challoner left John Craik's office an independent woman for the time being, and the charity was so deeply hidden that her ever- combative pride had failed to detect it.



CHAPTER X. THE CURTAIN LOWERS.

The shadow, cloaked from head to foot, Who keeps the keys of all the creeds.

As she walked back to Grosvenor Gardens, Eve reflected with some satisfaction that the Ingham-Bakers had left Mrs. Harrington's hospitable roof. From this shelter they had gone forth into a world which is reputed cold, and has nevertheless some shelter still for such as are prepared to cringe to the overbearing, to flatter the vain, to worship riches.

Eve wanted time to think over her new position, to reflect with satisfaction over her new independence, for the Caballero Challoner, if he had bequeathed little else, had left to her a very active pride. She knew so little of the world that she never paused to wonder why John Craik should have made her a proposal which could hardly be beneficial to himself. She was innocent enough to think that the good things of this world are given just where and when they are wanted.

Captain Bontnor was the chief object of her thoughts, and she was already dreaming of restoring him to Malabar Cottage and his bits of things. So engrossed was she in these reflections, that she noticed nothing unusual in the face of the butler who opened the door which had shut upon Luke FitzHenry some years before.

"I'm glad you're back, miss," he said gravely.

Something in his tone—cold and correct—caught Eve's attention.

"Why?" she asked, and a consoling knowledge that the Terrific was safe in Chatham Dockyard leapt into her mind.

"Mrs. Harrington's been took rather bad, miss."

The man's manner said more than his words. Eve hurried upstairs to Mrs. Harrington's bedroom. She tapped at the door and went in without waiting. There was a strong smell of ammonia in the air. The blinds were half lowered, and in the dim light Eve did not see very clearly. Presently, from the depths of a huge four-poster bed, she descried a pair of keen eyes—the face of Mrs. Harrington. The face, the eyes, the mind were alive, the body was stricken; it was almost dead already. Mrs. Harrington looked down at the shapeless limbs beneath the coverlet with something like fear in her eyes, something of the expression of a dog that has been run over. This woman meant to die hard.

Eve knew little of life, but she was no stranger to death. She recognised our last enemy in the grey face beneath the canopy of the four-poster.

"Where have you been so long, child?" said Mrs. Harrington querulously, "leaving me to these fools of servants. I have been unwell, but I'm better now. They've sent for the doctor. I shall be better presently. I have no pain, only—only a sort of numbness."

She looked down at her left hand, which lay outside the coverlet, and fear was in her eyes. She had defied men too long to be afraid of God, but she did not want to die; she had too keen an enjoyment for the good things of this world.

Eve came to the bedside.

Mrs. Harrington's face was drawn together in anger. She was annoyed that Death should have come for her, and, true to herself, she insulted him by deliberately ignoring his presence. There was something defiant in her cold eyes still, something unbeaten, although she knew that there was no one on her side. The general feeling was against her. So far as the world was concerned, Death could have her.

Eve turned away from the bed and faced the doctor, who was coming into the room with Mrs. Harrington's maid. No one displayed the slightest emotion. A selfish life and a happy death are rarely vouchsafed to the same person. The doctor did not ask Eve to stay, so she went downstairs and wrote to Fitz, sending the note round to his rooms in Jermyn Street by a servant. It was the second time in her life that she had sent for Fitz.

When the doctor came downstairs, Eve went out into the hall. He pointed with his finger to the room from which she came, and followed her back there. He was a middle-aged man, educated to the finger-tips—all science and no heart.

"Are you a relation of Mrs. Harrington's?" he inquired.

"We are distantly connected," answered Eve.

The doctor was not giving much attention to her answer. He had a habit of tapping his teeth with his thumbnail, which made Eve dislike him at sight.

"Has she any one else?" he asked. "Any one who—cares?"

He was quite without the intention of being rude but he was absorbed in his profession, and had a large practice. He wanted to go.

"She has a nephew. I have sent for him."

The doctor nodded. He glanced at Eve, then he said quietly -

"She will live about an hour. She wants me to come again and bring another man. I will do it, although it is useless. There are some things money cannot buy."

With a quick mechanical smile he was gone.

Eve went upstairs again to the room where Mrs. Harrington was fighting her last fight. As she passed up the stairs, she noticed two letters on the hall table awaiting postage; one was addressed to Mrs. Ingham-Baker, the other to Luke, at Malta.

Mrs. Harrington had ordered the blinds to be pulled up, and the daylight showed her face to be little changed. It had always been grey; the shadows on it now were grey; the eyes were active and bright. It was only the body that was dying; Mrs. Harrington's mind was bright and keen as ever.

"That doctor is a fool," she said. "I have told him to come back and bring Sir James Harlow with him. And will you please send and tell Fitz that I should like to see him? You must arrange to stay on a few days until I am better. Captain Bontnor will have to do without you. My servants are not to be trusted alone. I shall want you to keep them in order; they require a tight reign."

"I have sent for Fitz," said Eve.

"Why?" snapped Mrs. Harrington. "To come and make love to you? Leave that to Agatha. She has been teaching them both to do that for the last three years. Her idea is to marry the one who gets my money. I've known that all along."

Eve's dark eyes hardened suddenly. She could not believe what the doctor had told her five minutes earlier. Five minutes—one-twelfth part of Mrs. Harrington's life ebbed away.

"Pray do not talk like that," said the girl quietly.

Mrs. Harrington's cold grey eyes fell before Eve's glance of mingled wonder and contempt; her right hand was feebly plucking at the counterpane.

Far below, in the basement, a bell rang, and soon after there was a step on the stairs.

"Who is that?" inquired Mrs. Harrington.

"Fitz."

The dying woman was looking at the door with an unwonted longing in her eyes.

"You seem to know his step," she said, with a jealous laugh.

Eve said nothing. The door opened, and Fitz came in.

Mrs. Harrington was the first to speak.

"I am not well this morning, dear," she said. "I sent for you because I have a few things I want you to do for me."

"Pleasure," murmured Fitz, glancing at Eve. He either did not know how ill Mrs Harrington was, or he did not care. It is probable that these two persons now at the dying woman's bed were the only two people who would be in any degree sorry at her death.

Eve, with a woman's instinct, busied herself with the pillow—with the little adjuncts of a sick-room which had already found their way to the bedside. She looked at Mrs. Harrington's face, saw the hard eyes fixed on Fitz, and something in the glance made her leave the room.

"Just leave me alone," the dying woman said peevishly as Eve went away; "I don't want a lot of people bothering about."

But Fitz stayed, and when Eve had closed the door the sudden look of cunning that came over the faded face did not appear to surprise him.

"Quick!" whispered Mrs. Harrington, "quick! I do not believe I am dying, as that doctor said I was, but it is better to make sure. Open the left-hand drawer in the dressing-table; you will find my keys."

Fitz obeyed her, bringing the bunch of keys, rusty and black from being concealed in a thousand different hiding-places.

"Now," she said, "open that desk; it was—your father's. Bring it here. Be quick! Some one may come."

Her shrivelled fingers fumbled hastily among some old papers. Finally she found an envelope, brown with age, on which was written, in her own spidery handwriting, "Recipe for apple jelly."

She thrust the envelope into Fitz's hands, and he smilingly read the superscription.

"That's nothing," she explained sharply; "that's only for the servants. One cannot be too careful. Inside there is some money. I saved it up. It will help to furnish your new cabin."

"Thank you," said Fitz, looking critically at the envelope. "But—"

"You must take it," she interrupted; "it is the only money I ever saved." She broke off with a malicious laugh. "All these fools thought I was rich," she went on. "They have been scheming and plotting to get my money. There is no money. That is all there is. You and Luke were the only two who never thought about it. You are both like your father. Here, shut the desk up again. Put it back on the table. Now hide the keys—left-hand corner, under the box of hairpins."

Fitz obeyed her and came back towards the bed. His large mind felt a sudden contempt for this petty and mean woman. He did not understand her, and the contempt he felt for her in some way hurt him. He was afraid of what she was going to say next.

"But," she said, "if I get better you must give me the money back."

Fitz gave a little laugh. Something prompted him to open the envelope and look at the contents. There were five notes of ten pounds each. The rich Mrs. Harrington of Grosvenor Gardens had saved fifty pounds, and she lay on her death-bed watching Fitz count this vast hoard with a quiet deliberation. In its way it was a tragedy—the grimmest of all—for its dominant note was the contemptibility of human nature.

"I do not want the money. I should not keep it under any circumstances."

"What would you do with it?" she asked sharply.

"Give it to a charity."

"No, no, you must not do that; they are all swindles!"

In her eagerness she tried to sit up, and fell back with a puzzled look on her face, as if some one had struck her.

"Here," she gasped, "give it to me! give it to me!"

She clutched the envelope in her unsteady hands, and suddenly her jaw dropped.

Fitz ran to the door. On the stairs were the two doctors, followed closely by Eve. In a moment the doctors were at the bedside.

"Yes," said one of them—the younger of the two—and he glanced at his watch. "I gave her an hour."

The elder man took the dead woman's hand in his. He released the envelope from her grasp and read the superscription, "Recipe for apple jelly." With a grave smile he handed the envelope to Eve as Fitz took her out of the room.

They went downstairs together, and both were thinking of D'Erraha. They went into the library, which was silent and gloomy. Fitz had not spoken yet, but she seemed to understand his silence, just as she had understood it once before. She had told him then. She did not do so now.

Eve was not thinking of the dead woman upstairs. This death came to her only as a faint reflection of the one great grief which had cut her life in two—as great griefs do. She was perhaps wondering how it was that Fitz seemed always to come to her at those moments when she could not do without him. She was more probably not thinking at all, but resting as it were in the sense of complete safety and protection which this man's presence gave her.

There was a little silence, broken only by the sound of street traffic faintly heard through the plate-glass windows. Fitz was looking at her, his blue eyes grave and searching. This was not a man to miss his opportunity, this youngest commander on the list.

"Eve," he said, "I used to think at D'Erraha that you cared for me."

"I have always cared for you," she answered, with a queer little smile, half bold, half shy.

So Love came in at the windows as Death crept up the stairs.

Before long they heard the doctors go away, but they heeded not. They only forgot each other when Cipriani de Lloseta came into the room. The Spaniard's quick eyes read something in Eve's face. He looked sharply at Fitz, but he said nothing of what he saw.

"So our dear lady has been taken from us," he said quietly, with an upward jerk of the head.

Fitz nodded. Cipriani de Lloseta walked to the window and quietly drew down the blind.

"So falls the curtain," he said, "on the little drama of my humble life."

He turned and looked from one to the other with that sudden warmth of love which either of them seemed able to draw from him.

"Some day," he said, "I will tell you—you two—the story, but not now."

He stepped forward and raised Eve's fingers to his lips. A quaint, half-Spanish grace marked the picture of Southern chivalry.

"My child," said Lloseta, "may Heaven always bless you!" And he left them.



CHAPTER XI. "MILKSOP".

What have we made each other?

The cathedral bells were calling good Papists to their morning devotion as the Croonah moved into Valetta harbour. No sooner did her black prow appear between the pier heads than a score of boats left the steps, their rowers gesticulating, quarrelling, laughing among themselves with Maltese vivacity.

One boat, flying the Croonah's houseflag, made its way more leisurely through the still, clear water. This boat was bringing mails to the Croonah, and in the letter-bag Mrs. Harrington's last missive to Luke had found its place. This letter had been posted by the well-trained footman while Eve and Fitz stood at Mrs. Harrington's bedside. Before it was stamped at the district office the hand that wrote it was still. And it contained mischief. Even after her death Mrs. Harrington brought trouble to the man whose life she had spoilt by her caprice. The letter ran -

"DEAR LUKE,—Just a line to tell you that you may bring your portmanteau straight up to Grosvenor Gardens when your ship arrives in London. I read of your fortunate escape from the cyclone, and congratulate you. I dare say I shall be having a few friends to stay when you are with me, so you need not fear dulness. Yours affectionately, "MARIAN HARRINGTON.

"P.S.—I always suspect you of having, consciously or unconsciously, possessed yourself of the affections of a young lady who shall be nameless. A word to the wise: make good use of your opportunities, for there are other aspirants in the field—a certain brilliant young naval officer not unknown to you. Moreover his chance appears to be a good one. You must waste no more time."

It happened that Luke FitzHenry was in a dangerous mood when he read this letter. He had been up half the night. The captain had been cross-grained and unreasonable. Even the mildest of us has his moments of clear-sightedness when he sees the world and the hollowness thereof. Luke saw this and more when he had read Mrs. Harrington's evil communication. He seemed to have reached the end of things, when his present life became no longer tolerable. It must be remembered that this man was passionate and very resolute. Moreover he had been handicapped from the beginning of his life by a tendency to go wrong. He was not a good subject for ill-fortune.

It was his duty to go ashore with papers to be delivered at the agent's office. He delivered his papers and then he went to the cable office. He telegraphed the single word "Milksop" to Willie Carr in London. When he got back to the Croonah, worn out, dirty, and morose, the passengers were not yet astir. He had an unsatisfactory breakfast, and went to his cabin for a few hours' necessary sleep. He had given way to a great temptation, not as the weak give way, on the spur of the moment, with hesitation, but as a strong man—strong, even in his weaknesses.

He did it after mature deliberation—did it thoroughly and carefully, without the least intention of regretting it afterwards. He was desperate and driven. He could not think of life without Agatha, and he did not see why he should be called upon to do so. Ill fortune had dogged him from his childhood. He had borne it all, morosely but without a murmur. He was going to turn at last. The Croonah must go. She was well insured, he knew that. That the cargo was fully covered against loss he could safely suppose. As to the passengers and the crew, none of them should suffer; he thought he was a clever enough sailor for that.

So he laid him down in his little cabin to sleep, while the sun rose over the blue Mediterranean, while some passengers went ashore and others came on board, while the single word "Milksop" was spelt over a continent; and he was still sleeping when the anchor was jerked up from its muddy bed, and the watchers on pier and harbour looked their last on the grand old Croonah.

A breeze was blowing out in the open, one of those bright westerly breezes that bring a breath of the Atlantic into the Mediterranean, and often make the short passage from Malta to Gibraltar the worst part of the voyage from India to the Channel.

None of the passengers took any interest in the morose second officer, and few of them remarked his absence from table during the two days' passage. The Croonah arrived at Gibraltar after dark, took her mails and passengers on board, and proceeded down the Straits about eight o'clock in the evening. It was late autumn, and the breeze from the cool Atlantic still hurried in over the parched lands of Africa and Southern Europe.

Tarifa light was sighted and left twinkling behind. Trafalgar stared out of the darkness ahead, and in its turn was left behind. A few of the passengers had recovered their Mediterranean ill-usage sufficiently to dine in the Straits, but the Atlantic swell soon sent them below. The decks were deserted, for many of these people were returning to England after long years in India, and the first chill northern breeze they met made them shiver while it delighted them.

Luke FitzHenry was on the bridge from eight o'clock till midnight, motionless at his post—a mere navigating machine, respected and feared by all who worked with him, understood of none.

When midnight came he exchanged a few words with the first officer, and together they superintended the shaking out of the foresails before the watch went below. The wind was on the quarter, strong and steady. Almost immediately the good steamer felt the canvas, leaning gently over to leeward, adding another mile to her great speed. The sea was black, and the air seemed to be full of the sounds of waves breaking and hissing. Ahead the mast-head and the side-lights shone down on the face of the waters and lighted up an occasional white-capped wave. In the air, brisk and masterful, there was a sense of purpose and tension which sailors understand, while mere printed words cannot convey it to landsmen. It was a very dark night.

"St. Vincent," said Luke tersely, as he turned to leave the bridge. The first officer, a man grown old at his post, followed the direction of his junior's gaze, but some seconds elapsed before he distinguished the light twinkling feebly low down on the horizon.

Luke went to his cabin and lay down on his berth all dressed. He was due on the bridge again at four o'clock. The Croonah sailed by time-table, subjecting the winds and seas, as the great steamships do nowadays. Luke FitzHenry had calculated this to a minute before he telegraphed the single word "Milksop" to Willie Carr in London.

He was on the bridge a few minutes before eight bells rang, and found the captain. He knew his chief's customs. He knew that this wise old sailor was in the habit of accumulating as much sleep in his brain as possible before passing Ushant light, because he lived on the bridge when the Croonah had once turned eastward up the Channel. Whenever the captain took a night's rest, he broke it at four o'clock, at the change of the watch. He stood muffled in a big coat over his pyjamas, and exchanged a few words with his subordinates. After the first officer had gone below, Luke went to his post at the starboard end of the bridge, while the captain walked slowly backwards and forwards. They remained thus for half an hour. The ship was all quiet. The breeze had fallen a little. There was as yet no sign of daybreak towards the east. A steamer passed, showing a red light and a white mast-head light.

Presently the captain paused in his walk near to Luke.

"Call me," he said, "when you raise the Burling light."

Luke answered with a monosyllable, and the elder sailor went towards the ladder.

No one had heard the order given. Luke followed him to the ladder, and watched him go down into the darkness. They had sailed together six years in fair weather and foul; they had fought and conquered a cyclone in the Bay together from that bridge; but Agatha Ingham- Baker was stronger than these things. Woman is the strongest thing in a man's life.

There was still no sign of daylight, no faintest gleam in the eastern sky, when the Burling light was sighted right ahead. The look-out on the forecastle did not "sing out" the lights on board the Croonah, but sent a companion aft to the bridge with the report. This was done for the comfort of the passengers.

Luke altered the course half a point. From the wheel-house the men could not see the light, which was hidden by the fore-mast. Luke went aft and looked at the patent log. His calculations were all correct. He glanced at his watch—he had to go to the wheel-house to do this, and the binnacle-lights showed his face to be still and pale. He moved and had the air of a man upon whose shoulders an immense responsibility was weighing. He was going to wreck the Croonah, but he had two hundred and ninety lives to save. He carefully studied the eastern sky. He did not want daylight yet.

The Burling light is not a very big one—not so big, some mariners think, as it should be. It is visible twenty-five miles away; but Luke's knowledge told him that in thick and misty weather, such as hovers over this coast in a westerly wind, the glare of the revolving lamp could not be distinguished at a greater distance than ten or twelve miles.

The Croonah raced on, a ship full of sleeping human beings. There came a faint blue tinge into the eastern sky, a gleam over the eastern sea.

The Burling light—an eye looking round into the darkness, seeming to open and shut sleepily—grew brighter and brighter. It was right ahead! it rose as they approached it until it stood right above the bowsprit.

Then Luke FitzHenry changed the course. The Croonah turned her blunt prow half a point out into the Atlantic, and she raced on; she passed by Burling Island, leaving the slowly winking eye on her starboard quarter. Ahead lay the complete darkness of the north- west horizon.

Luke stood at his post, his eyes hidden by his binoculars. He was studying the horizon in front of him—in front of the Croonah. There was a little lump on the horizon, like the top of a mountain sticking out of the sea; this he knew to be the rock called the Great Farilhao. Again he altered the course, still seeking the Atlantic, another quarter point to the west. He was going to pass the Great Farilhao as he had passed the Burling, within a stone's throw. This he actually did, the rugged outline of the barren rock standing out sharply against the eastern sky. There was now nothing ahead; the horizon lay before him, clear, unbroken.

Luke moved a few paces. He went and stood by the engine-room telegraph. The engines throbbed merrily, but the steamer was still asleep. There was no sound but the thud of the piston-rods and the whispering swirl of the water lashed by the huge screw.

The Croonah raced on, her sails set, her engines working at full speed. Suddenly Luke FitzHenry grasped the handle of the engine- room signal. He wrenched it to one side—"Stand by." Instantly the gong answered, "Stand by." "Half speed ahead."

And half speed ahead it was. Luke FitzHenry was clever even in his crime; he had three hundred lives to save. He stood motionless as a statue, gazing at the smooth unbroken water in front of him; he grasped the rail and set his teeth; he stood well back with his feet firmly planted. And there was a grinding crash. The Croonah seemed to climb up into the air, then she stopped dead, and below—inside her—there was a long, rumbling crash, as if all that was inside her had been cast forward in confusion. She had run on to the sunken rocks that lie north-west of the Farilhoes.

A great silence followed and immediately the pattering of bare feet. A confused murmuring of voices rose from the saloon gangway—a buzzing sound, like that of a hive disturbed. A single voice rose in a shriek of mortal terror, and immediately there followed a chorus of confused shouts.

Luke already had his lips at the speaking-tube. He was telling the engineer on watch to steam ahead; he knew the danger of the Croonah slipping back into deep water and sinking.

In a marvellously short time the decks were thronged with people, some standing white-faced and calm in the dim light of early morning; others, mad with terror, rushing from side to side.

The strange part of it was that Luke remained alone on the bridge. The captain and the other officers were busy with the passengers. The second officer remained motionless at his post; he commanded the steersman by a wave of the arm to stay at the wheel, although he knew that the Croonah would never answer her helm again; her travelling days were done.

In the dim light now increasing momentarily, Luke FitzHenry looked down upon the wildly confused decks and saw discipline slowly assert itself. He saw the captain commanding by sheer force of individual power; he saw the quartermasters form in line across the deck and drive the passengers farther aft, leaving room to get out the boats.

In a few moments—in a marvellously short space of time—the work of saving life began. A boat was lowered, the crew slipped into their places, and a certain number of lady passengers were hastily handed down the gangway. The first boat eased away. The oars were thrown out. It was off, and some of the passengers cheered. One can never tell what men, especially Englishmen, may do when they actually see death face to face. The boat was headed to the south-east, towards the Carreiro do Mosteiro, on Burling Island, the only possible landing-place.

Luke felt a touch on his arm and turned sharply. It was a quartermaster, breathless but cool.

"Captain wants you, sir. I'll take the bridge."

Luke turned to obey orders.

"Keep her steaming full speed ahead," he said, jerking his head towards the engine-room telegraph.

"Ay, sir," the man replied.

"Until the water gets to the furnaces," he added to himself, "and then we're dead men."

Luke ran lightly down the iron ladder to the lower bridge, which was deserted. From thence he made his way aft to the quarter-deck. As he passed the saloon staircase he ran against two women; one was dragging the other, or attempting to do so, towards the group of passengers huddled together amidships.

"You go," the younger woman was saying, "if you want to. I will wait."

Luke stopped. The elder woman was apparently wild with terror. She had not even stopped to put on a dressing-gown. Her thin grey hair fluttered in the breeze. She was stout and an object of ridicule even with death clutching at her.

"Go on, mother," said the younger woman, with contempt in her voice.

"Agatha!" cried Luke. "You here?"

"Yes; we came on board at Malta."



CHAPTER XII. THE END OF THE "CROONAH".

Our life is given us as a blank; Ourselves must make it blest or curst.

A man came running along and clutched at Luke's arm.

"Captain wants you, sir, immediate!" he cried.

"All right," answered Luke. "Here, take this lady and put her into a boat."

Mrs. Ingham-Baker was clinging to him.

"Luke," she said firmly, "you must provide us with a lifeboat—a safe one. I will not stand this neglect."

"Here!" cried Luke to the man. "Take her away."

"You come along o' me, marm," said the man, with a twinkle in his eye. "I'll pervide ye with a lifeboat, bless yer heart!"

And in the dim light of the saloon stairhead lamp, Luke and Agatha were left facing each other.

"Why did you not let me know you were coming?" he asked sharply. He looked round with haggard eyes; they were quite alone.

"I had no time. We just caught the boat by an hour."

She was singularly quiet. Both of them seemed to forget that every moment lost increased the danger of their position.

"Why did you come?" he asked.

She looked at him, and there was that in her eyes that makes men mad.

"Because I could not stay away from you."

His breath came sharply with a catch.

For a few moments they forgot such things as life and death. They did more, they defied death; for surely such love as this is stronger than the mere end of life. Again it was the possibility of something good and something strong that lurked hidden behind the worldliness of Agatha Ingham-Baker, and Luke FitzHenry, of all men, alone had the power of bringing that possibility to the surface.

All around them the wind moaned and shrieked through the rigging; the waves, beating against the sheer side of the doomed Croonah, filled the air with a sound of great foreboding—the deep voice of an elemental power that knows no mercy. Within twenty feet of them men and women were struggling like dumb and driven animals for bare life—struggling, shouting, quarrelling over a paltry precedence of a minute or so in going to the boats; within a hundred yards of them, out over the dark waters, Agatha's mother, thrown from an overturned boat, was struggling her last struggle, with her silly old face turned indignantly up to heaven. But they saw none of these things.

All the good men were wanted for the boats, and the captain, with two officers only and a few stewards, defended the gangway against the rush of the panic-stricken native crew.

"FitzHenry! FitzHenry!" the old captain shouted. "For God's sake, come here!" For Luke alone was dreaded by the lascars.

But Luke and Agatha heeded nothing. These people, these lives, were nothing to them, for a passionate love is the acme of selfishness.

They heard the sounds, however; they heard the captain calling for the man who had never failed him.

"I wrecked her for you," said Luke, in Agatha's hungry ears. "I did it all for you."

And at last the woman's vanity was satisfied; it was thrown a sop that would suffice for its eternal greed. Luke had done this thing for her. She was quick enough to guess how and why, for she knew Willie Carr. She knew that good ships are thrown away for money's sake. The Croonah had been thrown away for her sake—the Croonah, the patient, obedient servant to Luke's slightest word, almost an animal in its mechanical intelligence, filling that place in the sailor's heart that some men reserve for their horses and others for their wives. Women have been jealous of a ship before now. Eve was jealous of the Terrific; Agatha had always been jealous of the Croonah. And now the ship had been thrown away for her, and with his ship Luke had cast away his unrivalled reputation as a seaman, his honour as a gentleman, his conscience. He was a criminal, a thief, a murderer for Agatha's sake. She, true to her school, to her generation, to her training, was proud of it; for she was one of those unhappy women who will not have their lovers love honour more.