"Queer lot, these frog-eaters," said Pete, going into the street so as to avoid a thick, pushing crowd.

"Yes, they would come to a knifing over a count of fish and yet give their schooners to a friend in trouble. Too bad they ain't better fishermen."

"Yeah, ain't it."

Among Canadians and Americans the Frenchmen are held in contempt on account of their hooks, which are of soft metal and can be rebent and used again. The fish often get away with them, however, and these hidden hooks slit many a finger in dressing down.

The two comrades loitered along, watching the changing crowds, gay with their colored caps and scarfs. Some men were already in liquor, and all seemed to be headed in that general direction. Suddenly, as Code was about to urge Pete along, he gave an exclamation and stopped short.

"What's the matter, skipper?"

"I wonder where he is now?" Code's eyes were searching the crowd. "I saw him right over there."

He pointed to a certain spot.

"Who? What? Are you crazy, Code?"

"'Arry Duncan, the traitor that ruined our bait. I'd have sworn I saw him. It came all of a sudden and went away again. But I guess it couldn't have been anything but a close resemblance." He laughed nervously. "Gave me the creeps for a minute, though."

"Lor-rd!" shivered Pete, who had all the superstitions of the sea at his fingers' ends. "Mebbe he's chasin' us around fer wrongly accusin' him. They do that sometimes, you know. He's probably dead an' that's his sperrit, ha'ntin' us."

"Oh, rot, Pete!" growled Code in his most forcible manner. "Come along now or you'll be sidling into one of these doors and the Lass won't get out of port for a week."

"My soul an' body! Look at that Frenchy. Biggest I ever saw, Code."

They had returned to the sidewalk, and Pete forgot that he himself rose fully as high above the crowds as this stranger. In fact, nearly every one turned to take a look at the huge islander, who, in reality, stood six feet four, barefoot.

They were pushing down-street against the tide and making rather heavy going of it. Code maneuvered so as to pass well to leeward of the big man who, he could see plainly, was just tipsy. But somehow the eyes of the two giants met, and the Frenchman seemed to crush his way through the crowd in Ellinwood's direction.

"Come on, Pete; get out of here before there's any trouble," commanded Code. He knew the mate's weakness for fighting.

The big Frenchman, who wore tremendous earrings, a bright scarlet cap with a blue tuft, and a gay sash, lurched through the crowd and against Pete Ellinwood with a malice only too plain. But his effort was attended with failure. Not only did Pete stand like a rock, but he thrust the other violently back with his shoulder, so that he recoiled upon those behind him, earning their loud-voiced curses.

"Mille tonnerres!" bellowed the Frenchman. "You insult me, cochon Canadien, Canadian pig! The half of sidewalk is mine, eh? You push me off, eh? You fight, eh?"

Code urged Ellinwood along and interceded personally, knowing that the big man would not touch him.

But the Frenchman would not be appeased. He was just drunk enough to become obsessed with the ugly idea that Pete had laid a trap to insult him, and, regardless of Code, kept after the mate.

By this time, of course, a huge crowd had gathered and was following Pete's retreat, yelling to both men to fight it out. Many of the mob knew a few English words, and their taunts reached Ellinwood's ears.

He and Code had not retreated a block before the mate suddenly swung around on his tormentors.

"I won't stand for that, Code. Did you hear what that big devil called me?" he demanded.

"What do you care what he called you? Get along to the ship. What chance have we got with these men?" Code grabbed Pete's arm and kept him moving away. Beneath his hand he could feel the muscles as hard as iron.

But every foot the Canadians retreated brought the big Frenchman nearer, bawling with triumph. At an opportune moment, so close was the press, he slipped his foot between Ellinwood's legs and gave him a push. Pete stumbled, almost fell, and recovered himself, raging.

"Get back you!" he bawled, sending half a dozen men spinning with sweeps of his great arms. "I'll fight this Frenchy. Just let me at him!"

Code saw the rage in Pete's eyes and recognized that he could do nothing more to avert the trouble. His part would have to be confined to seeing that his man got a fair deal. He and Pete were unarmed except for their huge clasp-knives—much better kept out of sight under the circumstances.

The crowd fell back, and the two giants stripped off their coats and shirts. The Frenchman danced up and down, beating his great fists together in a fine frenzy, but Pete, half-crouched, stepped forward on his toes, his hands hanging loose and ready at his sides.

"Allez, donc!" It was the starting word, and Jean leaped in. Pete met him with a crashing right to the ribs and dodged out of reach of the clutching hands that reached for his throat. They circled around a moment and again the Frenchman came, this time in one great leap.

On the instant Ellinwood jumped in to meet him. There was a swift flying of arms, a pounding of the great fists, and Pete suddenly shot back from the melee and landed on his back in the dirt. One of the Frenchman's great swings had landed. But he was up in an instant and went after his opponent again.

Jean saw now that he had another man to deal with—unlike a Frenchman, an Anglo-Saxon cannot fight without sufficient provocation. Now all the battle was aroused in Ellinwood, for aside from the shame of his downfall, the crowd was yelling at the top of its voice. Jean began to run away, circling round and round the ring of spectators, Pete after him.

Suddenly he made a stand, but the mate was ready for him. Dodging the straight left, Pete hurled himself forward and seized the burly Frenchman in his arms. Then, with a tug and a wrench, as though he were uprooting a tree, he lifted his opponent and crashed him down to the earth.

Jean, stunned, and with a broken arm, sought to get up. He gained his feet and, game to the last, staggered toward Ellinwood. Pete started to run in again, but some one on the edge of the crowd thrust a foot out and the big islander stumbled.

Code saw the man who interfered, and, his blood boiling, leaped for him. At the same instant there came a cry of "Police! Police!" But Code did not hesitate. He plunged into the crowd after his man and, in an instant, found himself surrounded and fighting the whole mob.

For a moment it lasted. There was a rain of heavy blows that blinded him, and then something that was hard and dull struck him on the head. Everything began to whirl, and he found he could not lift his arms. Dimly he heard a voice near him shout: "This way!" in English and felt himself gathered up by men and borne swiftly away.

Then consciousness left him.



CHAPTER XX

AMONG THE HOME FOLKS

The village of Freekirk Head was a changed place.

No longer of early mornings did the resounding pop! pop! of motor-dories ring back from the rocks and headland as the trawlers and hand-liners put to sea. No longer did the groups of weary fishermen gather on the store steps for an evening pipe and chat or the young bloods chuck horseshoes at the foot of the chapel hill.

It was a village of women. True, Squire Hardy, being too old to fish, had remained at home, and Bill Boughton, who was completing details for the immediate and profitable sale of the season's catch, was behind the counter of his general store.

He dealt out supplies to the women and children, and wrote down against their fathers' shares the amount of credit extended. But others, day after day, found nothing set against them, and this was due to the promise of help that Elsa Mallaby kept.

"It's useless to charge supplies to those who have nothing now with the idea of getting it back from their fishing profits," she said. "What they earn will just about pay for it, and then there they are back where they started—with nothing. Better let me pay for everything until the men get back. Then they will have something definite ahead to go on."

No one but Adelbert Bysshe, the rector, Bill Boughton, and Elsa Mallaby herself knew exactly how much she paid out weekly toward the maintenance of the village. But all knew it to be an enormous sum (as reckoned on the island), and daily the worship of Hard Luck Jim's widow grew, until she occupied a place in Freekirk Head parallel to a patron saint of the Middle Ages.

But Elsa Mallaby was intensely human, and no one knew it better than herself, as, one late afternoon, she sat at her mahogany table, looking absently over the stubs in her check-book. She saw that she had disbursed a great deal of money—more, perhaps, than she would have under any other circumstances—but she frankly acknowledged that she did not mind that, if only she achieved the end toward which she was working.

For Elsa, more than any one on Grande Mignon, was a person of ways and means.

She was one of those women who seem to find nothing in self-communion. Hers was a nature destined for light and gaiety and happiness. To sit in a splendid palace and mope over what had happened was among the last things she cared to contemplate.

Being of the pure Grande Mignon stock, she looked no farther for a husband than among the men of Freekirk Head, good, honest, able men, all of them. And her eye fell with favor upon Captain Code Schofield of the schooner Charming Lass, old schoolfellow, playmate, and lifelong friend.

The money she had mailed to him had only been an excuse to write a letter; the favors to Ma Schofield were, in great part, to help further her plan; the whole business of helping support Freekirk Head was a flash of dramatic display, calculated to bring her ineradicably before Code's eyes—and every one else's.

As she sat near the window and saw the sunset glow die over the mountain ridge she asked herself what she had achieved. Apparently very little. She felt the futility of human endeavor and desire. To her knowledge Code was in love with nobody, although rumor had for years linked his name with Nellie Tanner's. That was exploded now, for Nellie was engaged to Nat Burns.

Why did he not respond?

Slowly her smile returned. He would respond when he had heard certain other things. Then he would forget any one else but her—if there was any one else. Her heart leaped at the thought.

As it became dark she rang the bell.

"Light the candles in the drawing-room," she said to the servant who entered. "You remember that Mrs. Tanner is coming for dinner?"

"Yes, madam."

"Very well. That is all." The servant withdrew.

There was nothing unusual in the fact of Mrs. Tanner coming for dinner in the evening to the big house. Elsa simply could not eat all her meals alone, and her old friends at the village were constantly receiving invitations.

Mrs. Tanner arrived at half-past six. It was her first visit since the departure of the fleet several weeks before, and there was plenty to talk about. But Ma Tanner wisely reserved her conversation until after the meal, for the "vittles" of Mallaby House were famous the whole length of the New Brunswick coast.

Afterward when they had retired to Elsa's pink and gray boudoir, the eternal envy of Grande Mignon womanhood, the talk flowed freely.

"It's this way, Elsa," declared ma confidentially. "I think Nellie is pretty well took care of. Now young Nat Burns, as you know, is pretty well off, as the sayin' goes on the island. He really wouldn't have to fish if he didn't want to. His father didn't neglect him when his time come."

Ma Tanner did not see the change in Elsa's expression. The pupils of her magnificent black eyes expanded and the delicate brows drew together over the bridge of her nose. The close mouth, with its ugly set, would not have been recognized by any but lifelong friends.

"And Nat's about's good as any boy," went on ma. "Boys is turr'ble hard to fetch up so they don't disgrace ye and send ye to the grave with gray head bowed in sorter, as the poet says. Nat ain't bad. He speaks sharp to his mother once in a while, but la—what boy don't? I think he'll treat Nellie right and be a good man to her."

"Ma," said Elsa, and her voice was quiet and intense as though she were keeping herself well in hand, "that's what every one thinks about Nat Burns."

"Wal," asked the elder woman, slightly resentful, "don't you think so?"

"What I think has nothing whatever to do with the question. But what I know might have. I don't want Nellie's life ruined, that's all."

"Look here, Elsa, what're you drivin' at?" Ma Turner was becoming wrought up. She knew there must be something behind these hints or Elsa would never venture on such thin ice with her.

"Ye be'n't by any means jealous o' Nellie, be ye?" she asked, peering through her spectacles.

"Heavens, no!" cried Elsa so convincingly that Mrs. Tanner was satisfied once and for all.

"Wal, what's all the fuss, then?"

"Any girl would ruin her life that threw herself away on Nat Burns. He's got a fine solid-gold case, but his works are very poor indeed, Ma Tanner."

"Don't go talkin' educated or I can't follow ye. D'ye mean he's all show an' nothin' in his mind or heart of Christian goodness?"

"Yes, I mean that, and I mean more besides. He doesn't stop by being merely 'not good.' He is actively and busily downright bad."

"They's several kinds of 'bad,' Elsa Mallaby."

"Well, I mean the kind that makes a girl break her engagement and keep it broken, and that drives a man out of a decent village."

There was a long and pregnant pause while Ma Tanner got everything straight in her mind.

"You don't mean that he has—" she inquired, her little mouth a thin, hard line.

"Yes, I do. Exactly that. I knew the case myself in this very village before Jim died. There are some men who instinctively take the correct course in a matter of that kind; others who don't care two pins as long as they get out of it with a whole skin. Nat Burns was that kind."

"Then you mean he ought already to be married?"

"Yes, or in jail."

"Why isn't he?"

"It was entirely up to the girl and she refused to act."

"Gawd! My poor Nellie!"

The servant knocked, and, upon receiving permission to enter, handed Elsa a telegram, evidently just delivered from the village telegraph office. Unconsciously the girl reached into a glass-covered bookcase and drew forth a paper volume. Then she tore open the message and commenced to read it with the aid of the book.

Mrs. Tanner did not notice her. She sat staring into the future with a leaden heart. Such a thing as Elsa hinted at was unheard of in Freekirk Head, and she was overwhelmed. Suddenly she asked:

"Why do you hate Nat Burns so? You couldn't have told me that if you hadn't hated him."

Elsa looked up from her book impatiently, quite oblivious to the wound she had caused.

"Because I was very fond of that girl!" she said, and went back to the translation of the message. Suddenly she sprang to her feet with a little cry of dismay and rang the bell.

"Annette!" she cried. "Annette!" The maid rushed in, frightened, from the adjoining room.

"Tell Charles I am going to St. John's to-morrow, and to have the carriage at the door at half-past six. Pack my steamer trunk immediately. Great guns! Why isn't there a night boat?"

The maid flew out of the room, and Elsa, still doubtful, retranslated the message. Mrs. Tanner, taken aback by these sudden activities, rose hurriedly to go. This sudden flurry was inexplicable to her. Since the departure of the fleet Elsa had not as much as hinted leaving Freekirk Head. Now, in a moment, she was beside herself to go.

"I hope it isn't bad news, Elsa," she faltered.

"Well, it is, ma, it is, b-but only in a business way. A little trip will straighten it up, I think." And she was courteous but indefatigable in hastening the departure of her guest.



CHAPTER XXI

A PRISONER

When Code Schofield came to himself his first sensation was one of oppression, such as is felt after sleeping in an unventilated room. It seemed difficult for him to breathe, but his body was quite free and uninjured, as he found by moving himself carefully in all directions before he even opened his eyes.

Presently the air became familiar. It was a perfect mixture of flavors; oilskins, stale tobacco-smoke, brine, burned grease, tar, and, as a background, fish. His ears almost immediately detected water noises running close by, and he could feel the pull of stout oak timber that formed the inner wall of where he lay.

"Fo'c'stle of a fishing schooner!" he announced, and then opened his eyes to prove that he was correct.

He looked out into a three-cornered room occupied by a three-cornered table, and that ran as far back as the foremast. Above, fastened to a huge square beam, hung a chain-lamp so swiveled that it kept itself level however much the schooner kicked and wriggled. On the table, swinging his legs, sat a large, unpleasant-looking man.

"Wal, how are ye?" asked this latter, seeing his charge had recovered consciousness. Never having seen the man before, Code did not consider it necessary to answer. So he wriggled to find out if any bones were broken, and, in the end, discovered a tender knob on the right side of his head.

He soon recalled the visit to St. Pierre, the purchase of the bait, Pete Ellinwood's fight, the general mix-up, and the blow on the head that had finished him. He sat up suddenly.

"Look here! What ship is this?" he demanded.

"You'll find out soon enough when you go on deck. Hungry? I got orders to feed ye."

"You bet I'm hungry; didn't have any dinner last night in St. Pierre."

"Two nights ago," said the other, beginning to fry salt pork. "Nigh thirty-six hours you've laid here like a log." Code doubted it, but did not argue. He was trying to puzzle out the situation.

If this was a fishing schooner the men ought to be over the side fishing, and she would be at anchor. Instead, feeling the long, steady heel to leeward and half-recover to windward, he knew she was flying on a course.

Breakfast swallowed, he made his way on deck. As he came up the companionway a man stood leaning against the rail. With a feeling of violent revulsion, Code recognized Nat Burns. A glance at a near-by dory showed the lettering Nettie B., and Schofield at once recognized his position.

He was Nat Burns's prisoner.

"Mornin'," said Burns curtly. "Thought you were goin' to sleep forever."

"It's a hanging offense putting any one to sleep that long," retorted Code cheerfully. "Luck was with you, and I woke up."

"You're hardly in a position to joke about hanging offenses," remarked Nat venomously.

"Why not?" Code had gone a sickly pallor that looked hideous through his tan.

"Because you're goin' home to St. Andrew's to be tried for one."

Code glanced over his left shoulder. The sun was there. The schooner was headed almost directly southwest. Nat had spoken the truth. They were headed homeward.

"Where's your warrant?" Code could feel his teeth getting on edge with rage as he talked to this captor who bore himself with such insolence.

"Don't need a warrant for murder cases, and I'm a constable at Freekirk Head, so everything is being done according to law. The gunboat didn't find you, so I thought, as long as you were right to hand, I'd bring you along."

"Then you knew I was in St. Pierre?"

"Yes; saw you come in. If it hadn't been so dark you'd have recognized the Nettie not far away." Code, remembering the time of night they arrived, knew this to be impossible, for it is dark at six in September. He had barely been able to make out the lines of the nearest schooners.

A man was standing like a statue at the wheel, and, as he put the vessel over on the port tack, his face came brightly into the sun. It was 'Arry Duncan. Code had not been wrong, then, in thinking that he had seen the man's face in St. Pierre.

"Fine traitor you've got there at the wheel," said Schofield. "He'll do you brown some day."

"I don't think so. Just because he did you, doesn't prove anything. He was in my employ all the time, and getting real money for his work."

"So it was all a plot, eh?" said Code dejectedly. "I give you credit, Burns, for more brains than I ever supposed you had. What's become of Pete Ellinwood and the Lass?"

"Pete is back on the schooner and she's gone out to fish. You needn't worry about them. At the proper time they'll be told you are safe and unhurt."

Code said nothing for a while. With hands rammed into his pockets he stood watching the white and blue sea whirl by. In those few minutes he touched the last depth of failure and despair. For a brief space he was minded to leap overboard.

He shivered as one with an ague and shook off the deadly influence of the idea. Had he no more grit? he asked himself. Had he come this far only to be beaten? Was this insolent young popinjay to win at last? No! Then he listened, for Nat was speaking.

"If you give your word of honor not to try and escape you can have the run of the decks and go anywhere you like on the schooner. If not, you will be locked up and go home a prisoner."

It was the last straw, the final piece of humiliation. Code stiffened as a soldier might to rebuke. A deadly, dull anger surged within him and took possession of his whole being—such an anger as can only come to one who, amiable and upright by nature, is driven to inevitable revolt.

"Look here, Burns," he said, his voice low, but intense with the emotion that mastered him, "I'll give no word of honor regarding anything. Between you and me there is a lot to be settled. You have almost ruined me, and, by Heaven, before I get through with you, you'll rue it!

"I shall make every attempt to escape from this schooner, and if I do escape, look out! If I do not escape and you press these charges against me, I'll hunt you down for the rest of my life; or if I go to prison I will have others do it for me.

"Now you know what to expect, and you also know that when I say a thing I mean it. Now do what you like with me."

Burns looked at Schofield's tense white face. His eyes encountered those flaming blue ones and dropped sullenly. Whether it was the tremendous force of the threat or whether it was a guilty conscience working, no one but himself knew, but his face grew gradually as pallid as that of his captive. Suddenly he turned away.

"Boys," he called to the crew who were working near, "put Schofield in the old storeroom. And one of you watch it all the time. He says he will escape if he can, so I hold you responsible."

Code followed the men to a little shanty seemingly erected against the foremast. It was of stout, heavy boards about long enough to allow a cot being set up in it. It had formerly been used for storing provisions and had never been taken down.

When the padlock snapped behind him Code took in his surroundings. There were two windows in the little cubby, one looking forward and the other to starboard. Neither was large enough to provide a means of escape, he judged. At the foot of the cot was a plain wooden armchair, both pieces of furniture being screwed to the floor. For exercise there was a strip of bare deck planking about six feet long beside the bed, where he might pace back and forth.

Both the cot and chair appeared to be new. "Had the room all ready for me," said Code to himself.

The one remaining piece of furniture was a queer kind of book-shelf nailed against the wall. It was fully five feet long and protruded a foot out above his bed. In its thirty-odd pigeonholes was jammed a collection of stuff that was evidently the accumulation of years. There were scores of cheap paper-bound novels concerning either high society or great detectives, old tobacco-boxes, broken pipes, string, wrapping-paper, and all the what-not of a general depository.

With hours on his hands and nothing whatever to occupy him, Code began to sort over the lurid literature with a view to his entertainment. He hauled a great dusty bundle out of one pigeonhole, and found among the novels some dusty exercise books.

He inspected them curiously. On the stiff board cover of one was scrawled, "Log Schooner M. C. Burns; M. C. Burns, master."

The novels were forgotten with the appearance of this old relic. The M. C. Burns was the original Burns schooner when Nat's father was still in the fish business at Freekirk Head. It was the direct predecessor of the Nettie B., which was entirely Nat's. On the death of the elder Burns when the May Schofield went down, the M. C. Burns had been sold to realize immediate cash. And here was her log!

Code looked over pages that were redolent of the events in his boyhood, for Michael was a ready writer and made notes regularly even when the M. C. was not on a voyage. He had spent an hour in this way when he came to this entry on one of the very last pages:

"June 30: This day clear with strong E. S.-E. wind. This day Nat, in the M. C. Burns, raced Code Schofield in the May Schofield from Quoddy Head to moorings in Freekirk Head harbor. My boy had the worst of it all the way. I never saw such luck as that young Schofield devil has. He won by half an hour. Poor Nat is heartbroken and swore something awful. He says he'll win next time or know why!"

"Just like old man Burns!" thought Code. "Pities and spoils his rascal of a son. But the boy loved him."

Code had not thought of that race in years. How well he remembered it now! There had been money up on both sides, and the rules were that no one in either schooner should be over twenty except the skippers.

What satisfaction it had been to give Nat a good trimming in the fifty-year-old May. He could still feel an echo of the old proud thrill. He turned back to the log.

"July 1: Cloudy this day. Hot. Light S.-W. breeze. Nat tells me another race will be sailed in just a week. Swears he will win it. Poor boy, what with losing yesterday and Caroline Fuller's leaving the Head to work in Lubec, he is hardly himself. I'm afraid the old M. C. won't show much speed till she is thoroughly overhauled. Note—Stmr. May Schofield's policy runs out July 20th. See about this, sure."

There was very little pertaining to the next race until the entry for June 6, two days before the event. Then he read:

"Nat is quite happy; says he can't lose day after to-morrow. I told him he must have fitted the M. C. with wings, but he only grinned. Take the stmr. to St. John to-morrow to look after policies, including May Schofield's. She's so old her rates will have to go up. Won't be back till day after the race, but Nat says he'll telegraph me. Wonder what business that boy's got up his sleeve that makes him so sure he will win? Oh, he's a clever one, that boy!"

Here the chronicle ended. Little did Michael Burns know he would never write in it again. He went to St. John's, as he had said, and completed his business in time to return home the day of the race instead of the day after.

The second race was never sailed, for Code Schofield received a telegram from St. John's, offering him a big price for a quick lighterage trip to Grande Mignon, St. John being accidentally out of schooners and the trip urgent.

Though loath to lose the race by default, the money offered was too good to pass by, and Code had made the trip and loaded up by nightfall. It was then that he had met Michael Burns, and Burns had expressed his desire to go home in the May so as to watch her actions in a moderate sea and gale.

Neither he nor the May ever saw dry land again. Only Code of the whole ship's company struggled ashore on the Wolves, bruised and half dead from exposure.

The end of the old log before him was full of poignant tragedy to Code, the tragedy of his own life, for it was the unwritten pages from then on that should have told the story of a fiendishly planned revenge upon him who was totally innocent of any wrong-doing. The easy, weak, indulgence of the father had grown a crop of vicious and cruel deeds in the son.



CHAPTER XXII

A RECOVERED TREASURE

For five days Code yawned or rushed through the greater part of Nat's stock of lurid literature. It was the one thing that kept him from falling into the black pit of brooding; sometimes he felt as though he must go insane if he allowed himself to think. He had not the courage to tear aside the veil of dull pain that covered his heart and look at the bleeding reality. He was afraid of his own emotions.

It was impossible for him to go lower in the scale of physical events.

Nat was about to triumph, and Code himself was forced to admit that this triumph was mostly due to Nat's own wits. First he had stolen Nellie Tanner (Code had thought a lot about that ring missing from Nellie's hand), then he had attached the Charming Lass in the endeavor to take away from him the very means of his livelihood.

Then something had happened. Schofield did not know what it was, but something evidently very serious, for the next thing he knew Nat had crushed his pride and manhood under a brutal and technical charge of murder.

But this was not all.

His victim escaping him with the schooner and the means of livelihood, Burns had employed a traitor in the crew to poison the bait and force him to come ashore to replenish his tubs. Once ashore, the shanghaiing was not difficult.

Code had no doubt whatever that the whole plan, commencing with the disappearance of the man in the motor-dory and ending with his abduction from St. Pierre, was part and parcel of the same scheme. In this, his crowning achievement of skill and cunning, Burns had showed himself an admirable plotter, playing upon human nature as he did to effect his ends.

For it was nothing but a realization of Peter Ellinwood's weakness in the matter of his size and fighting ability that resulted in his (Code's) easy capture. Schofield had no shadow of a doubt but that the big Frenchman had been hired to play his part, and that, in the howling throng that surrounded the fighters the crew of the Nettie B. were waiting to seize the first opportunity to make the duel a melee and effect their design in the confusion.

Their opportunity came when the Frenchman tried to trip Pete Ellinwood after big Jean had fallen and Code rushed into the fray with the ferocity of a wildcat. Some one raised the yell "Police," he was surrounded by his enemies, some one rapped him over the head with a black-jack, and the job was done. It was clever business, and despite the helplessness of his position, Code could not but admire the brilliance of such a scheming brain, while at the same time deploring that it was not employed in some legitimate and profitable cause.

Now he was in the enemy's hands, and St. Andrew's was less than a dozen hours away; St. Andrew's, with its jail, its grand jury, and its pen.

Life aboard the Nettie B. had been a dead monotony. On the foremast above Code's prison hung the bell that rang the watches, so that the passage of every half hour was dinged into his ears. Three times a day he was given food, and twice a day he was allowed to pace up and down the deck, a man holding tightly to each arm.

The weather had been propitious, with a moderate sea and a good quartering wind. The Nettie had footed it properly, and Code's experienced eye had, on one occasion, seen her log her twelve knots in an hour. The fact had raised his estimation of her fifty per cent.

It must not be supposed that, as Code sat in his hard wooden chair, he forgot the diary that he had read the first afternoon of his incarceration. Often he thought of it, and often he drew it out from its place and reread those last entries: "Swears he will win second race," "Says he can't lose day after to-morrow," "I wonder what the boy has got up his sleeve that makes him so sure he will win?"

At first Code merely ascribed these recorded sayings of Nat Burns to youthful disappointment and a sportsmanlike determination to do better next time. But not for long. He remembered as though it had been yesterday the look with which Nat had favored him when he finally came ashore beaten, and the sullen resentment with which he greeted any remarks concerning the race.

There was no sportsmanlike determination about him! Code quickly changed his point of view. How could Nat be so sure he was going to win?

The thing was ridiculous on the face of it. The fifty-year-old May had limped in half an hour ahead of the thirty-year-old M. C. Burns after a race of fifteen miles. How, then, could Nat swear with any degree of certainty that he would win the second time. It was well known that the M. C. Burns was especially good in heavy weather, but how could Nat ordain that there would be just the wind and sea he wanted?

The thing was absurd on the face of it, and, besides, silly braggadocio, if not actually malicious. And even if it were malicious, Code thanked Heaven that the race had not been sailed, and that he had been spared the exhibition of Nat's malice. He had escaped that much, anyway.

However, from motives of general caution, Code decided to take the book with him. Nat had evidently forgotten it, and he felt sure he would get off the ship with it in his possession. Now, as he drew near to St. Andrews, he put it for the last time inside the lining of his coat, and fastened that lining together with pins, of which he always carried a stock under his coat-lapel.

As Schofield had not forgotten the old log of the M. C. Burns, neither had he forgotten the threat he made to Nat that he would try his best to escape, and would defy his authority at every turn.

He had tried to fulfil his promise to the letter. Twice he had removed one of the windows before the alert guard detected him, and once he had nearly succeeded in cutting his way through the two-inch planking of his ceiling before the chips and sawdust were discovered, and he was deprived of his clasp-knife.

Every hour of every day his mind had been constantly on this business of escape. Even during the reading, to which he fled to protect his reason, it was the motive of every chapter, and he would drop off in the middle of a page into a reverie, and grow inwardly excited over some wild plan that mapped itself out completely in his feverish brain.

Now as they approached St. Andrew's his determination was as strong as ever, but his resources were exhausted. Double-guarded and without weapons, he found himself helpless. The fevered excitement of the past four days had subsided into a dull apathy of hurt in which his brain was as delicate and alert as the mainspring of a watch. He was resigned to the worst if it came, but was ready, like a panther in a tree, to spring at the slightest false move of his enemies.

Now for the last time he went over his little eight-by-ten prison. He examined the chair as though it were some instrument of the Inquisition. He pulled the bed to pieces and handled every inch of the frame. He emptied every compartment of the queer hanging cabinet that had been stuffed with books and miscellanies; he examined every article in the room.

He had done this a dozen times before, but some instinct drove him to repeat the process. There was always hope of the undiscovered, and, besides, he needed the physical action and the close application of his mind. So, mechanically and doggedly he went over every inch of his little prison.

But in vain.

The roof and walls were of heavy planking and were old. They were full of nicks as well as wood-knots, and the appearance of some of the former gave Code an idea. He went carefully over the boards, sticking his thumb-nail into them and lifting or pressing down as the shape of the nick warranted. For they resembled very much the depressions cut in sliding covers on starch-boxes whereby such covers can be pushed in their grooves.

At any other time he would have considered this the occupation of a madman, but now it kept him occupied and held forth the faint gleam of hope by which he now lived.

Suddenly something happened. He was lying across his immovable cot fingering the boards low down in the right rear corner when he felt something give beneath his thumb. A flash of hope almost stifled him, and he lay quiet for a moment to regain command of himself. Then he put his thumb again in the niche and lifted up. With all his strength he lifted and, all at once, a panel rushed up and stuck, revealing a little box perhaps a foot square that had been built back from the rear wall of the old storeroom.

That was all, except for the fact that something was in the box—a package done up in paper.

For a while he did not investigate the package, but devoted his attention to sounding the rest of the near-by planks with the hope that they might give into a larger opening and furnish a means of egress. For half an hour he worked and then gave up. He had covered every inch of wall and every niche, and this was all!

At last he turned to the contents of the box that he had uncovered. Removing the package, he slid the cover down over the opening for fear that his guard, looking in a window, might become aware of what he had discovered. Then, sitting on the bed, he unwrapped the package.

It was a beautiful, clear mirror bound with silver nickel and fitted with screw attachments as though it were intended to be fastened to something.

At first this unusual discovery meant nothing whatever to him. Then, as he turned the object listlessly in his hands, his eyes fell upon three engraved letters, C. A. S., and a date, 1908.

Then he remembered.

When he was twenty years old his father had taught him the science of navigation, so that if anything happened Code might sail the old May Schofield.

Because of the fact that a position at sea was found by observing the heavenly bodies, Code had become interested in astronomy, and had learned to chart them on a sky map of his own.

The object in his hand was an artificial horizon, a mirror attached to the sextant which could be fixed at the exact angle of the horizon should the real horizon be obscured. This valuable instrument his father had given him on his twenty-first birthday because the old man had been vastly pleased with his interest in a science of which he himself knew little or nothing.

Code remembered that, for a year or two, he had pursued this hobby of his with deep interest and considerable success, and that his great object in life had been to some day have a small telescope of his own by which to learn more of the secrets of the heavens. But, after his father died, he had been forced to take up the active support of the family, and had let this passion die.

But how did it happen that the mirror was here?

He recalled that the rest of his paraphernalia had gone to the bottom with the May Schofield. It was true that he had not overhauled his equipment for some time, and that it had been in a drawer in the May's cabin, but that drawer had not been opened.

He pursued the train of thought no farther. His brain was tired and his head ached with the strain of the last five days. His last hope of escape had only resulted in his finding a forgotten mirror, and his despair shut out any other consideration. He had not even the fire to resent the fact that it was in Burns's possession, and concealed.

It was his, he knew, and, without further thought of it, he thrust it into his pocket just as he heard the men outside his little prison talking together excitedly.

"By George, she looks like a gunboat," said one. "I wonder what she wants?"

"Yes, there's her colors. You can see the sun shinin' on her brass guns forward."

"There, she's signalin'. I wonder what she wants?"

Code walked idly to his windows and peered out, but could not see the vessel that the men were talking about.

"She wants us to heave to, boys," sang out Nat suddenly. "Stand by to bring her up into the wind. Hard down with your wheel, John!"

As the schooner's head veered Code caught a glimpse of a schooner-rigged vessel half a mile away with uniformed men on her decks and two gleaming brass cannon forward. Then she passed out of vision.

"She's sending a cutter aboard," said one man.



CHAPTER XXIII

SURPRISES

Fifteen minutes later a small boat, rowed smartly by six sailors in white canvas, came alongside the 'midships ladder of the Nettie B. At a word from the officer the six oars rose as one vertically into the air, and the bowman staved off the cutter so that she brought up without a scratch.

A young man in dark blue sprang out of the stern-sheets upon the deck.

"Nettie B. of Freekirk Head?" he asked. "Captain Burns commanding?"

"Yes," said Nat, stepping forward, "I am Captain Burns. What do you want?"

"I come from the gunboat Albatross," said the officer, "and represent Captain Foraker. You have on board, have you not, a man named Code Schofield, also of Freekirk Head, under arrest for the murder of a man or men on the occasion of the sinking of his schooner?"

Nat scowled.

"Yes," he said. "I arrested him myself in St. Pierre, Miquelon. I am a constable in Freekirk Head."

"Just as we understood," remarked the officer blandly. "Captain Foraker desires me to thank you for your prompt and efficient work in this matter, though I can tell you on the side, Captain Burns, that the old man is rather put out that he didn't get the fellow himself. We chased up and down the Banks looking for him, but never got within sight of as much as his main truck sticking over the horizon.

"And the Petrel—that's our steamer, you know—well, sir, maybe he didn't make a fool of her. Payson, on the Petrel, is the ugliest man in the service, and when this fellow Schofield led him a chase of a hundred and fifty miles, and then got away among the islands of Placentia Bay, they say Payson nearly had apoplexy. So your getting him ought to be quite a feather in your cap."

"I consider that I did my duty. But would you mind telling me what you have signaled me for?" Burns resented the gossip of this young whipper-snapper of the service who seemed, despite his frankness, to have something of a patronizing air.

"Certainly. Captain Foraker desires me to tell you that he wished the prisoner transferred to the Albatross. We know that you are not provided with an absolutely secure place to keep the prisoner, and, as we are on our way to St. Andrews on another matter, the skipper thinks he might just as well take the fellow in and hand him over to the authorities."

"Well, I don't agree with your skipper," snapped Burns. "I got Schofield, and I'm going to deliver him. He's safe enough, don't you worry. When you go back you can tell Captain Foraker that Schofield is in perfectly good hands."

The pleasant, amiable manner of the subaltern underwent a quick change. He at once became the stern, businesslike representative of the government.

"I am sorry, Captain Burns, but I shall deliver no such message, and when I go back I shall have the criminal with me. Those are my orders, and I intend to carry them out." He turned to the six sailors sitting quietly in the boat, their oars still in the air.

"Unship oars!" he commanded. The sweeps fell away, three on each side. "Squad on deck!" The men scrambled up the short ladder and lined up in two rows of three. At his belt each man carried a revolver and cutlasses swung at their sides.

"Now," requested the officer amiably, "will you please lead me to the prisoner?"

Nat's face darkened into a scowl of black rage, and he cursed under his breath. It was just his luck, he told himself, that when he was about to triumph, some of these government loafers should come along and take the credit out of his hands.

For a moment he thought of resistance. All his crew were on deck, drawn by curiosity. But he saw they were vastly impressed by the discipline of the visitors and by their decidedly warlike appearance. If he resisted there would be blood spilt, and he did not like the thought of that. He finally admitted to himself that the young officer was only carrying out orders, and orders that were absolutely just.

"Well, come along!" he snarled ungraciously, and started forward. The officer spoke a word of command, and the squad marched after him as he, in turn, followed Nat.

Of all this Code had been ignorant, for the conversation had taken place too far aft for him to hear. His first warning was when the sailors marched past the window and Nat reluctantly opened the door of the old storeroom.

"Officers are here to get you, Schofield," said the skipper of the Nettie B. "Come out."

Wonderingly, Code stepped into the sunlight and open air and saw the officer with his escort. With the resignation that he had summoned during his five days of imprisonment he accepted his fate.

"I am ready," he said. "Let's go as soon as possible."

"Captain Schofield," said the subaltern, "you are to be transferred, and I trust you will deem it advisable to go peaceably."

Catching sight of the six armed sailors, Code could not help grinning.

"There's no question about it," he said; "I will."

"Form cordon!" ordered the officer, and the sailors surrounded him—two before, two beside, and two behind. In this order they marched to the cutter.

Code was told to get in first and take a seat looking aft. He did so, and the officer dropped into the stern-sheets so as to face his prisoner. The sailors took their position, shipped their oars smartly, and the cutter was soon under way to the gunboat.

Arrived at the accommodation ladder, and on deck, Code found a vessel with white decks, glistening brass work, and discipline that shamed naval authority. The subaltern, saluting, reported to the deck-officer that his mission had been completed, and the latter, after questioning Code, ordered that he be taken to confinement quarters.

These quarters, unlike the pen on the Nettie B., were below the deck, but were lighted by a porthole. The room was larger, had a comfortable bunk, a small table loaded with magazines, a chair, and a sanitary porcelain washstand. The luxury of the appointments was a revelation.

There was no question of his escaping from this room he very soon discovered.

The door was of heavy oak and locked on the outside. The walls were of solid, smooth timber, and the porthole was too small to admit the possibility of his escaping through it. The roof was formed of the deck planks.

He had hardly examined his surroundings when he heard a voice in sharp command on deck, and the running of feet, creaking of blocks, and straining of sheets as sail was got on the vessel. His room presently took an acute angle to starboard, and he realized that, with the fair gale on the quarter, they must be crowding her with canvas.

He could tell by the look of the water as it flew past his port that the remainder of the trip to St. Andrews would not take long. He knew the course there from his present position must be north, a little west, across the Bay of Fundy.

The Nettie B., when compelled to surrender her prisoner, had rounded Nova Scotia and was on the home-stretch toward Quoddy Roads. She was, in fact, less than thirty miles away from Grande Mignon Island, and Code had thought with a great and bitter homesickness of the joy just a sight of her would be.

He longed for the white Swallowtail lighthouse with its tin swallow above; for the tumbled green-clothed granite of the harbor approaches; for the black, sharp-toothed reefs that showed on the half-water near the can-buoy, and for the procession of stately headlands to north and south, fading from sight in a mantle of purple and gray.

But most of all for the crescent of stony beach, the nestle of white cottages along the King's Road, and the green background of the mountain beyond, with Mallaby House in the very heart of it.

This had been his train of thought when Burns had opened the door to deliver him up to the gunboat, and now it returned to him as the stanch vessel under him winged her way across the blue afternoon sea.

He wondered if the Albatross would pass close enough inshore for him to get a glimpse of Mignon's tall and forbidding fog-wreathed headlands. Just a moment of this familiar sight would be balm to his bruised spirit. He felt that he could gather strength from the sight of home. He had been among aliens so long!

But no nearer than just a glimpse. He made a firm resolution never to push the prow of the Lass into Flagg Cove until he stood clear of the charges against him. He admitted that it might take years, but his resolution was none the less strong.

His place of confinement was on the starboard side of the Albatross, and he was gratified after a few minutes to see the sun pouring through his porthole.

Despair had left him now, and he was quietly cheerful. With something akin to pleasure that the struggle was over, and that events were out of his hands for the time being, he settled down in his chair and picked up a magazine.

He had hardly opened it when a thought occurred to him. If the course was north a little west, how did it happen that the sun streamed into his room, which was on the east side of the ship on that course?

He sprang to the port and looked out.

The sun smote him full in the face. He strained his eyes against the horizon that was unusually clear for this foggy sea, and would have sworn that along its edge was a dark line of land. The conclusion was inevitable.

The Albatross was flying directly south as fast as her whole spread of canvas could take her.

Schofield could not explain this phenomenon to himself, nor did he try. The orders that a man-of-war sailed under were none of his affair, and if the captain chose to institute a hunt for the north pole before delivering a prisoner in port, naturally he had a perfect right to do so. It was possible, Code told himself, that another miserable wretch was to be picked up before they were both landed together.

Whatever course Captain Foraker intended to lay in the future his present one was taking him as far as possible away from Grande Mignon, St. Andrew's, and St. John's. And for this meager comfort Code Schofield was thankful.

The sun remained above the horizon until six o'clock, and then suddenly plumped into the sea. The early September darkness rushed down and, as it did so, a big Tungsten light in the ceiling of Code's room sprang into a brilliant glow, the iron cover to the porthole being shut at the same instant.

A few moments later the door of his cell was unceremoniously opened and a man entered bearing an armful of fresh clothing.

"Captain Schofield," he said, with the deference of a servant, "the captain wishes your presence at dinner. The ship's barber will be here presently. Etiquette provides that you wear these clothes. I will fix them and lay them out for you. If you care for a bath, sir, I will draw it—"

"Say, look here," exclaimed our hero with a sudden and unexpected touch of asperity, "if you're trying to kid me, old side-whiskers, you're due for the licking of your life."

He got deliberately upon his feet and removed the fishing-coat which he had worn uninterruptedly since the night at St. Pierre.

"I thought I'd read about you in that magazine or something, and had fallen asleep, but here you are still in the room. I'm going to see whether you're alive or not. No one can mention a bath to me with impunity."

He made a sudden grab for the servant, who stood with mouth open, uncertain as to whether or not he was dealing with a lunatic.

Before he could move, Code's hard, strong hands closed upon his arms in a grip that brought a bellow of pain. In deadly fear of his life, he babbled protests, apologies, and pleadings in an incoherent medley that would have satisfied the most toughened skeptic. Code released him, laughing.

"Well, I guess you're real, all right," he said. "Now if you're in earnest about all this, draw that bath quick. Then I'll believe you."

Half an hour later Code, bathed, shaved, and feeling like a different man, was luxuriating in fresh linen and a comfortable suit.

"Look here, Martin," he said to the valet, "of course I know that this is no more the gunboat Albatross than I am. The Canadian government isn't in the habit of treating prisoners in exactly this manner. What boat is this?"

Martin coughed a little before answering. In all his experience he had never before been asked to dress the skipper of a fishing vessel.

"I was told to say, sir, in case you asked, that you are aboard the mystery schooner, sir."

"What! The mystery schooner that led the steamer that chase?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, by the great trawl hook! And I didn't know it!"

"No, sir. Remember we came up behind the Nettie B., and when you were transferred you were made to sit facing away from this ship so you would not recognize her."

"Then all the guns were fakes, and the whole business of a man-of-war as well?" cried Code, astonished almost out of his wits by this latest development in his fortunes.

"Yes, sir. The appearances were false, but as for seamanship, sir, this vessel could not do what she does were it not for the strict training aboard her, sir. I'll wager our lads can out-maneuver and outsail any schooner of her tonnage on the seas, Gloucestermen included. The navy is easy compared to our discipline."

"But what holds the men to it if it's so hard?"

"Double wages and loyalty to the captain."

"Captain Foraker?"

"Yes, sir. There, sir, that tie is beautiful. Now the waistcoat and coat. If you will permit me, sir, you look, as I might say, 'andsome, begging your pardon."

Code flushed and looked into the glass that hung against the wall of his cabin. He barely recognized the clean-shaven, clear-eyed, broad shouldered youth he saw there as the rough, salty skipper of the schooner Charming Lass. He wondered with a chuckle what Pete Ellinwood would say if he could see him.

"And now, sir, if you're ready, just come with me, sir. Dinner is at seven, and it is now a quarter to the hour."

Stunned by the wonders already experienced, and vaguely hoping that the dream would last forever, Code followed the bewhiskered valet down a narrow passage carpeted with a stuff so thick that it permitted no sound.

Martin passed several doors—the passage was lighted by small electrics—and finally paused before one on the right-hand side. Here he knocked, and apparently receiving an answer, peered into the room for a moment. Withdrawing his head, he swung the door open and turned to Schofield.

"Go right in, sir," he said, and Code, eager for new wonders, stepped past him.

The room was a small sitting-room, lighted softly by inverted bowl-shaped globes of glass so colored as to bring out the full value of the pink velours and satin brocades with which the room was hung and the furniture covered.

For a moment he stared without seeing anything, and then a slight rustling in a far corner diverted his attention. He looked sharply and saw a woman rise from a lounge and come toward him with outstretched hands.

She was Elsa Mallaby!



CHAPTER XXIV

THE SIREN

He saw the glad smile on her lips, the light in her great, lustrous, dark eyes, and the beauty of her faultless body, and yet they all faded to nothing beside the astounding and inexplicable fact that she was in the mystery schooner.

"You here!" he gasped, taking her hands in his big rough ones and gripping them tight. The impulse to draw her to him in an embrace was almost irresistible, for not only was she lovely in the extreme, but she was from Freekirk Head and home, and his soul had been starved with loneliness and the ceaseless repetition of his own thoughts.

"Yes," she replied in her gentle voice, "I am here. You are surprised?"

"That hardly expresses it," he returned. "So many things have happened to-day that I expect anything now."

"Come, let us go in," she said, and led him through a doorway that connected with an adjoining room. In the center of it was a small table laid with linen and furnished with glittering silver and glass. "Are you hungry?" she asked.

"You know fishermen well enough not to ask that," he laughed, and they sat down. Elsa did not make any tax upon his conversational powers. It was Code himself who first put a pertinent question.

"I take for granted your being here and your living like this," he said; "but I am bursting with curiosity. How do you happen to be in this schooner?"

"It is my schooner; why shouldn't I be in it?" she smiled.

"Yours?" He was mystified. "But why should you have a vessel like this? You never used one before that I know of."

"True, Code; but I have always loved the sea, and—it amuses me. You remember that sometimes I have been away from Freekirk Head for a month at a time. I have been cruising in this schooner. Once I went nearly as far as Iceland; but that took longer. A woman in my position must do something. I can't sit up in that great big house alone all the time."

The intensity with which she said this put a decidedly new face on the matter. It was just like her to be lonely without Jim, he thought. Naturally a woman with all her money must do something.

"But, Elsa," he protested, "your having the schooner for your own use is all right enough; but why has it always turned up to help me when I needed help most? Really, if I had all the money in the world I could never repay the obligations that you have put me under this summer."

"I don't want you to repay me," she said quietly. "Just the fact that I have helped you and that you appreciate it is enough to make me happy."

He looked steadily into her brown eyes for a few moments. Then her gaze dropped and a dull flush mounted from her neck until it suffused her face.

He had never seen her look so beautiful. The wealth of her black hair was coiled about the top of her head like a crown, and held in its depths a silver butterfly.

Her gown was Quaker gray in color, and of some soft clinging material that enhanced the lines of her figure. It was an evening gown, and cut just low enough to be at the same time modest and beautiful. Code, without knowing why, admired her taste and told himself that she erred in no particular. Her mode of life was, at the same time, elegant and feminine—exactly suited her.

"You are easily made happy," he remarked, referring to her last sentence.

"No, I'm not," she contradicted him seriously. "I am the hardest woman in the world to make happy."

"And helping me does it?"

"Yes."

"You are a good woman," he said gratefully, "and always seem to be doing for others. No one will ever forget how you offered to stand by the women of Grande Mignon while the men went fishing."

Again Elsa blushed, but this time the color came from a different source. Little did he know that her philanthropy was all a part of the same plan—to win his favor.

"And the things I know you must have done for my mother," he went on. "Those are the things that I appreciate more than any. It is not every woman who would even think of them, let alone do them."

Why would he force her into this attitude of perpetual lying? she thought. It was becoming worse and worse. Why was he so straightforward and so blind? Could he not see that she loved him? Was he one of those cold and passionless men upon whom no woman ever exerts an intense influence?

Though she did not know it, she expressed the whole fault in her system. A man reared in a more complex community than a fishing village would have divined her scheme, and the result would have been a prolonged but most delightful duel of wits and hearts.

But Code, by the very directness of his honesty, and simplicity of his nature, cut through the gauzy wrappings of this delectable package and went straight to its heart. And there he found nothing, because what little of the deeply genuine there lay in this woman's restless nature was disguised and shifted at the will of her caprice.

When Code had experienced the pleasure of lighting a genuine clear Havana cigar after many months of abstinence, she leaned across the table to him, her hands clasped before her.

"Code, what does loneliness represent to you?" she asked.

"Oh, I don't know," he temporized, taken aback. "I don't go in for loneliness much; but when I do, why all I want is—well, let me see, a good game of quoits with the boys in front of the church, or a talk with my mother about how rich we are going to be some day when I get that partnership in the fishstand. I'm too busy to be lonely."

"And I'm too lonely to be busy!" He looked at her unbelievingly.

"You!" he cried. "Why, you have everything in the world; you can go anywhere, do anything, have the people about you that you want. You, lonely? I don't understand you."

"Well, I'll put it another way. Did you ever want something so hard that it hurt, and couldn't get it?"

"Yes, I wanted my father back after he died," said Code simply.

"And I wanted Jim after he died," added Elsa. "Those things are bad enough; but one gets used to them. What I mean especially is something we see about us all the time and have no chance of getting. Did you ever want something like that, so that it nearly killed you, and couldn't get it?"

Code was silent. The one rankling hurt of his whole life, after seemingly being healed, broke out afresh—the engagement of Nat Burns and Nellie Tanner.

He suddenly realized that, since seeing Elsa, he had not as much as remembered Nellie's existence, when usually her mental presence was not far from him. Elsa, with all her luxury and alluring feminine charms, seemed to cast a spell that bound him helpless like the music in the fairy stories. He liked the spell, and, after all she had done, he confessed to an extraordinary feeling for the enchantress.

Now had come the memory of Nellie—dear, frank-eyed, open-hearted Nellie Tanner—and the thought that her fresh wholesomeness was pledged to make glad the life of Nat Burns seared his heart. A cloud settled down on his brow. But in a moment he recalled himself. His hostess had asked him a question; he must answer it.

"Yes, I have wanted something—and couldn't get it."

"Yes," said Elsa slowly, "a thing is bad enough; but it seems to me that the most hopeless thing in the world is to want a person in that way." Her voice was dreamy and retrospective. Its peculiar, vibrant timbre thrilled him with the thought that perhaps there was some hidden tragedy in her life that he had never suspected. Any unpleasant sense that she was curious was overcome by the manner in which she spoke.

"Yes, it is," he answered solemnly.

She looked up in astonishment at the sincerity of his tone, her heart tingling with a new emotion of delicious uncertainty. What if, after all, he had wanted some one in the way she wanted him? What if the some one were herself and he had been afraid to aspire to a woman of her wealth and position? She asked this without any feeling of conceit, for one who loves always dreams he sees signs of favor in the one beloved.

"Then you have wanted some one?" All her manner, her voice, her eyes expressed sympathy. She was the soul of tact and no mean actress at the same time.

Code, still in the depth of reminiscence and averted happiness, scarcely heard her, but he answered

"Yes, I have." Then, coming to full realization of the confession, he colored and laughed uneasily. "But let's not talk of such personal things any more," he added. "You must think me very foolish to be mooning about like this."

"Can I help you?" she asked, half suffocated by the question. "Perhaps there might be something I could do that would bring the one you want to you."

It was the crucial point in the conversation. She held her breath as she awaited his answer. She knew he was no adept at the half-meanings and near-confessions of flirtation, and that she could depend upon his words and actions to be genuine.

He looked at her calmly without the additional beat of a pulse. His color had died down and left him pale. He was considering.

"You have done much for me," he said at last, "and I shall never forget it, but in this matter even you could not help me. Only the Almighty could do it by direct intervention, and I don't believe He works that way in this century," Code smiled faintly.

As for Elsa, she felt the grip as of an icy hand upon her heart. It was some one else that he meant. Was it possible that all her carefully planned campaign had come to this miserable failure? Had she come this far only to lose all?

The expression of her features did not change, and she sought desperately to control her emotion, but she could not prevent two great tears from welling up in her eyes and slowly rolling down her cheeks.

Code sat startled and nonplused. Only once before in his life had he seen a woman cry, and that was when Nellie broke down in his mother's house after the fire. But the cause for that was evident, and the very fact of her tears had been a relief to him. Now, apparently without rime or reason, Elsa Mallaby was weeping.

The sight went to his heart as might the scream of a child in pain. He wondered with a panicky feeling whether he had hurt her in any way.

"I say, Elsa," he cried, "what's the matter? Don't do that. If I've done anything—" He was on his feet and around the little table in an instant. He took her left hand in his left and put his right on her shoulder, speaking to her in broken, incoherent sentences.

But his words, gentle and almost endearing, emphasized the feeling of miserable self-pity that had taken hold of her and she suddenly sobbed aloud.

"Elsa, dear," he cried, beside himself with uncertainty, "what is it? Tell me. You've done so much for me, please let me do something for you if I can."

"You can't, Code," she said, "unless it's in your heart," and then she bowed her beautiful head forward upon her bare arms and wept. After awhile the storm passed and she leaned back.

He kissed her suddenly. Then he abruptly turned to the door and went out.

Schofield had suddenly come to his senses and disengaged himself from Elsa's embrace.



CHAPTER XXV

THE GUILT FIXED

It was the following afternoon before Code Schofield ventured on deck.

When he did so it was to find that all naval uniforms had been laid aside, the imitation brass guns forward had been removed, and the schooner so altered that she would scarcely have been recognized as the Albatross.

The wireless had been erected again, and now the apparatus was spitting forth an almost constant series of messages. The crew, spotless in dungarees and without a vestige of a weapon, maneuvered the schooner as Code had never in his life seen a vessel handled. At a word from the officer of the watch they jumped as one man. Every order was executed on the run, and all sails were swayed as flat and taut as boards.

Code found Elsa ensconced with a book under the awning amidships. Big, comfortable wicker chairs were about and the deck so lately cleared for action had an almost homelike look.

"Did you sleep well?" asked the girl with an entire lack of self-consciousness, as though the episode of the night before had never occurred. Code was very thankful for her tact and much relieved. It was evident that their relations for the remainder of the four days' journey north were to be impersonal unless he chose to make them otherwise. This he had no intention of doing—after his morning's battle with himself.

"Like a top, when I got started," he replied. "And you?"

"Splendidly, thanks. And you should have seen the breakfast I ate. I am a shameful gourmand when I am at sea."

He took a chair and filled his pipe.

"By the way, how long have you been out on this cruise? You weren't aboard, were you, the time the mystery schooner led the revenue steamer such a chase?"

"No," she replied, "but I wish I had been. I nearly died when I heard about that; it was so funny. I have only been aboard about four days. I'll tell you the history of it.

"I was having a very delightful dinner up at Mallaby House with Mrs. Tanner, Nellie's mother, you know"—she looked unconcernedly out to sea—"when I got a message, part wireless and part telegram, saying that Nat Burns had nabbed you in St. Pierre and was racing with you to St. Andrew's.

"Well, I've sworn all along that you shouldn't come to any harm through him, so I just left Freekirk Head the next morning on the steamer, took a train to Halifax, and had the schooner pick me up there. Off Halifax they told me that the Nettie B. was six hours ahead of us and going hard, so we had to wing it out for all there was in this one. I had provided all the naval fixings before, realizing that we would probably have to use them some time, and that's all there is to it."

"Well, Elsa, I'll say this—that I don't believe that there was ever a schooner built that could outgame and outsail this one. She's a wonder!"

For a while they talked of trite and inconsequential things. It was very necessary that they become firmly grounded on their new footing of genuine friendship before departing into personalities; and so, for two days, they avoided any but the most casual topics.

As the weather was exceptionally warm, with a spicy salt breeze that seemed to bear the very germ of life in its midst, they had breakfast and luncheon on deck, dining below in the rosy little dining-room.

Thirty-six hours before they expected to catch the fishing fleet (it had been maneuvered so that Code should be restored to the Charming Lass after dark), Elsa opened the subject of Code's trouble with Nat Burns. It was morning, and his recent days of ease and mental refreshment had made him see things clearly that had before been obscured by the great strain under which he labored.

Code told her the whole thing from beginning to end, leaving out only that part of Nat's cumulative scheme that had to do with Nellie Tanner. He showed Elsa how his enemy had left no stone unturned to bring him back home a pauper, a criminal, and one who could never again lift his head among his own people even though he escaped years in prison.

It was a brief and simple story, but he could see Elsa's face change as emotions swept over it. Her remarks were few, but he suddenly became aware that she was harboring a great and lasting hatred against Nat. He did not flatter himself that it was on his own account, nor did he ask the reason for it, but the knowledge that such a hatred existed came to him as a decided surprise.

When he had finished his narrative she sat for some little time silent.

"And you think, then," she asked at last, "that his motive for all this is revenge, because his father happened to meet death on the old May?"

"So far it has seemed to me that that can be the only possible reason. What else—but now wait a moment while I think."

He went below into his room, secured the old log of the M.C. Burns and the artificial horizon. Together they read the entries that Michael Burns had made.

"Now, Elsa," said Code by way of explanation, "it was a dead-sure thing that Nat could never have beaten me in his schooner, and for two reasons: First, the May was a naturally faster boat than the old M.C., although Nat would never admit it. That is what really started our racing. Secondly, I am only telling the truth when I say that I can outsail Nat Burns in any wind from a zephyr to a typhoon.

"He is the kind of chap, in regard to sailing, who doesn't seem to have the 'feel' of the thing. There is a certain instinct of forces and balance that is either natural or acquired. Nat's is acquired. Why, I can remember just as well when I was eight years old my father used to let me take a short trick at the wheel in good weather, and I took to it naturally. Once on the Banks in a gale, when I was only eighteen, the men below said that my trick at the wheel was the only one when they got any sleep.

"Now, those two things being the case, Elsa, how did Nat Burns expect to win the second race from the May?"

"I don't know. It doesn't seem possible that he could win."

"Of course it doesn't, and yet his father writes here that Nat 'swears he can't lose.' Well, now, you know, a man that swears he can't lose is pretty positive."

"Did he try to bet with you for the second race?" asked Elsa.

"Did he? I had five hundred dollars at the bank and he tried to bet me that. I never bet, because I've never had enough money to throw it around. A good deal changed hands on the first race, but none of it was mine. I raced for sport and not for money, and I told Nat so when he tried to bet with me. If I had raced for money I couldn't have withdrawn that day and gone to St. John for cargo the way I did."

"Then it seems to me that he must have known he couldn't lose or he would not have tried to bet."

"Exactly."

"But how could he know it?"

"That is what I would like to find out."

Code absently thrust his hand into his coat pocket and encountered the mirror he had found aboard the Nettie B. He drew it out and polished its bright surface with his handkerchief.

Elsa was immediately interested and Code told her of its unexpected discovery.

"And he had it!" she cried, laughing. "Of all things!"

"Yes, and he always wanted it. I remember when father first gave it to me and I was working out little problems in astronomy, Nat used to take the thing and handle it and admire it. You see the back and edges are silver-plated and it is really quite valuable. He tried to get his father interested, but, so far as I know, never succeeded.

"It was a strange thing, but that simple mirror appealed to Nat tremendously, and you know how that would act on a man of his nature. He is and always has been utterly selfish, and if there was any object he wanted and could not have it increased his desire."

"But how did he get it, I wonder?" asked the girl, taking the object and heliographing the bright sun's rays from the polished surface. "When did you have it last?"

Code knitted his brows and thought back carefully. He had an instinctive feeling that perhaps in this mirror lay the key to the whole situation, just as often in life the most unexpected and trivial things or events are pregnant with great moment.

"I had it," he said slowly, thinking hard; "let me see: the last time I remember it was the day after my first race with Nat. In the desk that stood in the cabin of the old May I kept the log, my sextant, and a lot of other things of that kind. In a lower drawer was this mirror, and the reason I saw it was this:

"When I had made fast to my moorings in the harbor I immediately went below to make the entry in the log about the race—naturally I couldn't leave that undone. I remember I looked in the top drawer for the book, but didn't find it. So then I looked in the other drawers and, in doing so, opened the one containing the mirror.

"I distinctly remember seeing it, for the lamp was lighted and the glass flashed a blinding glare into my eyes. You see we raced in about the worst winter weather there was and the lamp had to be lighted very early.

"The log-book wasn't there, and I found it somewhere or other later, but that hasn't anything to do with the case. I never saw the mirror after that—in fact, never looked for it. I took for granted it had gone down with the May, along with all my other things, except the log-book, which I saved and use now aboard the Lass."

"And you didn't take it out or give it to anybody?"

"No. I am positive of that. I didn't touch it after seeing it that once."

"Then it is very plain, Code, that if Nat Burns came into possession of it he must have taken it himself. He was very angry with you for winning, wasn't he?"

"Terribly. For once I thought he might be dangerous and kept out of his way until the thing had worn off a little."

"Just like him," said Elsa in that tone of bitter hatred that Code had heard her use before when speaking of Burns. "He must have gone aboard the May and taken it, because you prized it so much. A fine revenge!"

"Yes, but we don't do those things in Freekirk Head, Elsa. You know that. We don't steal from one another's trawl-lines, and we don't prowl about other men's schooners. I can't understand his doing a thing like that."

"Perhaps not, but if not, explain how he got it."

"You're right," Code admitted after a moment's thought; "that's the only way."

They were silent for a while, pondering over this new development and trying to discover where it might lead. Under sharp commands the crew brought the schooner about on the starboard tack, for the wind was on the bow, and set a staysail between the fore and main masts. The splendid ship seemed to skim over the surface of the sea, touching only the tops of the waves.

"No, it's no good!" broke out Code suddenly. "Much as I hate Nat Burns, I don't believe he would come aboard my schooner just for the purpose of stealing a silver-plated mirror. That isn't like him. He's too clever to do anything like that. And, besides, what kind of a revenge would that be for having lost the race?"

"Well, what can you suggest? How else did he get it?" Elsa was frankly sceptical and clung to her own theory.

"He might have come aboard for something else, mightn't he, and picked up the mirror just incidentally?"

"He might have, yes, but what else would bring him there?"

Code sat rigid for a few minutes. He had such a thought that he scarcely dared consider it himself.

"It's all clear to me now," he said in a low, hoarse voice. "Nat came aboard to damage the schooner so that he would be sure to win the second race."

"Code!" The cry was one of involuntary horror as Elsa remembered the tragedy of the May. Hate Nate though she might, this was an awful charge to lay at his door.

"Then he killed his own father, if what you say is true!" she added breathlessly. "Oh, the poor wretch! The poor wretch!"

"Yes, that solves it," went on Code, who had hardly heard her. "That solves the entries that Michael Burns made in his ship's log before he went to St. John on his last business trip. Nat swore he could not lose, and the old man, who was honest enough himself, must have wondered what his son was up to.

"This mirror proves that Nat must have been aboard the schooner secretly; what he told his father and his eagerness to bet with me on a proposition that seemed foolhardy on the face of it clinch the thing in my mind. The misguided fool! That, Elsa, is an example of how low a man will go who has been spoiled and brought up without the slightest idea of self-control."

"Why, you're preaching to me, Code," laughed the girl, and he joined her. But she sobered in a moment.

"This is all very fine theory," she said, "and I half believe it myself, but it's worthless; you haven't a grain of proof. Tell me, have you ever thought over the details of the sinking of the May?"

"Only once," groaned Schofield, "and I—I hate to do it, Elsa. I'd rather not. Every time I think of that awful day I sweat with sheer horror. Every incident of it is engraved on my brain."

"But listen, Code, you must think about it for once, and think about it with all your mind. Tell me everything that happened. It is vital to our case; it may save the whole thing from being worthless. Even if we get nothing you must make the effort."

Code knew that what Elsa said was true. With an effort he focused his mind back on that awful day and began.

"There was a good sea that day," he said, "and more than half a gale out of the northeast. If it had been any other day I shouldn't have taken the old May out at all, because she was loaded very deep. But the whole trip was a hurry call and they wanted me to get back to Mignon with the salt as soon as I could.

"Old Burns saw me on the wharf and asked if he could go along as passenger. I said he could, and we started early in the morning. Now that day wasn't anything unusual, Elsa. I've been in a lot worse gales in the May, but not with her so deep; but I didn't think anything would happen.

"Everything went all right for three hours, with the wind getting fresher all the time, and the vessel under four lowers, which was a pretty big strain on any schooner. As I say, she should have stood it, but all of a sudden, on a big lurch, the fore topm'st that hadn't a rag on her broke off short and banged down, hanging by the guys. With one swipe it smashed the foregaff to splinters, and half the canvas hung down flapping like a great wing.

"I couldn't understand it. I knew the topm'st was in a weakened condition, but not as rotten as punk, and I supposed my foregaff was as solid a piece of timber as ever went into a vessel.

"But listen!" as Elsa started to speak. "That isn't all. The flapping canvas, with part of the gaff, pounded around like the devil let loose for the ten seconds before we couldn't loosen the halyards and lower away the wreckage, but in that time it had parted the mainstay in two like a woman snipping a thread.

"Mind that, Elsa, a steel mainstay an inch thick. I never heard of one parting in my life before. Things were happening so fast that I couldn't keep track of them, and now, just at the crucial minute, the old May jibed, fell off from the wind, and went into the trough of the sea. A great wave came then, ripped her rudder off (I found this as soon as I tried to use the wheel) and swept the decks, taking one man.

"Meanwhile the mainmast, with one stay gone, was whipping from side to side like a great, loose stick. I put the wheel in the becket and in one jump released the mains'l throat-halyards, while another fellow released the peak. The sail came down on the run in the lazy jacks and the men jumped on it and began to crowd it into some kind of a furl.

"I jumped back to the wheel and tried to bring her up into the wind, but I might as well have tried to steer an ocean liner with a sculling sweep. Not only was her rudder gone, but the tiller ropes were parted on each side. It was damaged beyond repair!

"Once I read in school the funny poem of an American named Holmes. It was called the 'One Hoss Shay,' and it told about an old chaise that, after a hundred years of service, suddenly went to pieces all at the same time and the same place. Even, in that time of danger, the memory of the 'One Hoss Shay' came to me, and I thought that the May Schofield was doing exactly the same thing, although only half as old."

"And then what happened?" asked Elsa, who had sat breathless through Code's narrative.

"There's not much more to tell," he said, with an involuntary shudder. "It was too much for the old girl with that load in her. She began to wallow and drive toward the Wolves that I had caught a glimpse of through the scud. She hadn't got halfway there when the mainmast came down (bringing nearly everything with it) and hung over the starboard quarter, dragging the vessel down like a stoat hanging to a duck's leg.

"After that it was easy to see she was doomed. We chopped away at the tangle of wreckage whenever we got a chance, but that wasn't often, because, in her present position, the waves raked her every second and we had to hang on for dear life.

"And then she began to go to pieces—which was the beginning of the end. All hands knew it was to be every man for himself. We had no life preservers, and our one big dory had been smashed when the wreckage came down."

Code's face was working with suppressed emotion, and Elsa reached out her hand and touched his.

"Don't tell me any more," she said; "I know the rest. Let's talk about the present."

"Thanks, Elsa," he said, gratefully.

"How long have you thought that the schooner was a second 'one hoss shay'?"

"Until this talk with you. I would never have thought anything else. It's the logical thing to think, isn't it? All my neighbors at Freekirk Head, except those who believe the evil they hear, have told me half a dozen times that that is what must have happened to the May. She had lived her life and that last great strain, combined with the race the week before, was too much for her. I simply could not explain those things happening."

"Yes, but you can now, can't you?" she asked coolly.

Reluctantly he faced the issue, but he faced it squarely.

"Yes, I can. Nat expected me to sail the May in a race, so he weakened my topm'st and mainstay. Of course, when there is sport in it you set every kite you've got in your lockers and, you know, Elsa, I never took my mains'l in yet while there was one standing in the fleet, even ordinary fishing days."

"I know it; you've scared me half to death a dozen times with your sail-carrying."

"And mind, Elsa, I'd been warned by all the wiseacres in Freekirk Head that my sticks would carry away sometime in a gale o' wind. Nat banked on that, too, and it shows how clever he was, forever since the May sank I've had men tell me I shouldn't have carried four lowers that day.