"They can't keep away from him, can they?" said Flint, cynically. "Slue-Foot has the come-hither, sure enough. I had an idea she'd be hiking this way the first chance she got."

"You haven't the right dope this trip," replied Cleve. "The contract reads: Hands off women and booze."

"Psalm-singing pirates! We'll be having prayers Sunday. But that woman is my style."

"Better begin digging up a prayer if you've got that bug in your head. If you make any fool play in that direction Cunningham will break you. I saw you last night staring through the transom. Watch your step, Flint. I'm telling you."

"But if she should happen to take a fancy to me, who shall say no?"

"Hate yourself, eh? There was liquor on your breath last night. Did you bring some aboard?"

"What's that to you?"

"It's a whole lot to me, my bucko—to me and to the rest of the boys. Cleigh will not prosecute us for piracy if we play a decent game until we raise the Catwick. On old Van Dorn's tub we can drink and sing if we want to. If Cunningham gets a whiff of your breath, when you've had it, you'll get yours. Most of the boys have never done anything worse than apple stealing. It was the adventure. All keyed up for war and no place to go, and this was a kind of safety valve. Already half of them are beginning to knock in the knees. Game, understand, but now worried about the future."

"A peg or two before turning in won't hurt anybody. I'm not touching it in the daytime."

"Keep away from him when you do—that's all. We're depending on you and Cunningham to pull through. If you two get to scrapping the whole business will go blooey. If we play the game according to contract there's a big chance of getting back to the States without having the sheriff on the dock to meet us. But if you mess it up because an unexpected stroke put a woman on board, you'll end up as shark bait."

"Maybe I will and maybe I won't," was the truculent rejoinder.

"Lord!" said Cleve, a vast discouragement in his tone. "You lay a course as true and fine as a hair, and run afoul a rotting derelict in the night!"

Flint laughed.

"Oh, I shan't make any trouble. I'll say my prayers regular until we make shore finally. The agreement was to lay off the Cleigh booze. I brought on board only a couple of quarts, and they'll be gone before we raise the Catwick. But if I feel like talking to the woman I'll do it."

"It's your funeral, not mine," was the ominous comment. "You've been on the beach once too often, Flint, to play a game like this straight. But Cunningham had to have you, because you know the Malay lingo. Remember, he isn't afraid of anything that walks on two feet or four."

"Neither am I—when I want anything. But glass beads!"

"That was only a lure for Cleigh, who'd go round the world for any curio he was interested in."

"That's what I mean. If it were diamonds or pearls or rubies, all well and good. But a string of glass beads! The old duffer is a nut!"

"Maybe he is. But if you had ten or twelve millions, what would you do?"

"Jump for Prome and foot it to the silk bazaar, where there are three or four of the prettiest Burmese girls you ever laid your eyes on. Then I'd buy the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo and close it to the public."

"And in five years—the old beach again!"

Flint scowled at the oily, heaving rolls, brassy and dazzling. He was bored. For twelve weeks he had circled the dull round of ship routine, with never shore leave that was long enough for an ordinary drinking bout. He was bored stiff. Suddenly his thin lips broke into a smile. Cleve, noting the smile, divined something of the impellent thought behind that smile, and he grew uneasy. He recalled his own expression of a few moments gone—the unreckoned derelict.

* * * * *

"Thank you for coming up," said Cunningham. "It makes me feel that you trust me."

"I want to," admitted Jane.

A disturbing phenomenon. Always there was a quickening of her heart-beats at the beginning of each encounter with this unusual gentleman rover. It was no longer fear. What was it? Was it the face of him, too strong and vital for a woman's, too handsome for a man's? Was it his dark, fiery eye which was always reversing what his glib tongue said? Some hidden magnetism? Alone, the thought of him was recurrent, no matter how resolutely she cast it forth. Even now she could not honestly say whether she was here to ask questions of Cunningham or of herself. Perhaps it was because he was the unknown, whereas Denny was for the most part as readable as an open book. The one like the forest stream, sometimes turbulent but always clear; the other like the sea through which they plowed, smooth, secret, ominous.

"Do your guardians know where you are?"—raillery in his voice.

"No. I came to ask some questions."

"Curiosity. Sit down. What is it you wish to know?"

"All this—and what will be the end?"

"Well, doubtless there will be an end, but I'm not seer enough to foretell it."

"Then you have some doubts?"

"Only those that beset all of us."

"But somehow—well, you don't seem to belong to this sort of game."

"Why not?"

Unexpectedly he had set a wall between. She had no answer, and her embarrassment was visible on her cheeks.

"Here and there across the world rough men call me Slue-Foot. Perhaps my deformity has reacted upon my soul and twisted that. Perhaps if my countenance had been homely and rugged I would have walked the beaten paths of respectability. But the two together!"

"I'm sorry!"

"A woman such as you are would be. You are a true daughter of the great mother—Pity. But I have never asked pity of any. I have asked only that a man shall keep his word to me as I will keep mine to him."

"But you are risking your liberty, perhaps your life!"

"I've been risking that for more than twenty years. The habit has become normal. All my life I've wanted a real adventure."

She gazed at him in utter astonishment.

"An adventure? Why, you yourself told me that you had risked your life a hundred times!"

"That?"—with a smile and a shrug. "That was business, the day's work. I mean an adventure in which I am accountable to no man."

"Only to God?"

"Well, of course, if you want it that way. For myself, I'm something of a pagan. I have dreamed of this day. When you were a little girl didn't you dream of a wonderful doll that could walk and make almost human noises? Well, I'm realizing my doll. I am going pearl hunting in the South Seas—the thing I dreamed of when I was a boy."

"But why commit piracy? Why didn't you hire a steamer?"

"Oh, I must have my joke, too. But I hadn't counted on you. In every campaign there is the hollow road of Ohain. Napoleon lost Waterloo because of it. Your presence here has forced me to use a hand without velvet. These men expected a little fun—cards and drink; and some of them are grumbling with discontent. But don't worry. In five days we'll be off on our own."

"What is the joke?"

"That will have to wait. For a few minutes I heard you reading to-day. Your voice is like a bell at sea in the evening. 'Many waters cannot quench love,'" he quoted, the flash of opals in his eyes, though his lips were smiling gently. "The Bible is a wonderful book. Its authors were poets who were not spoiled by the curse of rime. Does it amuse you to hear me talk of the Bible?—an unregenerate scalawag? Well, it is like this: I am something of an authority on illuminated manuscripts. I've had to wade through hundreds of them. That is the method by which I became acquainted with the Scriptures. The Song of Songs! Lord love you, if that isn't pure pagan, what is? I prefer the Proverbs. Ask Cleigh if he has that manuscript with him. It's in a remarkable state of preservation. Remember? 'There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yea, four which I know not: The way of an eagle in the air; the way of a serpent upon a rock; the way of a ship in the midst of the sea; and the way of a man with a maid.' Ask Cleigh to show you that."

Cleigh! The name swung her back to the original purpose of this visit.

"Do you know the Cleighs well?"

"I know the father. He has the gift of strong men—unforgetting and unforgiving. I know little or nothing about the son, except that he is a chip of the old block. Queer twist in events, eh?"

"Have you any idea what estranged them?"

"Didn't know they were at outs until the night before we sailed. They don't speak?"

"No. And it seems so utterly foolish!"

"Cherchez la femme!"

"You believe that was it?"

"It is always so, always and eternally the woman. I don't mean that she is always to blame; I mean that she is always there—in the background. But you! I say, now, here's the job for you! Bring them together. That's your style. For weeks now you three will be together. Within that time you'll be able to twist both of them round your finger. I wonder if you realize it? You're not beautiful, but you are something better—splendid. Strong men will always be gravitating toward you, wanting comfort, peace. You're not the kind that sets men's hearts on fire, that makes absconders, fills the divorce courts, and all that. You're like a cool hand on a hot forehead. And you have a voice as sweet as a bell."

Instinct—the female fear of the trap—warned Jane to be off, but curiosity held her to the chair. She was human; and this flattery, free of any suggestion of love-making, gave her a warming, pleasurable thrill. Still there was a fly in the amber. Every woman wishes to be credited with hidden fires, to possess equally the power to damn men as well as to save them.

"Has there never been——"

"A woman? Have I not just said there is always a woman?" He was sardonic now. "Mine, seeing me walk, laughed."

"She wasn't worth it!"

"No, she wasn't. But when we are twenty the heart is blind. So Cleigh and the boy don't speak?"

"Cleigh hasn't injured you in any way, has he?"

"Injured me? Of course not! I am only forced by circumstance—and an oblique sense of the comic—to make a convenience of him. And by the Lord Harry, it's up to you to help me out!"

"I?"—bewildered.



CHAPTER XIV

Jane gazed through the doorway at the sea. There was apparently no horizon, no telling where the sea ended and the faded blue of the sky began. There was something about this sea she did not like. She was North-born. It seemed to her that there was really less to fear from the Atlantic fury than from these oily, ingratiating, rolling mounds. They were the Uriah Heep of waters. She knew how terrible they could be, far more terrible than the fiercest nor'easter down the Atlantic. Typhoon! How could a yacht live through a hurricane? She turned again toward Cunningham.

"You are like that," she said, irrelevantly.

"Like what?"

"Like the sea."

Cunningham rose and peered under the half-drawn blind.

"That may be complimentary, but hanged if I know! Smooth?—is that what you mean?"

"Kind of terrible."

He sat down again.

"That rather cuts. I might be terrible. I don't know—never met the occasion; but I do know that I'm not treacherous. You certainly are not afraid of me."

"I don't exactly know. It's—it's too peaceful."

"To last? I see. But it isn't as though I were forcing you to go through with the real voyage. Only a few days more, and you'll have seen the last of me."

"I hope so."

He chuckled.

"What I meant was," she corrected, "that nothing might happen, nobody get hurt. Human beings can plan only so far."

"That's true enough. Every programme is subject to immediate change. But, Lord, what a lot of programmes go through per schedule! Still, you are right. It all depends upon chance. We say a thing is cut and dried, but we can't prove it. But so far as I can see into the future, nothing is going to happen, nobody is going to walk the plank. Piracy on a basis of 2.75 per cent.—the kick gone out of it! But if you can bring about the reconciliation of the Cleighs the old boy will not be so keen for chasing me all over the map when this job is done."

"Will you tell me what those beads are?"

"To be sure I will—all in due time. What does Cleigh call them?"

"Love beads!" scornfully.

"On my solemn word, that's exactly what they are."

"Very well. But remember, you promise to tell me when the time comes."

"That and other surprising things."

"I'll be going."

"Come up as often as you like."

Cunningham accompanied her to the bridge ladder and remained until she was speeding along the deck; then he returned to his chart. But the chart was no longer able to hold his attention. So he levelled his gaze upon the swinging horizon and kept it there for a time. Odd fancy, picturing the girl on the bridge in a hurricane, her hair streaming out behind her, her fine body leaning on the wind. A shadow in the doorway broke in upon this musing. Cleigh.

"Come in and sit down," invited Cunningham.

But Cleigh ignored the invitation and stepped over to the steersman.

"Has Miss Norman been in here?"

"Yes, sir."

"How long was she here?"

"I don't know, sir; perhaps half an hour."

Cleigh stalked to the door, but there he turned, and for the first time since Cunningham had taken the yacht Cleigh looked directly, with grim intentness, into his enemy's eyes.

"Battle, murder, and sudden death!" Cunningham laughed. "You don't have to tell me, Cleigh! I can see it in your eyes. If Miss Norman wants to come here and ask questions, I'm the last man to prevent her."

Cleigh thumped down the ladder. Cunningham was right—there was murder in his heart. He hurried into the main salon, and there he found Jane and Dennison conversing.

"Miss Norman, despite my warning you went up to the chart house."

"I had some questions to ask."

"I forbid you emphatically. I am responsible for you."

"I am no longer your prisoner, Mr. Cleigh; I am Mr. Cunningham's."

"You went up there alone?" demanded Dennison.

"Why not? I'm not afraid. He will not break his word to me."

"Damn him!" roared Dennison.

"Where are you going?" she cried, seizing him by the sleeve.

"To have it out with him! I can't stand this any longer!"

"And what will become of me—if anything happens to you, or anything happens to him? What about the crew if he isn't on hand to hold them?"

The muscular tenseness of the arm she held relaxed. But the look he gave his father was on a par with that which Cleigh had so recently spent upon Cunningham. Cleigh could not support it, and turned his head aside.

"All right. But mind you keep in sight! If you will insist upon talking with the scoundrel, at least permit me to be within call. What do you want to talk to him for, anyhow?"

"Neither of you will stoop to ask him questions, so I had to. And I have learned one thing. He is going pearl hunting."

"What? Off the Catwick? There's no pearl oyster in that region," Dennison declared. "Either he is lying or the Catwick is a blind. The only chance he'd have would be somewhere in the Sulu Archipelago; and this time of year the pearl fleets will be as thick as flies in molasses. Of course if he is aware of some deserted atoll, why, there might be something in it."

"Have you ever hunted pearls?"

"In a second-hand sort of way. But if pearls are his game, why commit piracy when he could have chartered a tramp to carry his crew? There's more than one old bucket hereabouts ready to his hand for coal and stores. He'll need a shoe spoon to get inside or by the Sulu fleets, since the oyster has been pretty well neglected these five years, and every official pearler will be hiking down there. But it requires a certain amount of capital and a stack of officially stamped paper, and I don't fancy Cunningham has either."

Cleigh smiled dryly, but offered no comment. He knew all about Cunningham's capital.

"Did he say anything about being picked up by another boat?" asked Dennison.

"No," answered Jane. "But I don't believe it will be hard for me to make him tell me that. I believe that he will keep his word, too."

"Jane, he has broken the law of the sea. I don't know what the penalty is these days, but it used to be hanging to the yard-arm. He won't be particular about his word if by breaking it he can save his skin. He's been blarneying you. You've let his plausible tongue and handsome face befog you."

"That is not true!" she flared. Afterward she wondered what caused the flash of perversity. "And I resent your inference!" she added with uplifted chin.

Dennison whirled her about savagely, stared into her eyes, then walked to the companion, up which he disappeared. This rudeness astonished her profoundly. She appealed silently to the father.

"We are riding a volcano," said Cleigh. "I'm not sure but he's setting some trap for you. He may need you as a witness for the defense. Of course I can't control your actions, but it would relieve me immensely if you'd give him a wide berth."

"He was not the one who brought me aboard."

"No. And the more I look at it, the more I am convinced that you came on board of your own volition. You had two or three good opportunities to call for assistance."

"You believe that?"

"I've as much right to believe that as you have that Cunningham will keep his word."

"Oh!" she cried, but it was an outburst of anger. And it had a peculiar twist, too. She was furious because both father and son were partly correct; and yet there was no diminution of that trust she was putting in Cunningham. "Next you'll be hinting that I'm in collusion with him!"

"No. Only he is an extraordinarily fascinating rogue, and you are wearing the tinted goggles of romance."

Fearing that she might utter something regrettable, she flew down the port passage and entered her cabin, where she remained until dinner. She spent the intervening hours endeavouring to analyze the cause of her temper, but the cause was as elusive as quicksilver. Why should she trust Cunningham? What was the basis of this trust? He had, as Denny said, broken the law of the sea. Was there a bit of black sheep in her, and was the man calling to it? And this perversity of hers might create an estrangement between her and Denny; she must not let that happen. The singular beauty of the man's face, his amazing career, and his pathetic deformity—was that it?

* * * * *

"Where's the captain?" asked Cunningham, curiously, as he noted the vacant chair at the table that night.

"On deck, I suppose."

"Isn't he dining to-night?"—an accent of suspicion creeping into his voice. "He isn't contemplating making a fool of himself, is he? He'll get hurt if he approaches the wireless."

"Togo," broke in Cleigh, "bring the avocats and the pineapple."

Cunningham turned upon him with a laugh.

"Cleigh, when I spin this yarn some day I'll carry you through it as the man who never batted an eye. I can see now how you must have bluffed Wall Street out of its boots."

When Cunningham saw that Jane was distrait he made no attempt to pull her out of it. He ate his dinner, commenting only occasionally. Still, he bade her a cheery good-night as he returned to the chart house, where he stayed continually, never quite certain what old Captain Newton might do to the wheel and the compass if left alone too long.

Dennison came in immediately after Cunningham's departure and contritely apologized to Jane for his rudeness.

"I suppose I'm on the rack; nerves all raw; tearing me to pieces to sit down and twiddle my thumbs. Will you forgive me?"

"Of course I will! I understand. You are all anxious about me. Theoretically, this yacht is a volcano, and you're trying to keep me from kicking off the lid. But I've an idea that the lid will stay on tightly if we make believe we are Mr. Cunningham's guests. But it is almost impossible to suspect that anything is wrong. Whenever a member of the crew comes in sight he is properly polite, just as he would be on a liner. If I do go to the bridge again I'll give you warning. Good-night, Mr. Cleigh, I'll read to you in the morning. Good-night—Denny."

Cleigh, sighing contentedly, dipped his fingers into the finger bowl and brushed his lips.

The son drank a cup of coffee hastily, lit his pipe, and went on deck. He proceeded directly to the chart house.

"Cunningham, I'll swallow my pride and ask a favour of you."

"Ah!"—in a neutral tone.

"The cook tells me that all the wine and liquor are in the dry-stores compartment. Will you open it and let me chuck the stuff overboard?"

"No," said Cunningham, promptly. "When I turn this yacht back to your father not a single guy rope will be out of order. It would be a fine piece of work to throw all those rare vintages over the rail simply to appease an unsubstantial fear on your part! No!"

"But if the men should break in? And it would be easy, because it is nearer them than us."

"Thank your father for building the deck like a city flat. But if the boys should break in, there's the answer," said Cunningham, laying his regulation revolver on the chart table. "And every mother's son of them knows it."

"You refuse?"

"Yes."

"All right. But if anything happens I'll be on top of you, and all the bullets in that clip won't stop me."

"Captain, you bore me. Your father and the girl are good sports. You ought to be one. I've given you the freedom of the yacht for the girl's sake when caution bids me dump you into the brig. I begin to suspect that your misfortunes are due to a violent temper. Run along with your thunder; I don't want you hurt."

"If I come through this alive——"

"You'll join your dad peeling off my hide—if you can catch me!"

It was with the greatest effort that Dennison crushed down the desire to leap upon his tormentor. He stood tense for a moment, then stepped out upon the bridge. His fury was suffocating him, and he realized that he was utterly helpless.

Ten minutes later the crew in their quarters were astonished to see the old man's son enter. None of them stirred.

"I say, any you chaps got an extra suit of twill? This uniform is getting too thick for this latitude. I'm fair melting down to the bone."

"Sure!" bellowed a young giant, swinging out of his bunk. He rummaged round for a space and brought forth a light-weight khaki shirt and a pair of ducks. "Guess these'll fit you, sir."

"Thanks. Navy stores?"

"Yes, sir. You're welcome."

Dennison's glance travelled from face to face, and he had to admit that there was none of the criminal type here. They might carry through decently. Nevertheless, hereafter he would sleep on the lounge in the main salon. If any tried to force the dry-stores door he would be likely to hear it.

At eleven o'clock the following morning there occurred an episode which considerably dampened Jane's romantical point of view regarding this remarkable voyage. Cleigh had gone below for some illuminated manuscripts and Dennison was out of sight for the moment. She leaned over the rail and watched the flying fish. Suddenly out of nowhere came the odour of whisky.

"You ought to take a trip up to the cutwater at night and see the flying fish in the phosphorescence."

She did not stir. Instinctively she knew who the owner of this voice would be—the man Cunningham called Flint. A minute—an unbearable minute—passed.

"Oh! Too haughty to be a good fellow, huh?"

Footsteps, a rush of wind, a scuffling, and an oath brought her head about. She saw Flint go balancing and stumbling backward, finally to sprawl on his hands and knees, and following him, in an unmistakable attitude, was Dennison. Jane was beginning to understand these Cleighs; their rage was terrible because it was always cold.

"Denny!" she called.

But Dennison continued on toward Flint.



CHAPTER XV

Flint was a powerful man, or had been. The surprise of the attack over, he jumped to his feet, and blazing with murderous fury rushed Dennison. Jane saw a tangle of arms, and out of this tangle came a picture that would always remain vivid—Flint practically dangling at the end of Dennison's right arm. The rogue tore and heaved and kicked and struck, but futilely, because his reach was shorter. Dennison let go unexpectedly.

"Listen to me, you filthy beachcomber! If you ever dare speak to Miss Norman again or come within ten feet of her I'll kill you with bare hands! There are no guns on board this yacht—bare hands. Now go back to your master and say that I'd like to do the same to him."

Flint, his hands touching his throat with inquiring solicitude—Flint eyed Dennison with that mixture of pain and astonishment that marks the face of a man who has been grossly deceived. Slowly he revolved on his shaking legs and staggered forward, shortly to disappear round the deck house.

"Oh, Denny, you've done a foolish thing! You've shamed that man before me and put murder in his heart. It isn't as if we were running the yacht. We are prisoners of that man and his fellows. It would have been enough for you to have stepped in between."

"I haven't any parlour varnish left, Jane. His shoulder was almost touching yours. It was an intentional insult, and that was enough for me. The dog! Still looking at the business romantically?"

His tone was bitter. Her reproach, no doubt justified, cut deeply.

"No, I'm beginning to become a little afraid—afraid that the men may get out of hand. I don't care what you and your father think, but I believe Cunningham honestly wishes us to reach the Catwick without any conflict."

"Ah, Cunningham!"

"There you go again—angry and bitter! Why can't you take it sensibly, like your father?"

"My father doesn't happen to be——"

He stopped with mystifying abruptness.

"Doesn't happen to be what?"

"The sort of fool I am!"

"You're not so good a comrade as you were."

"Can't you understand? I've been stood upon my head. The worry about you on one side and the contact with my father on the other would be sufficient. But Cunningham and this pirate crew as a tail to the kite! But, thank God, I had the wit to come in search of you!"

"I thank God every minute, Denny! You are very strong," she added, shyly.

"Glad of that, too. But I repeat, I've lost the parlour varnish and the art of parlour talk. For seven years I've been wandering in strange places, most of them hard; so I say what I think and act on the spur. That dog had liquor on his breath. Is Cunningham secretly letting them into the dry-stores?"

"The man may have brought it aboard at Shanghai. What a horrible thing a great war is! In a week it knocks aside all the bars of restraint it took years to erect. Could a venture like this have happened in 1913? I doubt it. There comes your father. But who is the man with him? He's been hurt."

"Father's watchdog. They had to beat him up to get his gun away from him. That was the racket we heard. Evidently Father expects you to read to him, so I'll take a constitutional."

"Why, where's your uniform?" she cried.

"Laid it aside. From now on it will be stuffy. Those military boots were killing me. I borrowed the rig from one of the pirates, but I'll have to go barefoot."

"Will you come to your chair soon? I shall worry otherwise. You might run into that man again."

"I shan't go below," he promised, starting off.

Twenty thousand at compound interest for seven years, he thought, as he made the first turn. A tidy sum to start life with. Could he swallow his pride? And yet what hope was there of making a real living? He had never specialized in anything, and the world was calling for specialists and discarding the others. Another point to consider: Foot-loose for seven years, could he stand the shackles of office work, routine, the sameness day in and day out? He was returning to the States without the least idea what he wanted to do; that was the disturbing phase of it. If only he were keen for something! A typical son of the rich man. The only point in his favour was that he had not spent his allowances up and down Broadway. No, he would never touch a dollar of that money. That was final.

What lay back of this sudden desire to make good in the world? Love! There wasn't the slightest use in lying to himself. He wanted Jane Norman with all the blood in his body, with all the marrow in his bones; and he had nothing to offer her but empty hands.

He shot a glance toward the bridge. And because he had no right to speak—obligated to silence by two reasons—that easy-speaking scoundrel might trap her fancy. It could not be denied that he was handsome, but he was nevertheless a rogue. The two reasons why he must not speak were potent. In the first place, he had nothing to offer; in the second place, the terror she was no doubt hiding bravely would serve only to confuse her—that is, she might confuse a natural desire for protection with something deeper and tenderer, and then discover her mistake when it was too late.

What was she going to ask of his father when the time came for reparation? That puzzled him.

He made the rounds steadily for an hour, and during this time Jane frequently looked over the top of the manuscript she was reading aloud. At length she laid the manuscript upon her knees.

"Mr. Cleigh, what is it that makes art treasures so priceless?"

"Generally the depth of the buyer's purse. That is what they say of me in the great auction rooms."

"But you don't buy them just because you are rich enough to outbid somebody else?"

"No, I am actually fond of all the treasures I possess. Aside from this, it is the most fascinating game there is. The original! A painting that Holbein laid his own brushes on, mixed his own paint for! I have then something of the man, tangible, visible; something of his beautiful dreams, his poverty, his success. There before me is the authentic labour of his hand, which was guided by the genius of his brain—before machinery spoiled mankind. Oh, yes, machinery has made me rich! It has given the proletariat the privilege of wearing yellow diamonds and riding about in flivvers. That must be admitted. But to have lived in those days when ambition thought only in beauty! To have been the boon companions of men like Da Vinci, Cellini, Michelangelo! Then there are the adventures of this concrete dream of the artist. I can trace it back to the bare studio in which it was conceived, follow its journeys, its abiding places, down to the hour it comes to me."

Jane stared at him astonishedly. All that had been crampedly hidden in his soul flowed into his face, warming and mellowing it, even beautifying it. Cleigh went on:

"Where will it go when I have done my little span? What new adventures lie in store for it? Across the Ponte Vecchio in Florence runs a gallery of portraits: at the south end of this gallery there is or was a corner given over to a copyist. He strikes you dumb with the cleverness of his work, but he has only an eye and a hand—he hasn't a soul. A copy is to the original what a dummy is to a live man, no matter how amazingly well done the copy is. The original, the dream; nothing else satisfies the true collector."

"I didn't know," said Jane, "that you had so much romance in you."

"Romance?" It was almost a bark.

"Why, certainly. No human being could love beauty the way you do and not be romantic."

"Romantic!" Cleigh leaned back in his chair. "That's a new point of view for Tungsten Cleigh. That's what my enemies call me—the hardest metal on earth. Romantic!" He chuckled. "To hear a woman call me romantic!"

"It does not follow that to be romantic one must be sentimental. Romance is something heroic, imaginative, big; it isn't a young man and a girl spooning on a park bench. I myself am romantic, but nobody could possibly call me sentimental."

"No?"

"Why, if I knew that we'd come through this without anybody getting hurt I'd be gloriously happy. All my life I've been cooped up. For a little while to be free! But I don't like that."

She indicated Dodge, who sat in Dennison's chair, his head bandaged, his arm in a sling, thousands of miles from his native plains, at odds with his environment. His lean brown jaws were set and the pupils of his blue eyes were mere pin points. During the discussion of art, during the reading, he had not stirred.

"You mean," said Cleigh, gravely, "that Dodge may be only the beginning?"

"Yes. Your—Captain Dennison had an encounter with the man Flint before you came up. He is very strong and—and a bit intolerant."

"Ah!" Cleigh rubbed his jaw and smiled ruminatively. "He was always rather handy with his fists. Did he kill the ruffian?"

"No, held him at arm's length and threatened to kill him. I'm afraid Flint will not accept the situation with good grace."

"Flint? I never liked that rogue's face."

"He has found liquor somewhere, and I saw murder in his eyes. Denny isn't afraid, and that's why I am—afraid he'll run amuck uselessly. His very strength will react against him."

"I was like that thirty years ago." So she called him Denny? Cleigh laid his hand over hers. "Keep your chin up. There's a revolver handy should we need it. I dare not carry it for fear Cunningham might discover and confiscate it. Six bullets."

"And if worse comes to worse, will—will you save one for me? Please don't let Denny do it! You are old, and if you lived after it wouldn't be in your thoughts so long as it would be in his—if he killed me. Will you promise?"

"Yes—if worse comes to worse. Will you forgive me?"

"I do. But still I'm going to hold you to your word."

"I'll pay the score, whatever it is. Now suppose you come below with me and take a look at the paintings? You haven't seen my cabin yet."

What was this unusual young woman going to ask of him? He wondered. The more he thought over it the more convinced he was that she had assisted in the abduction.



CHAPTER XVI

After they had gone below Dennison dropped into Jane's chair. Immediately Dodge began to talk: "So you nearly throttled that ornery coyote, huh? Whata you know about this round-up? The three o' 'em came in, and I never smelt nothin' until they were on top o' me. How should I smell anythin'? Hobnobbing together for days, how was I to know they were a bunch of pirates? Is your old man sore?"

"Naturally."

"I mean appertainin' to me?"

"I don't see how he could be. Who took care of you—bound you up?"

"That nice-lookin' greaser with the slue foot. Soft speakin' like a woman and an eye like a timber wolf. Some hombre! Where we bound for?"

"God knows!"—dejectedly.

"Bad as that, huh? Your girl?"

"No."

"No place for a girl. If they hadn't busted my arm I wouldn't care so much! If it comes to a show-down I won't be no good to anybody. Gimme my guns and we'd be headin' home in five minutes. These hombres know somethin' o' my gun play. Gee, it's lonesome here!" Dodge mused for a moment. "Say, what's your old man's idea hog-tyin' you that-a-way?"

"He'll tell you perhaps."

"Uh-huh. Say, what did the Lord make all that stuff for?" with a gesture toward the brazen sea. "What's it good for, anyhow?"

"But for the sea we wouldn't have any oysters or codfish," said Dennison, soberly.

Dodge chuckled.

"Oysters and codfish! Say, you're all right! Never knew the old man had a son until you blew in. Back in New York nobody ever said nothin' about you. Where you been?"

"Lots of places."

"Any ridin'?"

"Some."

"Can you shoot?"

"A little."

"Kill any o' them Bolsheviks?"

"That would be guesswork. Did you ever kill a man?"

"Nope. Didn't have to. I'm pretty good on the draw, and where I come from they knew it and didn't bother me."

"I see."

"Shootin' these days is all in the movies. I was ridin' for a film company when your old man lassoed me for this job. Never know when you're well off—huh? I thought there wouldn't be nothin' to do but grub pile three times a day and the old man's cheroots in between. And here I be now, ridin' along with a bunch of pirates! Whata you know about that? And some of them nice boys, too. If they were riff-raff, barroom bums, I could get a line on it. But I'll have to pass the buck."

"You haven't got an extra gun anywhere, have you?"

"We'd be headin' east if I had"—grimly. "I'd have pared down the odds this mornin'. That hombre with the hop-a-long didn't leave me a quill toothpick. Was you thinkin' of startin' somethin'?"—hopefully.

"No, but I'd feel more comfortable if Miss Norman could carry a gun."

"Uh-huh. Say, she's all right. No hysterics. Ain't many of 'em that wouldn't 'a' been snivellin' all day and night in her bunk. Been listenin' to her readin'. Gee, you'd think we were floatin' round this codfish lake just for the fun of it! She won't run to cover if a bust-up comes. None whatever! And I bet she can cook, too. Them kind can always cook."

Conversation lapsed.

Below, Jane was passing through an unusual experience.

Said Cleigh at the start: "I'm going to show you the paintings—there are fourteen in all. I will tell you the history of each. And above all, please bear in mind the price of each picture."

"I'll remember."

But she thought the request an odd one, coming from the man as she knew him.

Most of the treasures were in his own spacious cabin. There was a Napoleonic corner—a Meissonier on one side and a Detaille on the other. In a stationary cabinet there were a pair of stirrups, a riding crop, a book on artillery tactics, a pair of slippers beaded with seed pearls, and a buckle studded with sapphires.

"What are those?" she asked, attracted.

"They belonged to the Emperor and his first Empress."

"Napoleon?"

"The Corsican. Next to the masters, I've a passion for things genuinely Napoleonic. The hussar is by Meissonier and the skirmish by Detaille."

"How much is this corner worth?"

"I can't say, except that I would not part with those objects for a hundred thousand; and there are friends of mine who would pay half that sum for them—behind my back. This is a Da Vinci."

Half an hour passed. Jane honestly tried to be thrilled by the splendour of the names she heard, but her eye was always travelling back toward the slippers and the buckle. The Empress Josephine! Romance and gallantry in the old, old days!

"The painting in your cabin is by Holbein. It cost me sixteen thousand. Now let us go out and look at the rug. That is the apple of my eye. It is the second finest example of the animal rug in the world. A sheet of pure gold, half an inch thick, covering the rug from end to end, would not equal its worth."

Jane admired the rug, but she would have preferred the gold. Her sense of the beautiful was alive, but there was always in her mind the genteel poverty of the past. She was beginning to understand. To go in quest of the beautiful required an unlimited purse and an endless leisure; and she would have never the one nor the other.

"How much gold would that be?" she inquired, naively.

"Nearly eighty thousand. Have you kept in mind the sums I have given you?"

"Yes. Let me see—good heavens, a quarter of a million! But why do you carry them about like this?"

"Because I'm something of a rogue myself. I could not enjoy the rug and the paintings except on board. The French, the Italian, and the Spanish governments could confiscate every solitary painting except the Meissonier and the Detaille, for the simple reason that they were stolen. Oh, I did not steal them myself; I merely purchased them with one eye shut. If I hadn't bought them they would have gone to some other collector. Do you get a glimmer of the truth now?"

"The truth?"—perplexedly.

"Yes—where Cunningham will get his pearls?"—bitterly.

"Oh!"

"And I could not touch him. A quarter of a million! And with his knowledge of the secret marts he could easily dispose of them. Worth a bold stroke, eh?"

"But how will he get them off the yacht—transship them?"

Her faith in Cunningham began to waver. A quarter of a million! The thought was as bells in her ears.

"Of the outside issues I have no inkling. But I have shown you his pearls."

"But the crew! Certainly they will not return to any port with us. And why should he lie to me? There is no reason in the world why he shouldn't have told me, if he had committed piracy to obtain your paintings. And he was poring over maps."

"Some tramp is probably going to pick him up. He's ordered us away from the wireless. Cunningham must have his joke, so he is beguiling you with twaddle about hunting pearls. He is robbing me of my treasures, and I can't strike back on that count. But I can land him in prison on the count of piracy; and by the Lord Harry, I'll do it if it takes my last dollar! He'll rue this adventure, or they call me Tungsten for nothing!"

"I wanted so to believe in him!"

"Not difficult to understand why. He has a silver tongue and a face like John the Baptist—del Sarto's—and you are romantic. The picture of him has enlisted your sympathies. You are filled with pity that he should be so richly endowed, facially and mentally, and to be a cripple such as children laugh over."

"Have you never considered what mental anguish must be the portion of a man whose body is twisted as his is? I know. So I pity him profoundly, even if he is a rogue. That's all I was born for—to pity and to bind up. And I pity you, Mr. Cleigh, you who have walled your heart in granite."

"You're plain-spoken, young lady."

"Yes, certain sick minds need plain speaking."

"Then my mind is sick?"

"Yes."

"And only a little while gone it was romantic!"

"Two hundred million hands begging for bread, and you crossing the world for a string of glass beads whose value is only sentimental!"

"I can't let that pass, Miss Norman. I have trusted lieutenants who attend to my charities. I'm not a miser."

"You are, with the greatest thing in the world—human love."

"Shall a man give it where it is not wanted? But enough of this talk. I have shown you Cunningham's pearls."

"Perhaps."

* * * * *

Night and wheeling stars. It was stuffy in the crew's quarters. Half naked, the men lolled about, some in their bunks, some on the floor. The orders were that none should sleep on deck during the voyage to the Catwick.

"All because the old man brings a skirt on board, we have to sweat blood in the forepeak!" growled Flint. "We've got a right to a little sport."

"Sure we have!"

The speaker was sitting on the edge of his bunk. He was a fine specimen of young manhood, with a pleasant, rollicking Irish countenance. He looked as if he had been brought up clean and had carried his cleanliness into the world. The blue anchor and love birds on his formidable forearms proclaimed him a deep-sea man. It was he who had given Dennison the shirt and the ducks.

"Sure, we have a right to a little sport! But why call in the undertaker to help us out? You poor fish, all the way from San Francisco you've been grousing because shore leaves weren't long enough for you to get prime soused in. What's two months in our young lives?"

"I've always been free to do as I liked."

"You look it! I'll say so! The chief laid down the rules of this game, and we all took oath to follow those rules. The trouble with you is, you've been reading dime novels. Where do you think you are—raiding the Spanish Main? There's every chance of our coming out top hole, as those lime-juicers say, with oodles of dough and a whole skin."

"Say, don't I know this Sulu game? I tell you, if he does find his atoll there won't be any shell. Not a chance in a hundred! Somebody's been giving him a song and dance. As I get the dope, some pearl-hunting friend of his croaks and leaves him this chart. Old stuff! I bet a million boobs have croaked trying to locate the red cross on a chart."

"Why the devil did you sign on, then?"

"I wanted a little fun, and I'm going to have it. There's champagne and Napoleon brandy in the dry-stores. Wouldn't hurt us to have a little of it. If we've got to go to jail we might as well go lit up."

"Flint, you talk too much," said a voice from the doorway. It was Cunningham's. He leaned carelessly against the jamb. The crew fell silent and motionless. "Boys, you've heard Hennessy. Play it my way and you'll wear diamonds; mess it up and you'll all wear hemp. The world will forgive us when it finds out we've only made it laugh." Cunningham strolled over to Flint, who rose to his feet. "Flint, I want that crimp-house whisky you've been swigging on the sly. No back talk! Hand it over!"

"And if I don't?" said Flint, his jaw jutting.



CHAPTER XVII

Cunningham did not answer immediately. From Flint his glance went roving from man to man, as if trying to read what they expected of him.

"Flint, you were recommended to me for your knowledge of the Sulu lingo. We'll need a crew of divers, and we'll have to pick them up secretly. That's your job. It's your only job outside doing your watch with the shovel below. Somehow you've got the wrong idea. You think this is a junket of the oil-lamp period. All wrong! You don't know me, and that's a pity; because if you did know something about me you'd walk carefully. When we're off this yacht, I don't say. If you want what old-timers used to call their pannikin of rum, you'll be welcome to it. But on board the Wanderer, nothing doing. Get your duffel out. I'll have a look at it."

"Get it yourself," said Flint.

Cunningham appeared small and boyish beside the ex-beachcomber.

"I'm speaking to you decently, Flint, when I ought to bash in your head."

The tone was gentle and level.

"Why don't you try it?"

The expectant men thereupon witnessed a feat that was not only deadly in its precision but oddly grotesque. Cunningham's right hand flew out with the sinister quickness of a cobra's strike, and he had Flint's brawny wrist in grip. He danced about, twisted and lurched until he came to an abrupt stop behind Flint's back. Flint's mouth began to bend at the corners—a grimace.

"You'll break it yourself, Flint, if you move another inch," said Cunningham, nonchalantly. "This is the gentlest trick I have in the bag. Cut out the booze until we're off this yacht. Be a good sport and play the game according to contract. I don't like these side shows. But you wanted me to show you. Want to call it off?"

Sweat began to bead Flint's forehead. He was straining every muscle in his body to minimize that inexorable turning of his elbow and shoulder.

"The stuff is in Number Two bunker," he said, with a ghastly grin. "I'll chuck it over."

"There, now!" Cunningham stepped back. "I might have made it your neck. But I'm patient, because I want this part of the game to go through according to schedule. When I turn back this yacht I want nothing missing but the meals I've had."

Flint rubbed his arm, scowling, and walked over to his bunk.

"Boys," said Cunningham, "so far you've been bricks. Shortly we'll be heading southeast on our own. Wherever I am known, men will tell you that I never break my word. I promised you that we'd come through with clean heels. Something has happened which we could not forestall. There is a woman on board. It is not necessary to say that she is under my protection."

He clumped out into the passage.

"Well, say!" burst out the young sailor named Hennessy. "I'm a tough guy, but I couldn't have turned that trick. Hey, you! If you've got any hooch in the coal bunkers, heave it over. I'm telling you! These soft-spoken guys are the kind I lay off, believe you me! I've seen all kinds, and I know."

"Did they kick you out of the Navy?" snarled Flint.

"Say, are you asking me to do it?" flared the Irishman. "You poor boob, you'd be in the sick bay if there hadn't been a lady on board."

"A lady?"

"I said a lady! Stand up, you scut!"

But Flint rolled into his bunk and turned his face to the partition.

Cunningham leaned against the port rail. These bursts of fury always left him depressed. He was not a fighting man at all and fate was always flinging him into physical contests. He might have killed the fool: he had been in a killing mood. He was tired. Somehow the punch was gone from the affair, the thrill. Why should that be?

For years he had been planning something like this, and then to have it taste like stale wine! Vaguely he knew that he had made a discovery. The girl! If he were poring over his chart, his glance would drift away; if he were reading, the printed page had a peculiar way of vanishing. Of course it was all nonsense. But that night in Shanghai something had drawn him irresistibly to young Cleigh's table. It might have been the colour of her hair. At any rate, he hadn't noticed the beads until he had spoken to young Cleigh.

Glass beads! Queer twist. A little trinket, worthless except for sentimental reasons, throwing these lives together. Of course an oil would have lured the elder Cleigh across the Pacific quite as successfully. The old chap had been particularly keen for a sea voyage after having been cooped up for four years. But in the event of baiting the trap with a painting neither the girl nor the son would have been on board. And Flint could have had his noggin without anybody disturbing him, even if the contract read otherwise.

Law-abiding pirates! How the world would chuckle if the yarn ever reached the newspapers! He had Cleigh in the hollow of his hand. In fancy he saw Cleigh placing his grievance with the British Admiralty. He could imagine the conversation, too.

"They returned the yacht in perfect condition?"

"Yes."

"Did they steal anything?"

Cunningham could positively see Cleigh's jowls redden as he shook his head to the query.

"Sorry. You can't expect us to waste coal hunting for a scoundrel who only borrowed your yacht."

But what was the row between Cleigh and his son? That was a puzzler. Not a word! They ignored each other absolutely. These dinners were queer games, to be sure. All three men spoke to the girl, but neither of the Cleighs spoke to him or to each other. A string of glass beads!

What about himself? What had caused his exuberance to die away, his enthusiasm to grow dim? Why, a month gone he would burst into such gales of laughter that his eyes would fill with tears at the thought of this hour! And the wine tasted flat. The greatest sea joke of the age, and he couldn't boil up over it any more!

Love? He had burnt himself out long ago. But had it been love? Rather had it not been a series of false dawns? To a weepy-waily woman he would have offered the same courtesies, but she would not have drawn his thoughts in any manner. And this one kept entering his thoughts at all times. That would be a joke, wouldn't it? At this day to feel the scorch of genuine passion!

To dig a pit for Cleigh and to stumble into another himself! In setting this petard he hadn't got out of range quickly enough. His sense of humour was so keen that he laughed aloud, with a gesture which invited the gods to join him.

Jane, who had been watching the solitary figure from the corner of the deck house and wondering who it was, recognized the voice. The cabin had been stuffy, her own mental confusion had driven sleep away, so she had stolen on deck for the purpose of viewing the splendours of the Oriental night. The stars that seemed so near, so soft; the sea that tossed their reflections hither and yon, or spun a star magically into a silver thread and immediately rolled it up again; the brilliant electric blue of the phosphorescence and the flash of flying fish or a porpoise that ought to have been home and in bed.

She hesitated. She was puzzled. She was not afraid of him—the puzzle lay somewhere else. She was a little afraid of herself. She was afraid of anything that could not immediately be translated into ordinary terms of expression. The man frankly wakened her pity. He seemed as lonely as the sea itself. Slue-Foot! And somewhere a woman had laughed at him. Perhaps that had changed everything, made him what he was.

She wondered if she would ever be able to return to the shell out of which the ironic humour of chance had thrust her. Wondered if she could pick up again philosophically the threads of dull routine. Jane Norman, gliding over this mysterious southern sea, a lone woman among strong and reckless men! Piracy! Pearls! Rugs and paintings worth a quarter of a million! Romance!

Did she want it to last? Did she want romance all the rest of her days? What was this thing within her that was striving for expression? For what was she hunting? What worried her and put fear into her heart was the knowledge that she did not know what she wanted. From all directions came questions she could not answer.

Was she in love? If so, where was the fire that should attend? Was it Denny—or yonder riddle? She felt contented with Denny, but Cunningham's presence seemed to tear into unexplored corners of her heart and brain. If she were in love with Denny, why didn't she thrill when he approached? There was only a sense of security, contentment.

The idea of racing round the world romantically with Denny struck her as absurd. Equally contrary to reason was the picture of herself and Cunningham sitting before a wood fire. What was the matter with Jane Norman?

There was one bar of light piercing the fog. She knew now why she had permitted Cleigh to abduct her. To bring about a reconciliation between father and son. And apparently there was as much chance as of east meeting west. She walked over to the rail and joined Cunningham.

"You?" he said.

"The cabin was stuffy. I couldn't sleep."

"I wonder."

"About what?"

"If there isn't a wild streak in you that corresponds with mine. You fall into the picture naturally—curious and unafraid."

"Why should I be afraid, and why shouldn't I be curious?"

"The greatest honour a woman ever paid me. I mean that you shouldn't be afraid of me when everything should warn you to give me plenty of sea room."

"I know more about men than I do about women."

"And I know too much about both."

"There have been other women—besides the one who laughed?"

"Yes. Perhaps I was cruel enough to make them pay for that.

"'Funny an' yellow an' faithful— Doll in a teacup she were, But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair, An' I learned about women from 'er!'

"But I wonder what would have happened if it had been a woman like you instead of the one who laughed."

"I shouldn't have laughed."

"This damned face of mine!"

"You mustn't say that! Why not try to make over your soul to match it?"

"How is that done?"

The irony was so gentle that she fell silent for a space.

"Are you going to take Mr. Cleigh's paintings when you leave us?"

"My dear young lady, all I have left to be proud of is my word. I give it to you that I am going after pearls. It may sound crazy, but I can't help that. I am realizing a dream. I'm something of a fatalist—I've had to be. I've always reasoned that if I could make the dream come true—this dream of pearls—I'd have a chance to turn over a new leaf. I've had to commit acts at times that were against my nature, my instincts. I've had to be cruel and terrible, because men would not believe a pretty man could be a strong one. Do you understand? I have been forced to cruel deeds because men would not credit a man's heart behind a woman's face. I possess tremendous nervous energy. That's the principal curse. I can't sit still; I can't remain long anywhere; I must go, go, go! Like the Wandering Jew, Ishmael."

"Do you know what Ishmael means?"

"No. What?"

"'God heareth.' Have you ever asked Him for anything?"

"No. Why should I, since He gave me this withered leg? Please don't preach to me."

"I won't, then. But I'm terribly sorry."

"Of course you are. But—don't become too sorry. I might want to carry you off to my atoll."

"If you took me away with you by force, I'd hate you and you'd hate yourself. But you won't do anything like that."

"What makes you believe so?"

"I don't know why, but I do believe it."

"To be trusted by a woman, a good woman! I'll tell that to the stars. Tell me about yourself—what you did and how you lived before you came this side."

It was not a long story, and he nodded from time to time understandingly. Genteel poverty, a life of scrimp and pare—the cage. Romance—a flash of it—and she would return to the old life quite satisfied. Peace, a stormy interlude; then peace again indefinitely. It came to him that he wanted the respect of this young woman for always. But the malice that was ever bubbling up to his tongue and finding speech awoke.

"Suppose I find my pearls—and then come back for you? Romance and adventure! These warm stars always above us at night; the brilliant days; the voyages from isle to isle; palms and gay parrakeets, cocoanuts and mangosteens—and let the world go hang!"

She did not reply, but she moved a little away. He waited for a minute, then laughed softly.

"My dear young lady, this is the interlude you've always been longing for. Fate has popped you out of the normal for a few days, and presently she'll pop you back into it. Some day you'll marry and have children; you'll sink into the rut of monotony again and not be conscious of it. On winter nights, before the fire, when the children have been put to bed, your man buried behind his evening paper, you will recall Slue-Foot and the interlude and be happy over it. You'll hug and cuddle it to your heart secretly. A poignant craving in your life had been satisfied. Kidnapped by pirates, under Oriental stars! Fifteen men on a dead man's chest—yo-ho, and a bottle of rum! A glorious adventure, with three meals the day and grand opera on the phonograph. Shades of Gilbert and Sullivan! And you will always be wondering whether the pirate made love to you in jest or in earnest—and he'll always be wondering, too!"

Cunningham turned away abruptly and clumped toward the bridge ladder, which he mounted.

For some inexplicable reason her heart became filled with wild resentment against him. Mocking her, when she had only offered him kindness! She clung to the idea of mockery because it was the only tangible thing she could pluck from her confusion. Thus when she began the descent of the companionway and ran into Dennison coming up her mood was not receptive to reproaches.

"Where have you been?" he demanded.

"Watching the stars and the phosphorescence. I could not sleep."

"Alone?"

"No. Mr. Cunningham was with me."

"I warned you to keep away from that scoundrel!"

"How dare you use that tone to me? Have you any right to tell me what I shall and shall not do?" she stormed at him. "I've got to talk to someone. You go about in one perpetual gloom. I purpose to see and talk to Cunningham as often as I please. At least he amuses me."

With this she rushed past him and on to her cabin, the door of which she closed with such emphasis that it was heard all over the yacht—so sharp was the report that both Cleigh and Dodge awoke and sat up, half convinced that they had heard a pistol shot!

Jane sat down on her bed, still furious. After a while she was able to understand something of this fury. The world was upside down, wrong end to. Dennison, not Cunningham, should have acted the debonair, the nonchalant. Before this adventure began he had been witty, amusing, companionable; now he was as interesting as a bump on a log. At table he was only a poor counterfeit of his father, whose silence was maintained admirably, at all times impressively dignified. Whereas at each encounter Dennison played directly into Cunningham's hands, and the latter was too much the banterer not to make the most of these episodes.

What if he was worried? Hadn't she more cause to worry than any one else? For all that, she did not purpose to hide behind the barricaded door of her cabin. If there was a tragedy in the offing it would not fall less heavily because one approached it with melancholy countenance.

Heaven knew that she was no infant as regarded men! In the six years of hospital work she had come into contact with all sorts and conditions of men. Cunningham might be the greatest scoundrel unhung, but so far as she was concerned she need have no fear. This knowledge was instinctive.

But when her cheek touched the pillow she began to cry softly. She was so terribly lonely!



CHAPTER XVIII

The space through which Jane had passed held Dennison's gaze for two or three minutes. Then he sat down on the companionway step, his arms across his knees and his forehead upon his arms. What to say? What to do? She expected him to be amusing!—when he knew that the calm on board was of the same deceptive quality as that of the sea—below, the terror!

It did not matter that the crew was of high average. They would not be playing such a game unless they were a reckless lot. At any moment they might take it into their heads to swarm over Cunningham and obliterate him. Then what? If the episode of the morning had not convinced Jane, what would? The man Flint had dropped his mask; the others were content to wear theirs yet awhile. Torture for her sake, the fear of what might actually be in store for her, and she expected him to talk and act like a chap out of a novel!

Ordinarily so full of common sense, what had happened to her that her vision should become so obscured as not to recognize the danger of the man? Had he been ugly, Jane would probably have ignored him. But that face of his, as handsome as a Greek god's, and that tongue with its roots in oil! And there was his deformity—that had drawn her pity. Playing with her, and she deliberately walked into the trap because he was amusing! Why shouldn't he be, knowing that he held their lives in the hollow of his hand? What imp of Satan wouldn't have been amiable?

Because the rogues did not run up the skull and crossbones; because they did not swagger up and down the deck, knives and pistols in their sashes, she couldn't be made to believe them criminals!

Amusing! She could not see that if he spoke roughly it was only an expression of the smothered pain of his mental crucifixion. He could not tell her he loved her for fear she might misinterpret her own sentiments. Besides, her present mood was not inductive to any declaration on his part; a confession might serve only to widen the breach. Who could say that it wasn't Cunningham's game to take Jane along with him in the end? There was nothing to prevent that. His father holding aloof, the loyal members of the crew in a most certain negligible minority, what was there to prevent Cunningham from carrying off Jane?

Blood surged into Dennison's throat; a murderous fury boiled up in him; but he remembered in time what these volcanic outbursts had cost him in the past. So he did not rush to the chart house. Cunningham would lash him with ridicule or be forced to shoot him. But his rage carried him as far as the wireless room. He could hear the smack of the spark, but that was all. He tried the door—locked. He tried the shutters—latched. Cunningham's man was either calling or answering somebody. Ten minutes inside that room and there would be another tale to tell.

In the end Dennison spent his fury by travelling round the deck until the sea and sky became like pearly smoke. Then he dropped into a chair and fell asleep.

Cunningham had also watched through the night. The silent steersman heard him frequently rustling papers on the chart table or clumping to the bridge or lolling on the port sills—a restlessness that had about it something of the captive tiger.

Retrospection—he could not break the crowding spell of it, twist mentally as he would; and the counter-thought was dimly suicidal. The sea there; a few strides would carry him to the end of the bridge, and then—oblivion. And the girl would not permit him to enact this thought. He laughed. God had mocked him at his birth, and the devil had played with him ever since. He had often faced death hotly and hopefully, but to consider suicide coldly!

A woman who had crossed his path reluctantly, without will of her own; the sort he had always ignored because they had been born for the peace of chimney corners! She—the thought of her—could bring the past crowding upon him and create in his mind a suicidal bent!

Pearls! A great distaste of life fell upon him; the adventure grew flat. The zest that had been his ten days gone, where was it?

Imagination! He had been cursed with too much of it. In his youth he had skulked through alleys and back streets—the fear of laughter and ridicule dogging his mixed heels. Never before to have paused to philosophize over what had caused his wasted life! Too much imagination! Mental strabismus! He had let his over-sensitive imagination wreck and ruin him. A woman's laughter had given him the viewpoint of a careless world; and he had fled, and he had gone on fleeing all these years from pillar to post. From a shadow!

He was something of a monster. He saw now where the fault lay. He had never stayed long enough in any one place for people to get accustomed to him. His damnable imagination! And there was conceit of a sort. Probably nobody paid any attention to him after the initial shock and curiosity had died away. There was Scarron in his wheel chair—merry and cheerful and brave, jesting with misfortune; and men and women had loved him.

A moral coward, and until this hour he had never sensed the truth! That was it! He had been a moral coward; he had tried to run away from fate; and here he was at last, in the blind alley the coward always found at the end of the run. He had never thought of anything but what he was—never of what he might have been. For having thrust him unfinished upon a thoughtless rather than a heartless world he had been trying to punish fate, and had punished only himself. A wastrel, a roisterer by night, a spendthrift, and a thief!

What had she said?—reknead his soul so that it would fit his face? Too late!

One staff to lean on, one only—he never broke his word. Why had he laid down for himself this law? What had inspired him to hold always to that? Was there a bit of gold somewhere in his grotesque make-up? A straw on the water, and he clutched it! Why? Cunningham laughed again, and the steersman turned his head slightly.

"Williams, do you believe in God?" asked Cunningham.

"Well, sir, when I'm holding down the wheel—perhaps. The screw is always edging a ship off, and the lighter the ballast the wider the yaw. So you have to keep hitching her over a point to starboard. You trust to me to keep that point, and I trust to God that the north stays where it is."

"And yet legally you're a pirate."

"Oh, that? Well, a fellow ain't much of a pirate that plays the game we play. And yet——"

"Ah! And yet?"

"Well, sir, some of the boys are getting restless. And I'll be mighty glad when we raise that old Dutch bucket of yours. They ain't bad, understand; just young and heady and wanting a little fun. They growl a lot because they can't sleep on deck. They growl because there's nothing to drink. Of course it might hurt Cleigh's feelings, but I'd like to see all his grog go by the board. You see, sir, it ain't as if we'd just dropped down from Shanghai. It's been tarnation dull ever since we left San Francisco."

"Once on the other boat, they can make a night of it if they want to. But I've given my word on the Wanderer."

"Yes, sir."

"And it's final."

Cunningham returned to his chart. All these cogitations because a woman had entered his life uninvited! Ten days ago he had not been aware of her existence; and from now on she would be always recurring in his thoughts.

She was not conscious of it, but she was as a wild thing that had been born in captivity, and she was tasting the freedom of space again without knowing what the matter was. But it is the law that all wild things born in captivity lose everything but the echo; a little freedom, a flash of what might have been, and they are ready to return to the cage. So it would be with her.

Supposing—no, he would let her return to her cage. He wondered—had he made his word a law simply to meet and conquer a situation such as this? Or was his hesitance due to the fear of her hate? That would be immediate and unabating. She was not the sort that would bend—she would break. No, he wasn't monster enough to play that sort of game. She should take back her little adventure to her cage, and in her old age it would become a pleasant souvenir.

He rose and leaned on his arms against a port sill and stared at the stars until they began to fade, until the sea and the sky became like the pearls he would soon be seeking. A string of glass beads, bringing about all these events!

At dawn he went down to the deck for a bit of exercise before he turned in. When he beheld Dennison sound asleep in the chair, his mouth slightly open, his bare feet standing out conspicuously on the foot rest, a bantering, mocking smile twisted the corners of Cunningham's lips. Noiselessly he settled himself in the adjacent chair, and cynically hoping that Dennison would be first to wake he fell asleep.

The Wanderer's deck toilet was begun and consummated between six and six-thirty, except in rainy weather. Hose, mops, and holystone, until the teak looked as if it had just left the Rangoon sawmills; then the brass, every knob and piping, every latch and hinge and port loop. The care given the yacht since leaving the Yang-tse might be well called ingratiating. Never was a crew more eager to enact each duty to the utmost—with mighty good reason.

But when they came upon Dennison and Cunningham, asleep side by side, they drew round the spot, dumfounded. But their befuddlement was only a tithe of that which struck Cleigh an hour later. It was his habit to take a short constitutional before breakfast; and when he beheld the two, asleep in adjoining chairs, the fact suggesting that they had come to some friendly understanding, he stopped in his tracks, as they say, never more astonished in all his days.

For as long as five minutes he remained motionless, the fine, rugged face of his son on one side and the amazing beauty of Cunningham's on the other. But in the morning light, in repose, Cunningham's face was tinged with age and sadness. There was, however, no grain of pity in Cleigh's heart. Cunningham had made his bed of horsehair; let him twist and writhe upon it.

But the two of them together, sleeping as peacefully as babes! Dennison had one arm flung behind his head. It gave Cleigh a shock, for he recognized the posture. As a lad Dennison had slept that way. Cunningham's withered leg was folded under his sound one.

What had happened? Cleigh shook his head; he could not make it out. Moreover, he could not wake either and demand the solution to the puzzle. He could not put his hand on his son's shoulder, and he would not put it on Cunningham's. Pride on one side and distaste on the other. But the two of them together!

He got round the impasse by kicking out the foot rest of the third chair. Immediately Cunningham opened his eyes. First he turned to see if Dennison was still in his chair. Finding this to be the case, he grinned amiably at the father. Exactly the situation he would have prayed for had he believed in the efficacy of prayer.

"Surprises you, eh? Looks as if he had signed on with the Great Adventure Company."

His voice woke Dennison, who blinked in the sunshine for a moment, then looked about. He comprehended at once.

With easy dignity he swung his bare feet to the deck and made for the companion; never a second glance at either his father or Cunningham.

"Chip of the old block!" observed Cunningham. "You two! On my word, I never saw two bigger fools in all my time! What's it about? What the devil did he do—murder someone, rob the office safe, or marry Tottie Lightfoot? And Lord, how you both love me! And how much more you'll love me when I become the dear departed!"

Cleigh, understanding that the situation was a creation of pure malice on Cunningham's part—Cleigh wheeled and resumed his tramp round the deck.

Cunningham plowed his fingers through his hair, gripped and pulled it in a kind of ecstasy. Cleigh's phiz. The memory of it would keep him in good humour all day. After all, there was a lot of good sport in the world. The days were all right. It was only in the quiet vigils of the night that the uninvited thought intruded. On board the old Dutch tramp he would sleep o'nights, and the past would present only a dull edge.

If the atoll had cocoanut palms, hang it, he would build a shack and make it his winter home! Dolce far niente! Maybe he might take up the brush again and do a little amateur painting. Yes, in the daytime the old top wasn't so bad. He hoped he would have no more nonsense from Flint. A surly beggar, but a necessary pawn in the game.

Pearls! Some to sell and some to play with. Lovely, tenderly beautiful pearls—a rope of them round Jane Norman's throat. He slid off the chair. As a fool, he hung in the same gallery as the Cleighs.

Cleigh ate his breakfast alone. Upon inquiry he learned that Jane was indisposed and that Dennison had gone into the pantry and picked up his breakfast there. Cleigh found the day unspeakably dull. He read, played the phonograph, and tried all the solitaires he knew; but a hundred times he sensed the want of the pleasant voice of the girl in his ears.

What would she be demanding of him as a reparation? He was always sifting this query about, now on this side, now on that, without getting anywhere. Not money. What then?

That night both Jane and Dennison came in to dinner. Cleigh saw instantly that something was amiss. The boy's face was gloomy and his lips locked, and the girl's mouth was set and cheerless. Cleigh was fired by curiosity to ascertain the trouble, but here again was an impasse.

"I'm sorry I spoke so roughly last night," said Dennison, unexpectedly.

"And I am sorry that I answered you so sharply. But all this worry and fuss over me is getting on my nerves. You've written down Cunningham as a despicable rogue, when he is only an interesting one. If only you would give banter for banter, you might take some of the wind out of his sails. But instead you go about as if the next hour was to be our last!"

"Who knows?"

"There you go! In a minute we'll be digging up the hatchet again."

But she softened the reproach by smiling. At this moment Cunningham came in briskly and cheerfully. He sat down, threw the napkin across his knees, and sent an ingratiating smile round the table.

"Cleigh"—he was always talking to Cleigh, and apparently not minding in the least that he was totally ignored—"Cleigh, they are doing a good job in the Santa Maria delle Grazie, so I am told. Milan, of course. They are restoring Da Vinci's Cenacolo. What called it to mind is the fact that this is also the last supper. To-morrow at this hour you will be in possession and I'll be off for my pearls."

The recipients of this remarkable news appeared petrified for a space. Cunningham enjoyed the astonishment.

"Sounds almost too good to be true, doesn't it? Still, it's a fact."

"That's tiptop news, Cunningham," said Dennison. "I hope when you go down the ladder you break your infernal neck. But the luck is on your side."

"Let us hope that it stays there," replied Cunningham, unruffled. He turned to Cleigh again: "I say, we've always been bewailing that job of Da Vinci's. But the old boy was a seer. He knew that some day there would be American millionaires and that I'd become a force in art. So he put his subject on a plaster wall so I couldn't lug it off. A canvas the same size, I don't say; but the side of a church!"

"A ship is going to pick you up to-morrow?" asked Jane.

"Yes. The crew of the Wanderer goes to the Haarlem and the Haarlem crew transships to the Wanderer. You see, Cleigh, I'm one of those efficiency sharks. In this game I have left nothing to chance. Nothing except an act of God—as they say on the back of your steamer ticket—can derange my plans. Not the least bit of inconvenience to you beyond going out of your course for a few days. The new crew was signed on in Singapore—able seamen wanting to return to the States. Hired them in your name. Clever idea of me, eh?"

"Very," said Cleigh, speaking directly to Cunningham for the first time since the act of piracy.

"And this will give you enough coal to turn and make Manila, where you can rob the bunkers of one of your freighters. Now, then, early last winter in New York a company was formed, the most original company in all this rocky old world—the Great Adventure Company, of which I am president and general adviser. Pearls! Each member of the crew is a shareholder, undersigned at fifteen hundred shares, par value one dollar. These shares are redeemable October first in New York City if the company fails, or are convertible into pearls of equal value if we succeed. No widows and orphans need apply. Fair enough."

"Fair enough, indeed," admitted Cleigh.

Dennison stared at his father. He did not quite understand this willingness to hold converse with the rogue after all this rigorously maintained silence.

"Of course the Great Adventure Company had to be financed," went on Cunningham with a deprecating gesture.

"Naturally," assented Cleigh. "And that, I suppose, will be my job?"

"Indirectly. You see, Eisenfeldt told me he had a client ready to pay eighty thousand for the rug, and that put the whole idea into my noodle."

"Ah! Well, you will find the crates and frames and casings in the forward hold," said Cleigh in a tone which conveyed nothing of his thoughts. "It would be a pity to spoil the rug and the oils for the want of a little careful packing."

Cunningham rose and bowed.

"Cleigh, you are a thoroughbred!"

Cleigh shook his head.

"I'll have your hide, Cunningham, if it takes all I have and all I am!"



CHAPTER XIX

Cunningham sat down. "The spirit is willing, Cleigh, but the flesh is weak. You'll never get my hide. How will you go about it? Stop a moment and mull it over. How are you going to prove that I've borrowed the rug and the paintings? These are your choicest possessions. You have many at home worth more, but these things you love. Out of spite, will you inform the British, the French, the Italian governments that you had these objects and that I relieved you of them? In that event you'll have my hide, but you'll never set eyes upon the oils again except upon their lawful walls—the rug, never! On the other hand, there is every chance in the world of my returning them to you."

"Your word?" interrupted Jane, ironically.

So Cleigh was right? A quarter of a million in art treasures!

"My word! I never before realized," continued Cunningham, "what a fine thing it is to possess something to stand on firmly—a moral plank."

Dennison's laughter was sardonic.

"Moral plank is good," was his comment.

"Miss Norman," said Cunningham, maliciously, "I slept beside the captain this morning, and he snores outrageously." The rogue tilted his chin and the opal fire leaped into his eyes. "Do you want me to tell you all about the Great Adventure Company, or do you want me to shut up and merely proceed with the company's business without further ado? Why the devil should I care what you think of me? Still, I do care. I want you to get my point of view—a rollicking adventure, in which nobody loses anything and I have a great desire fulfilled. Hang it, it's a colossal joke, and in the end the laugh will be on nobody! Even Eisenfeldt will laugh," he added, enigmatically.

"Do you intend to take the oils and the rug and later return them?" demanded Jane.

"Absolutely! That's the whole story. Only Cleigh here will not believe it until the rug and oils are dumped on the door-step of his New York home. I needed money. Nobody would offer to finance a chart with a red cross on it. So I had to work it out in my own fashion. The moment Eisenfeldt sees these oils and the rug he becomes my financier, but he'll never put his claw on them except for one thing—that act of God they mention on the back of your ticket. Some raider may have poked into this lagoon of mine. In that case Eisenfeldt wins."

Cleigh smiled.

"A pretty case, Cunningham, but it won't hold water. It is inevitable that Eisenfeldt gets the rug and the paintings, and you are made comfortable for the rest of your days. A shabby business, and you shall rue it."

"My word?"

"I don't believe in it any longer," returned Cleigh.

Cunningham appealed to Jane.

"Give me the whole story, then I'll tell you what I believe," she said. "You may be telling the truth."

What a queer idea—wanting his word believed! Why should it matter to him whether they believed in the honour of his word or not, when he held the whip hand and could act as he pleased? The poor thing! And as that phrase was uttered in thought, the glamour of him was dissipated; she saw Cunningham as he was, a poor benighted thing, half boy, half demon, a thing desperately running away from his hurt and lashing out at friends and enemies alike on the way.

"Tell your story—all of it."

Cunningham began:

"About a year ago the best friend I had—perhaps the only friend I had—died. He left me his chart and papers. The atoll is known, but uncharted, because it is far outside the routes. I have no actual proofs that there will be shell in the lagoon; I have only my friend's word—the word of a man as honest as sunshine. Where this shell lies there is never any law. Some pearl thiever may have fallen upon the shell since my friend discovered it."

"In that case," said Cleigh, "I lose?"

"Frankly, yes! All financial ventures are attended by certain risks."

"Money? Why didn't you come to me for that?"

"What! To you?"

Cunningham's astonishment was perfect.

"Yes. There was a time when I would have staked a good deal on your word."

Cunningham rested his elbows on the table and clutched his hair—a despairing gesture.

"No use! I can't get it to you! I can't make you people understand! It isn't the pearls, it's the game; it's all the things that go toward the pearls. I want to put over a game no man ever played before."

Jane began to find herself again drawn toward him, but no longer with the feeling of unsettled mystery. She knew now why he drew her. He was the male of the species to which she belonged—the out-trailer, the hater of humdrum, of dull orbits and of routine. The thrilling years he had spent—business! This was the adventure of which he had always dreamed, and since it would never arrive as a sequence, he had proceeded to dramatize it! He was Tom Sawyer grown up; and for a raft on the Mississippi substitute a seagoing yacht. There was then in this matter-of-fact world such a man, and he sat across the table from her!

"Supposing I had come to you and you had advanced the money?" said Cunningham, earnestly. "All cut and dried, not a thrill, not a laugh, nothing but the pearls! I have never had a boyhood dream realized but, hang it, I'm going to realize this one!" He struck the table violently. "Set the British after me, and you'll never see this stuff again. You'll learn whether my word is worth anything or not. Lay off for eight months, and if your treasures are not yours again within that time you won't have to chase me. I'll come to you and have the tooth pulled without gas."

Dennison's eyes softened a little. Neither had he realized any of his boyhood dreams. For all that, the fellow was as mad as a hatter.

"Of course I'm a colossal ass, and half the fun is knowing that I am." The banter returned to Cunningham's tongue. "But this thing will go through—I feel it. I will have had my fun, and you will have loaned your treasures to me for eight months, and Eisenfeldt will have his principal back without interest. The treasures go directly to a bank vault. There will be two receipts, one dated September—mine; and one dated November—Eisenfeldt's. I hate Eisenfeldt. He's tricky; his word isn't worth a puff of smoke; he's ready at all times to play both ends from the middle. I want to pay him out for crossing my path in several affairs. He's betting that I will find no pearls. So to-morrow I will exhibit the rug and the Da Vinci to convince him, and he will advance the cash. Can't you see the sport of it?"

"That would make very good reading," said Cleigh, scraping the shell of his avocado pear. "I can get you on piracy."

"Prove it! You can say I stole the yacht, but you can't prove it. The crew is yours; you hired it. The yacht returns to you to-morrow without a scratch on her paint. And the new crew will know absolutely nothing, being as innocent as newborn babes. Cleigh, you're no fool. What earthly chance have you got? You love that rug. You're not going to risk losing it positively, merely to satisfy a thirst for vengeance. You're human. You'll rave and storm about for a few days, then you'll accept the game as it lies. Think of all the excitement you'll have when a telegram arrives or the phone rings! I told you it was a whale of a joke; and in late October you'll chuckle. I know you, Cleigh. Down under all that tungsten there is the place of laughter. It will be better to laugh by yourself than to have the world laugh at you. Hoist by his own petard! There isn't a newspaper syndicate on earth that wouldn't give me a fortune for just the yarn. Now, I don't want the world to laugh at you, Cleigh."

"Considerate of you."

"Because I know what that sort of laughter is. Could you pick up the old life, the clubs? Could a strong man like you exist in an atmosphere of suppressed chuckles? Mull it over. If these treasures were honourably yours I'd never have thought of touching them. But you haven't any more right to them than I have, or Eisenfeldt."

Dennison leaned back in his chair. He began to laugh.

"Cunningham, my apologies," he said. "I thought you were a scoundrel, and you are only a fool—the same brand as I! I've been aching to wring your neck, but that would have been a pity. For eight months life will be full of interest for me—like waiting for the end of a story in the magazines."

"But there is one thing missing out of the tale," Jane interposed.

"And what is that?" asked Cunningham.

"Those beads."

"Oh, those beads! They belonged to an empress of France, and the French Government is offering sixty thousand for their return. Napoleonic. And now will you answer a question of mine? Where have you hidden them?"

Jane did not answer, but rose and left the dining salon. Silence fell upon the men until she returned. In her hand she held Ling Foo's brass hand warmer. She set it on the table and pried back the jigsawed lid. From the heap of punk and charcoal ashes she rescued the beads and laid them on the cloth.

"Very clever. They are yours," said Cunningham.

"Mine?"

"Why not? Findings is keepings. They are as much yours as mine."

Jane pushed the string toward Cleigh.

"For me?" he said.

"Yes—for nothing."

"There is sixty thousand dollars in gold in my safe. When we land in San Francisco I will turn over the money to you. You have every right in the world to it."

Cleigh blew the ash from the glass beads and circled them in his palm.

"I repeat," she said, "they are yours."

Cunningham stood up.

"Well, what's it to be?"

"I have decided to reserve my decision," answered Cleigh, dryly. "To hang you 'twixt wind and water will add to the thrill, for evidently that's what you're after."

"If it's on your own you'll only be wasting coal."

Cleigh toyed with the beads.

"The Haarlem. Maybe I can save you a lot of trouble," said Cunningham. "The name is only on her freeboard and stern, not on her master's ticket. The moment we are hull down the old name goes back." Cunningham turned to Jane. "Do you believe I've put my cards on the table?"

"Yes."

"And that if I humanly can I'll keep my word?"

"Yes."

"That's worth many pearls of price!"

"Supposing," said Cleigh, trickling the beads from palm to palm—"supposing I offered you the equivalent in cash?"

"No, Eisenfeldt has my word."

"You refuse?" Plainly Cleigh was jarred out of his calm. "You refuse?"

"I've already explained," said Cunningham, wearily. "I've told you that I like sharp knives to play with. If you handle them carelessly you're cut. How about you?" Cunningham addressed the question to Dennison.

"Oh, I'm neutral and interested. I've always had a sneaking admiration for a tomfool. They were Shakespeare's best characters. Consider me neutral."

Cleigh rose abruptly and stalked from the salon.

Cunningham lurched and twisted to the forward passage and disappeared.

When next Jane saw him in the light he was bloody and terrible.



CHAPTER XX

Jane and Dennison were alone. "I wonder," he said, "are we two awake, or are we having the same nightmare?"

"The way he hugs his word! Imagine a man stepping boldly and mockingly outside the pale, and carrying along his word unsullied with him! He's mad, Denny, absolutely mad! The poor thing!"

That phrase seemed to liberate something in his mind. The brooding oppression lifted its siege. His heart was no longer a torture chamber.

"I ought to be his partner, Jane. I'm as big a fool as he is. Who but a fool would plan and execute a game such as this? But he's sound on one point. It's a colossal joke."