A SUNSET of gilt and blue and rose palpitated on the horizon. A tap­estry of misty rain, draping downward from indefinite clouds, obscured the eastern line of sea and sky. Midway between, slightly nearer to the rain, a painted rainbow reached almost to the zenith. So lofty was its arch that the ends seemed to curve inward to the ocean in a vain attempt to complete the perfect circle. Into this triumphal arch, toward the blue twilight beyond, sailed an open boat.

Nor did ever more strangely freighted boat float on the Pacific. In the sternsheets, on the weather side, a stupid-looking Norwegian sailor, in uniform of a quartermaster, steered with one hand while with the other he held the sheet of the spritsail. From a holster, belted about his waist, peeped the butt of a business-like revolver. His cap lay on his knees, removed for the sake of coolness; and his short flaxen hair was prodigiously ridged over a bruise of recent origin.

Beside the sailor sat two women. The nearer one was comfortably stout and matronly, with large, dark eyes, full, direct, human. Her shoulders were protected against sunburn by a man's light overcoat. Because of the heat, this was open and unbuttoned, revealing the decolleté and rich materials of dinner dress. Jewels glinted in the hair, at the neck, and on the fingers. Beside her was a young woman of two- or three-and-twenty, likewise decolleté, sun-shielded by a strip of stained oilskin. Her eyes, as well as the straight, fine nose and the line of the red curve of the not too passionate mouth, advertised the closest relationship with the first woman. In the opposite sternsheet and on the ffst cross-seat, lolled three men in black trousers and dinner jackets. Their heads were protected by small squares of stained oilskin similar to that which lay across the young woman's shoulders. One, a young­ster of eighteen, wore an expression of desperate yearning; the second, half as old again, talked with the daughter; the third, middle-aged and complacent, devoted himself to the mother.

Amidships, on the bottom alongside the centerboard case, sat two dark-eyed women, as evidently maids as their nationality was respec­tively the one Spanish and the other Italian. On the other side of the centerboard, very straight-backed and erect, was an unmistakable English valet, with gaze always set on the middle-aged gentleman to anticipate any want or order. For'ard of the centerboard and just aft the mast-step, crouched two hard-featured Chinese, both with broken heads swathed in bloody sweat-cloths, both clad in dungaree garments grimed and blackened with oil and coal dust.

When it is considered that hundreds of weary sea-leagues intervened between the open boat and the nearest land, the inappropriateness of costume of half of its occupants may be appreciated.

"Well, brother Willie, what would you rather have or go swim­ming!" teased the young woman.

"A cigarette, if Harrison were n't such a pincher," the youth answered bitterly.

"I 've only four left," Harrison said. "You 've smoked the whole case. I 've had only two."

Temple Harrison was a joker. He winked privily at Patty Gifford, drew a curved silver case from his hip pocket, and carefully counted the four cigarettes. Willie Gifford watched with so ferocious infatuation that his sister cried out:

"B-r-r! Stop it! You make me shiver. You look positively cannibal­istic."

"That's all right for you," was the brother's retort. "You don't know what tobacco means, or you 'd look cannibalistic yourself. You will, anyway," he concluded ominously, "after a couple of days more. I noticed you were n't a bit shy of taking a bigger cup of water than the rest when Harrison passed it around. I was n't asleep."

Patty flushed guiltily.

"It was only a sip," she pleaded.

Harrison took out one cigarette, handed it over, and snapped the case shut.

"Blackmailer!" he hissed.

But Willie Gifford was oblivious. Already, with trembling fingers, he had lighted a match and was drawing the first inhalation deep into this lungs. On his face was a vacuous ecstasy.

"Everything will come out all right," Mrs. Gifford was saying to Sedley Brown, who sat opposite her in the sternsheets.

"Certainly; after the miracle of last night, being saved by some passing ship is the merest bagatelle," he agreed. "It was a miracle. I cannot understand now how our party remained intact and got away in the one boat. And if it had n't been for the purser, Peyton would n't have been saved, nor your maids."

"Nor would we, if it hadn't been for dear brave Captain Ashley," Mrs. Gifford took up. "It was he, and the first officer."

"They were heroes," Sedley Brown praised warmly. "But still, there could have been so few saved, I don't see....."

"I don't see why you don't see, with you and mother the heaviest stockholders in the line," Willie Gifford dashed in. "Why shouldn't they have made a special effort? It was up to them."

Temple Harrison smiled to himself. Between them, Mrs. Gifford and Sedley Brown owned the majority of the stock of the Asiatic Mail—the flourishing steamship line which old Silas Gifford had built for the purpose of feeding his railroad with through freight from China and Japan. Mrs. Gifford had married his son, Seth, and the stock at the same time.

"I am sure, Willie, we were given no unfair consideration," Mrs. Gifford reproved. "Of course shipwrecks are attended by confusion and disorder, and strong measures are necessary to stay a panic. We were very fortunate, that is all."

"I was n't asleep," Willie replied. "And all I 've got to say is it's up to you to make the board of directors promote Captain Ashley to be Commodore—that is, if he ain't dead and gone, which I guess he is."

"As I was saying," Mrs. Gifford addressed Sedley Brown, "the worst is past. It is scarcely a matter of hardship ere we shall be rescued. The weather is delightful, and the nights are not the slightest bit chilly. Depend upon it, Willie, Captain Ashley shall not be forgotten, nor the first officer and purser, nor—" here she turned with a smile to the quartermaster—"nor shall Gronwold go unrewarded."

"A penny for your thoughts," Patty challenged Harrison several minutes later.

He startled and looked at her, shook off his absentmindedness with a laugh and declined the offer.

He startled and looked at her, shook off his absentmindedness with a laugh and declined the offer.

"For he had been revisioning the horrors of less than twenty-four hours before. It had happened at dinner. The crash of collision had come just as coffee was serving. Yes, there had been confusion and disorder, if so could be termed the madness of a thousand souls in the face of imminent death. He saw again the silk-gowned Chinese table stewards join in the jam at the foot of the stairway, where blows were already being struck and women and children trampled. He remembered, as his own party, led by Captain Ashley, worked its devious way up from deck to deck, seeing the white officers, engineers, and quartermasters buckling on their revolvers as they ran to their positions. Nor would he ever forget the eruption from the bowels of the great ship of the hundreds of Chinese stokers and trimmers, nor the half a thousand ter­rified steerage passengers—Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans, coolies and land-creatures all stark mad and frantic in desire to live.

Not all the deaths would be due to drowning, he thought grimly, as he recollected the crack of revolvers and sharp barking of automatic pistols, the thuds of clubs and boat-stretchers on heads, and the grunts of men going down under the silent thrusts of sheath-knives.

Mrs. Gifford might believe what she wished to believe, but he, for one, was deeply grateful to his lucky star which made him a member of the only party of passengers that was shown any consideration. Con­sideration! He could still see the protesting English duke flung neck and crop from the boat deck to the raging steerage fighting up the ladders. And there was number four boat, launched by inexperienced hands, spilling its passengers into the sea and hanging perpendicularly in the davits. The white sailors who belonged to it and should have launched it had been impressed by Captain Ashley. Then there was the Ameri­can Consul-General to Siam—that was just before the electric lights went out—with wife, nurses, and children, shouting his official impor­tance in Captain Ashley's face and being directed to number four boat hanging on end.

Yes, Captain Ashley surely deserved the commodoreship of the Asi­atic Mail—if he lived. But that he survived, Temple Harrison could not believe. He remembered the outburst of battle—advertisement that the boat deck had been carried—which came just as their boat was lower­ing away. Of its crew, only Gronwold, with a broken head, was in it. The rest did not slide down the falls, as was intended. Doubtlessly they had gone down before the rush of Asiatics, and so had Captain Ashley, though first he had cut the falls and shouted down to them to shove clear for their lives.

And they had, with a will, shoved clear. Harrison recalled how had pressed the end of an oar against the steel side of the Mingalia and afterward rowed insanely to the accompaniment of leaping bodies falling into the sea astern. And when well clear, he remembered how Gronwold had suddenly stood up and laid about with the heavy tiller overside, until Patty made him desist. Mutely taking the rain of blows on their heads and clinging stedfastly to the gunwale, were the two Chi­nese stokers who now crouched for'ard by the mast. No; Willie Gifford had not been asleep. He, too, had pressed an oar-blade against the Mingalia's side and rowed blisters into his soft hands. But Mrs. Gifford was right. There were several things it would be well to forget.

II

Daybreak found the boat rolling on a silken sea. Half the night had been dead calm. The big spritsail had democratically covered coolies, servants, and masters. It was now thrown aside, and Harrison began doling out half-cups of water. Willie, smoking another of the precious cigarettes, looked studiously away when a sip more than the others received was poured for his sister.

A screeched "Santa Cristo!" from Mercedes Martinez, Patty's maid, startled them. Harrison nearly spilled the water he was passing to Sedley Brown. The two Chinese had set up an excited chatter. Peyton was turning his head stiffly to see what all quickly saw: a large, yacht-like Schooner, with an enormous spread of canvas, becalmed half a mile away. The Chinese were the first to get oars over the side. Peyton delayed, until ordered by Sedley Brown.

"Row, Willie, row—we 're saved," Patty cried.

"Nothing to stop me from getting my drink of water first," replied that imperturbable youth, addressing himself to the forgotten waterbreaker and drinking cupful after cupful.

As the boat drew near the schooner, they saw several faces peering at them over the rail in the waist of the ship. On the poop a large, heavy-shouldered man smoked a blackened pipe and surveyed them stolidly.

Sedley Brown did not know the etiquette of being rescued at sea from an open boat; but he felt that this somehow was not the way. It was embarrassing. He resolved to make an effort.

"Good morning," he said politely.

"Good morning," growled the big man in a vast husky voice that seemed to proceed from a scorched throat, and that caused Mercedes and Matilda to jump and cross themselves. "What luck?"

"Finest in the world," Sedley Brown replied brightly. "We 're saved."

"Aw hell!" was the surprising comment. "I thought you was out fishing."

This was too much for Sedley Brown, who retired from the negotia­tions.

"We're the sole survivors of the Mingalia, sunk in collision night before last," Willie cried out.

"I suppose I 'll have to let you come aboard," came the coffee-grinder voice. "—Harkins!—throw 'em a line there!"

"You don't seem a bit glad to see us," Mrs. Gifford criticized airily, as she descended on deck from the rail.

"I ain't, madam, not a damn bit," was the reply of the strange skipper.

III

Mrs. Gifford came up the companion ladder from the stifling cabin, looked vainly about for a deck chair, and collapsed against the low side of the cabin house. Her handsome black eyes were flashing.

"It's atrocious," she cried. "It is not to be endured. He is an insulting brute. Anything—the open boat—is better than this horrible creature. And it is not as if he did n't know better. He does it deliberately. It is his way of showing we are not welcome."

"What has he done now?" Patty Gifford asked, from where she stood with Harrison in the shade of the mainsail.

There was no awning, and the pitch oozed from the sizzling dock. From below came the mild protesting accents of Sedley Brown, and squeals and Ave Marias from the maids.

"Done!" Mrs. Gifford exclaimed. "What has he not done? He has insisted on putting Mr. Brown and me into the same stateroom. — They 're awful little cubby-holes, no ventilation, no conveniences—"

She ceased abruptly as Captain Decker emerged from the companion-way and approached her. Patty shuddered and drew closer to Harrison, for the skipper's brown eyes were a-smoulder.

"You must excuse me, madam," he rumbled at Mrs. Gifford. "How was I to know? I thought you and the gentleman below was married. But it's all right." His face beamed with a labored benevolence. "I tell you it's all right. I can splice the two of you legal any time, such bein' a captain's authority on the high seas."

"Go away, go away," Mrs. Gifford moaned.

Captain Decker fixed his terrible eyes yearningly on Patty and Har­rison.

"I've pulled teeth," the skipper began, voluminously husky, "and I 've buried corpses, and, once, I sawed off a man's leg; but damn me if I 've ever spliced a couple yet. Now how about the two of you?"

Patty and Harrison shrank instantly apart.

"It might make things more convenient down below," the other was urging, when Sedley Brown arrived on deck.

Him the captain immediately addressed.

"Hey—you; don't you want to get married? I can do it."

Sedley Brown looked involuntarily at Mrs. Gifford and gasped in astonishment.

"No; bless me, no; of course not, certainly not," he declined with embarrassed haste.

Captain Decker's disappointment was manifest in his coffee-grinder throat.

"All right my bully. Maybe you ain't seen the cook yet. I won't say he's clean, but I will say he's a Chinaman. You 'll bunk with him." He turned upon Harrison. "You still got a chance. Say the word an' I 'll tie you up to the girl tighter 'n all hell."

"And if I don't?" Harrison demanded.

"Why, you 'll bunk with—"

At that moment the cabin boy, a grinning, turbaned, moustached Lascar, passed aft along the poop.

"With the cabin-boy—that's him," the skipper completed his sen­tence.

"Then I 'll bunk with the cabin boy," Harrison decided.

"Suit yourself." Captain Decker strode to the companionway and shouted down. "Where's that mate?..... asleep, hey?..... Rout 'm out. Tell 'm I want 'm.—Jump, you black devil, you! Jump!" He turned about to the survivors of the Mingalia. "Now, here's the sleepin' arrangements. Down below there's six rooms: two starboard, two port, two after under the deck. You two women 'll bunk in number one port; the two Dago girls in number two port; the cook and his nibs here in port after-room—"

"I shall not sleep there," Sedley Brown announced. "I shall sleep on the cabin floor." "You 'll sleep where I tell you to," Captain Decker roared. "Who asked you aboard the Susan Drew? I didn't. You 'll sleep with the Chink or I 'll know the reason why, or my name ain't Bill Decker. That ser­vant of yourn 'll sleep on the cabin floor." He now addressed Harrison. "You will bunk with the cabin boy in the starboard

after-room. — Where's that mate?"

A most forbidding individual came up through the companion. He was as large as the skipper and as heavily built. Swarthy skinned and high-cheeked, his features were distinctly mongoloid, despite cut lips, lacerated ears, a blackened eye, and a monstrously swollen nose. He was perplexed, stupid, and in very evident fear of the captain.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is the mate of the Susan Drew. He was a beauty once upon a time. He was some man before he run foul of me, which was only yesterday. Look at 'm now. Flat-Nose Russ is his name. An' take it from me that nose was flat before I landed on it. Flat-Nose, you got to take a bunk mate. —Where's that young whelp?"

Captain Decker turned and glared at Willie Gifford sauntering aft from the break of the poop, a brown-paper cigarette carelessly stuck to his lower lip.

"Here, you!"

Willie stopped short.

"Take that cigarette out of your mouth when I talk to you!" the skipper bellowed.

Willie hesitated, the skipper sprang toward him, and Mrs. Gifford screamed. The cigarette came out with dispatch, and Captain Decker turned on Mrs. Gifford.

"Madam, is there any reason why you and his nibs ought n't to be married?"

Mrs. Gifford disdained reply.

"Is there any reason you ought?"

She looked appealingly to Patty, who came to her side. The captain returned to Willie.

"That's right, youngster. Learn to take orders. You see that hand­some man by the companionway. That's Flat-Nose. And that's what I do to them I don't love. Throw that cigarette over the side—that 's right—and smoke no more of 'em. Take a pipe if you want to smoke like a man. Now you an' Flat-Nose are going to bunk together. —Flat-Nose, you 're responsible for 'm. If he cuts up any didoes, spank 'm."

Captain Decker strode the length of the poop and back, studied the cloud-driftage crossing the sky from the northwest, debated a moment, then remarked to the company in general:

"It's mighty hot on this deck. Now if by chance anybody might want to get married, I guess I could manage to rig up some sort of an awning."

IV

Below, they sat in anxious council. A week had passed, in which everybody had been bullied and variously insulted, while Willie had been rope's-ended twice for smoking cigarettes and then turned to at holystoning the poop and scrubbing paint-work. Mrs. Gifford and Patty sat at the cabin table, their shoulders and arms at last covered by extem­porized shirts of cotton drill. The Susan Drew was in violent motion. The surge and gurgle of the water could be heard through her thin sides, and by her long lifts and lunges it was apparent that she was winged out and running before a stiff breeze.

"He is going to Hawaii," Sedley Brown was reporting to Mrs. Gif­ford." I charged him with it to his face—told him it must be so, judging by the course he was steering."

"And it is only six days by our steamers, from Honolulu to San Francisco," Patty cried joyously.

"But he refuses to land us," Sedley Brown went on. "He gives no I reason. He merely reiterates that we 'll see neither hair nor hide of the islands any more than he will. I can't make out this vessel. There is something wrong about her. But what?"

"Begging your pardon, sir," the valet spoke up, "but I know what. This ship is a smuggler, sir."

"Nonsense, Peyton," Mrs. Gifford reproved sharply. "That's just your imagination. The age of smuggling is past, except among passengers from Europe landing in New York."

"What could he smuggle?" Patty asked.

"Opium, Miss, begging your pardon," the valet replied.

"By George, that's right!" Harrison smote his leg loudly. "The new tariff law's been in effect over a year now. Opium is way up. I remember jading about it six months ago in the San Francisco papers."

"But what will we do if he is a smuggler and won't put us ashore?" Mrs. Gifford demanded.

All stared hopelessly. No suggestions were offered.

"Very well then," she said firmly, "I shall speak to this brute myself. I shall pay him to land us. I shall—"

A pair of feet and legs appeared on the companion ladder, and Captain Decker descended.

"Look here, sir," Sedley Brown gallantly sprang into the breach. "We 've been discussing the situation—"

"What situation?" demanded the skipper.

"We know all about this ship," Mrs. Gifford said sternly. "We know you are smuggling opium into Hawaii, and that is why you refuse to land us. But I will pay you to land us. I will pay you five thousand dollars."

"I wouldn't if you made it fifty thousand," was the gruff rejection.

"I do make it fifty thousand. I will pay you fifty thousand dollars to put our party ashore anywhere on the Hawaiian Islands."

Captain Decker gave her a searching glance, and seemed convinced that she meant it. But the effect upon him was contrary to what they expected. His smooth-shaven face, harsh and savage, set obstinately.

"You can't walk over me with your money," he sneered. "Bill Decker ain't a pauper. Fifty thousand ain't no more to me than a piece of shavin' paper. Yes; the Susan Drew is a smuggler, and I don't give a rap who knows it, an' I 'll see to it none of you get shore in Hawaii to spread the news. Fifty thousand! Huh! Me and my partners make enough on this one run to retire. I got fifty tons of the dope below. It's worth fifteen dollars a pound. Figure it out. Think I 'd risk a million an' half just to please you. Why, I 'd give fifty thousand myself to get rid of you if there was any way. But there ain't. Take it from me, madam, I ain't stuck on you."

V

The days came and went. In vain Harrison and Sedley Brown scanned the sea-line for land. They knew the high peaks of the Hawaiian Islands were often sighted a hundred miles away; but Captain Decker was true to his word and raised neither hide nor hair of them. His rendezvous was a matter of prearranged latitude and longitude in the ocean waste far off from the traveled steamer tracks. One day, after the morning observation, he shortened sail and hove to. Though days and nights of fresh winds blew, the Susan Drew drifted idly. After each morning observation, he would put on sail, regain the lost position, and heave to again.

"Of course—the fox—he is too cunning to venture in to land," Har­rison remarked to Patty. "This is the meeting place, where he will transship the opium. He's made a good passage and is ahead of his time, that is all."

Captain Decker grew more insufferable. He had little manners and less courtesy. He dominated any conversation he engaged in, and rudely broke in upon any conversation in which others chanced to be engaged. His table conduct was abominable. He could never keep out of paint or tar, nor refrain from springing to haul on a rope. He was stronger than any two of the sailors, and it was a splendid sight, swinging on a halyard with a turn under a pin, to see him throw himself back and down till his broad shoulders almost touched the deck. But the effect on his hands of this inveterate sailorizing was not nice—at least for those who sat with him at table. His hands, skinned and scarred, gnarled and I calloused, filthy with dirt grimed deep into the texture of the skin, were anything save appetizing to contemplate. Furthermore, he insisted on serving, and did so with those same members, upon which, during the performance, every eye was glued. Stewed prunes was a prime favorite of his, which graced the table three times daily. When he began on his full saucer, all conversation died away. Every person at the table gazed fascinated at the prunes disappearing into his mouth. But no pits came forth. Toward the last his cheeks would begin to bulge and his eyes to I roll. Then, at the end, he would solemnly bow to the empty saucer and I spit out the accumulation in one single, heroic effort.

Mrs. Gifford he made especially uncomfortable. He would gaze at |her for long periods in a curious, speculative way. They even knew him |to break off in the middle of a sentence and so gaze at her, with dropped jaw and puzzling eyes.

"No, you are not my style," he remarked, emerging from one such wown study. "I never did see anything in stout brunettes. Besides, it wouldn't be legal. A sea captain can splice anybody but himself. He's like a lighthouse that way."

A lighthouse?" Patty asked, boldly striving to divert the conversation.

"A lighthouse?—oh, a sky-pilot, a parson," was the answer. "When a parson wants to get married he has to get some other parson to do the job. Same with sea captains. Anyway, blonds is what I run to."

With her daughter and Temple Harrison very much occupied in aid­ing each other to pass the time, Mrs. Gifford was driven more and more by Captain Decker's persecution to accept the attentions of Sedley Brown.

"Now don't worry," she told Patty, who had twitted her. "I have n't the slightest intention of marrying Sedley. He is too much like your dear father. —No, no, nothing invidious. Your father was a dear; but he was too good, too sweet, too mild. I never understood it, either, how such a gentle, non-assertive man could so successfully wield the immense financial power that was his. Of course, Old Silas laid the foundation and built the structure, but your father ably realized all that Silas had planned and not yet achieved. And he did more. The Caledo­nia and North Shore was entirely his own idea; and in the face of their calling it 'Gifford's Folly' for years, look at what it is to-day."

"But I don't object to Sedley Brown," Patty hastened to disclaim.

"But I do—as a husband," Mrs. Gifford went on. "I know all you would say—our financial interests are so similar, Asiatic Mail, Carmel Consolidated, and all the rest; but....... well, I couldn't bring my­self to marry him, that's all. He's a dear, kind friend. As such, I adore him. But as a husband—Patty, dear, if ever I marry again it shall be a man—a big strong man."

"But father was big and strong," Patty defended. "He played football at college. Sedley Brown says so, and says that he weighed nearly two hundred pounds. I scarcely remember him myself. I was n't more than four or five years old at the time."

"You've seen photographs and portraits of him though. Don't you remember that ridiculous beard of his? —and on so young a man! Don't you see, Patty? That beard tells the whole story. He hid his face from men's eyes. He was not aggressive. He could never nerve himself to walk over the face of things rough-shod. He was an adept at finding peaceful ways around. If ever I marry again, it will be a human man, with spunk, who can raise his voice and swear at least once in a while, and fly off the handle, and if he does play the fool play it with strength. I could even forgive such a man for drinking too much on occasion. Your father, my dear, was too perfect for a commonplace mortal woman like me. But it is all beside the question. I shall never marry. There is no proof of your father's death—"

"But the law?" Patty interposed.

"Oh, of course, it is legally established, for business purposes. But I want moral proof."

"Yet there was his hat, picked up off Yerba Buena a week after his disappearance," Patty argued. "In my mind, in everybody's mind, there is n't the slightest doubt but that he was drowned in San Fran­cisco Bay—"

Through the open skylight from below came squeals of terror from Mercedes and Matilda, the servile tones of Peyton, and the roaring huskiness of Captain Decker's whiskey-corroded throat.

"Begging your pardon, sir, I don't understand," Peyton was apolo­gizing.

"Then I say it again," rasped the skipper. "There's the two skirts. Cast your lamps over 'em. Which'll you have?—the Dago? or the Eyetalian?"

More squeals and Ave Marias from the two maids, and reiterations on the valet's part of non-understanding.

"By the tarpaulins of Tartarus!" cursed Captain Decker. "Ain't it plain as the nose on your face? Ain't you a man? Ain't these here women? Ain't I goin' to marry you to one or the other?"

"But you can't, sir—"

"Can't! Maybe you don't know the authority of a captain on the high seas? I can do anything! I can mast-head you, I can keel-haul you, I— and I will, if you don't pick one of them skirts, an' damn lively about it!"

"But I won't be a bigamist, sir, begging your pardon," Peyton wailed. "I 've got a wife, sir, home in England—"

Further explanations were cut short by a snort of rage from the skipper.

"I always thought there was something underhanded about you— you, with your lick-spittlin' an' cringin'. An' a married man all the time!"

"Begging your pardon, sir," Peyton stammered, "Mr. Brown, my employer, sir, knows that I am married. You ask him, sir. He knows I send regular remittances home, sir. He can tell you—"

"Ar-r-r-g-g-g!" Captain Decker's inarticulate disgust was as a coffee-grinder in violent eruption. "Shut up! What are you making all the noise about?"

Mrs. Gifford and Patty heard the skipper's heavy tread on the companion ladder, and in trepidation awaited his appearance on deck. Instead of an explosion, all he was guilty of was a long stare across the sea, culminating in a woe-begone, "Oh dear, oh dear."

VI

He would have been forty-eight years old—had he lived," Mrs. Gifford was telling Temple Harrison.

Most of the party of survivors were sitting on the lee of the poop, in the shady down-draught of the big mainsail.

"Who would?" Captain Decker demanded with his wonted rudeness, as he stood in the nerve-stabbing sunshine, sextant in hand, taking a meridian observation.

"My husband," Mrs. Gifford answered.

The skipper proceeded at once to dominate the conversation.

"How old d' ye think I am?"

Nobody displayed interest, though Willie, on hands and knees, scrubbing paintwork, favored his persecutor with a glare of hatred.

"I am eighteen years old, madam," the skipper continued. He struck his chest with emphasis. "I, me, this man you see before you, for a fact, has lived eighteen years."

"You must have been born man-grown," Sedley Brown observed.

"I was, and with whiskers, sir, and a mustache. I never had a father or mother. I was born, a man, in a ship's fo'c's'le."

"How did you get your name, then?" Harrison queried.

"From the ship's papers. There it was, in black and white, Bill Decker —me. The first thing I did after I was born—"

"Was to wipe up the forecastle with the crew," Harrison interpolated.

"On the contrary, sir. The crew wiped up the fo'c's'le with me. I was the willingest fighter you ever saw; but I did n't know how. They licked me singly, an' by twos and threes; but they couldn't keep a good man down. I wouldn't stay licked. If a man batted an eye, I reached for him. Oh, they licked me, but I kept learnin' the curves while they were doing it; and before the voyage was over I was cock of the fo'c's'le. I licked every man jack, both bosuns, and the preventer carpenter. I licked the second mate for'ard of the 'midship house the last night before we made Liverpool. And when we got ashore an' paid off, I caught the first mate in an alley in sailor-town. They carted what was left of him to hospital. He was never the same man again. A broken wreck, madam. His sea days was over, and he was shipped to 'Snug Harbor.' "

Captain Decker detected a shudder on Mrs. Gifford's part.

"And proud of it, madam!" he thundered. "Proud of it!"

"But what is the joke. Captain Decker?" Patty asked.

"It ain't a joke. It's facts. I first opened my eyes in this world in the fo'c's'le of the Ermyntrude, eighteen years ago. That's how old I am— eighteen years. And I fought my way up. When I was one year old I was bosun. Before I w^stwo, I was second mate. By the time I was three, I was mate, an' a proper bucko at that—"

He broke off abruptly. His seaman's eye, mechanically roving the sea-rim, had lighted upon something.

"Sail ho!" he cried. "Where's that lookout? —Two points on the 'weather bow, there! —I'll attend to his case. —Flat-Nose, you! Take the glasses up to the crosstrees and see what you can make of it."

VII

After dinner, that same day, the survivors of the Mingalia were not permitted to come on deck. They remained in the cabin through long, stifling hours, while they listened to boats coming alongside, to strange voices on deck, and to the varied noises that carried the tale of cargo being broken out and hoisted overside. The opium was being trans­shipped. Willie, who had been released from his paint-scrubbing and sent below, reported no less than four small schooners and sloops which he had seen bearing down on the Susan Drew.

No meal was served that evening, and the prisoners panted and went hungry in the narrow cabin. By eleven o'clock the transfer of the opium was completed, and they could hear Captain Decker roaring out his orders as he put sail on his vessel. Then he came below, poured himself half a tumbler of Scotch, and drank it neat.

"It's all right now," he said. "You can go on deck if you want. The cook is making coffee, and the cabin-boy will set a cold snack of canned goods."

"Where are you taking us to now?" Mrs. Gifford demanded.

Captain Decker divided a pondering gaze between her and the bottle of Scotch, then silently repeated his half-tumbler dose. Never was his voice more like a coffee-grinder.

"I don't know, madam. I 'm runnin' westward across the Pacific, and I 'll drop you somewhere. You see, there's too many of you to swear to any secret. You 've got to stay with me, till all the opium is distributed and safe. I 'm not stuck on your company. I run to blonds, as I told you before. But it's business. That cargo's got to be made safe. Now if you was a blond—"

He ceased speaking and stared at Mrs. Gifford steadily and long, to that lady's great irritation. His expression was trance-like, and he seemed dreaming far dreams. A curious light began to glow in his eyes; while a grin, unthinkably significant to them, curled across his mouth. Still in his seeming trance, he reached forth his dirty hand and in playful fashion touched her on the shoulder.

"I got you," he said. "Tag! You 're it."

He returned to himself with startling suddenness, and recoiled from her.

"Why, damn it all, you ain't a blond, are you?" A step brought him to a chair, into which he sank, burying his face in his hands and moaning, "Oh dear, oh dear."

"Faugh!" Mrs. Gifford enunciated in disgust.

"The brute is drunk," Temple Harrison explained to Patty.

VIII

In the days that followed, while the Susan Drew ran before the Northeast Trades, Captain Decker's ways did not mend. His hands and nails were grimed with tar and paint, ground in by his inveterate pull and haul on sheet and halyard. He devoured prunes in the same mag­nificent manner, interrupted conversations, bullied Flat-Nose, rope's-ended Willie, and drank his half-tumblers of Scotch. With each drink the vastness and voluminousness of his huskiness increased. His trance-like gazes at Mrs. Gifford continued. His protestations of dislike for brunettes did not diminish. And often he would bury his face in his hands and moan, "Oh dear, oh dear."

Worst of all, was his persecution of Mrs. Gifford. He seemed drawn to her continually, and continually he recoiled from her. Patty was tear­fully apprehensive. Temple Harrison consoled her. And Sedley Brown grew more than mildly jealous. They were in 18° North and 166° West, and Captain Decker was talking of running them to the south and west and landing them at some outlying trading station of New Britain or New Ireland, when occurred a strange and incomprehensible happening that gave them all pause for thought.

It was at dinner. The conversation had been upon occult matters, and a general disbelief had been expressed concerning such phenomena as telepathy and clairvoyance.

"The content of consciousness is experience," Temple Harrison was saying. "There is no discussion about the existence of the subconscious mind. But it has never been demonstrated that the subconscious mind has known anything outside experience—outside the content of con­sciousness, I mean, which is experience. Therefore, it is impossible—"

He ceased, for he had lost the attention of his listeners. Captain Decker had begun to eat prunes, and they were watching him with the old, never-failing infatuation. He had received an unusually large serving, and was heroically emptying the saucer. His cheeks bulged more and more with the pouched pits, while his jaws chewed, and the spoon moved back and forth. Also, he was thinking; and, further, he desired to speak. His eyes were rolling, and his ears seemed trying to wiggle, so strong was his desire. At last came the supreme moment. He bowed his head over the saucer and spat out a mighty mouthful of prune-pits, then glared savagely at Temple Harrison.

"Talky-talky, talky-talky—that's all you know about it," were the skipper's opening words. "You don't know. But I do know. I can deliver the goods. I know things outside my experience—things I don't know, but I know 'em."

"A miracle is no miracle at second hand," Temple Harrison retorted patronizingly. "The drunkard's snakes are real only to the drunkard. We know they are not snakes. The dreamer's dream is real—to the dreamer, while he dreams."

"Talky-talky, talky-talky, too much talky along you," Captain Decker went on explosively. "I know real things that I don't know, I tell you."

"An instance, please," said Sedley Brown.

"All right." The skipper turned his eyes on Mrs. Gifford. "Madam, I know things about you that I have no right to know. That I don't know. But I know 'em. Do you dast me to tell 'em?"

Mrs. Gifford's head was poised very haughtily, as she replied, "I am very sure you know nothing about me that I am ashamed to have told."

"Very well, madam." Captain Decker's gaze burned upon her until lt seemed he must be looking right through her. "Under your left shoulder-blade, midway between it and the hip, is a mole—Ha!"

His exclamation was of triumph, caused by Patty's instant cry of alarm, and by the tell-tale blood mounting in Mrs. Gifford's cheeks.

"Now that mole's outside my experience," he continued. "I never saw it. I leave it to you. Yet I know it."

"Nevertheless, the existence of the mole is not proved," Sedley Brown observed dryly.

"Madam, have you that mole?" the skipper demanded.

Mrs. Gifford disdained reply.

"Very well, then. I 'II tell you some more. You have a corn on the inside of your left little toe. Your arms—and I observed them when you came on board—show no scar of vaccination. Yet you are vaccinated. Oh, and I can tell you other things. For instance—"

"No! No! —don't!" Mrs. Gifford cried out, while her cheeks flamed confirmatory shame.

Sedley Brown stared at her, mildly suspicious and mildly jealous.

"Well, I guess I know what I don't know," Captain Decker bragged. "Things outside my experience. I 've delivered the goods, ain't I?"

"But you have no right—" Patty began indignantly and brokenly. "Besides, you don't know. You can't know."

"No! No! No!" Patty entreated.

"Huh!" Captain Decker shrugged his shoulders, shifting his gaze from one mortified woman to the other. "I guess I 'm some psycholo­gist. I know lots of things outside my experience."

"Why don't you tell me something about myself?" Temple Harrison challenged, out of pity for Patty and her mother.

"I don't know anything about you," was the answer. "Maybe I 'm not interested."

Afterward, in a secluded moment on deck, Harrison told Patty that the whole thing was impossible.

"But mother has the mole," she replied.

"I am firmly convinced of telepathy," was Mrs. Gifford's judgment. "But oh, that terrible man! I shall not dare think any thought in his presence. He is able to read my mind like a book."

"I don't know what to believe," said Sedley Brown. "It is all very strange, I am sure, and I should like to see it cleared up."

His wish was destined to be quickly gratified. That afternoon Captain Decker caught Willie smoking a cigarette in the sail locker and promptly rope's-ended him. Then he sent him aloft in a bosun's chair to tar down the main rigging. By this time the skipper was in a nasty temper. He scared the two maids to the verge of hysteria, bullied Peyton into a semi-comatose condition of yammering apology for existing, cursed the cabin-boy, went for'ard to the galley and thrashed the cook among his pots and pans, and, returning to the poop, flew into a proper sea-rage with Flat-Nose Russ. That cowed mariner muttered and mumbled excuses, and cowered away each time the skipper, pacing the deck like a wild animal, passed him.

The survivors of the Mingalia were compelled to listen to this tirade. There was no escaping it by going below, for the skipper's voice pene­trated everywhere. Besides, they had tried that in previous outbursts, and by so doing, had only succeeded in arousing greater ire in Captain Decker. Sedley Brown stood in a passively protecting attitude beside Mrs. Gifford, who was seated in a canvas deck chair. Patty and Temple Harrison had drawn close together, and he was holding her hand. And still Captain Decker raged and roared up and down.

It was Harrison who saw the whole extent of what happened. Chanc­ing to glance aloft at Willie swaying airily in his bosun's chair, Har­rison was amazed at the ferocious hatred that contorted that mild youth's face.

From the bosun's chair was suspended a tar pot. As Harrison watched, Willie wrapped his legs about the shrouds, and, both hands free, proceeded to untie the tar pot. Holding it in his hand, he waited. Captain Decker was pacing back and forth beneath him. Harrison saw the youth poise the tar pot, time the captain's stride, and let go.

Without turning over, bottom downward, the pot struck Captain Decker's head. He immediately sat down on the deck. None of the tar fell on him. The pot struck his head so squarely that it bounced off and spilled on the deck. Mrs. Gifford, a vision of violent death for her youngest born strong upon her, screamed and fainted. Patty likewise screamed, and was caught about the waist by Harrison. No one moved nor spoke. All gazed upon Captain Decker.

He still sat on the deck, stupidly looking at his hands. On his face was painted a curious disgust. He did not like his hands. He tried to get away from them, to fling them from him. Failing this, as in a dream he contemplated them. He rubbed them together, and into his eyes sprang astonishment, in that sensation told him that they belonged to him. He stared at his clothes, and about him at those who looked on.

"What'll I do with the boy, sir?" asked Flat-Nose Russ, hovering solicitously near.

Captain Decker looked at his mate and shrank away.

He strove to speak, and seemed to fail to manipulate his voice.

"What boy? —What?" he managed to articulate at last, in tones of modulated huskiness unlike anything they had ever heard from his lips. He gazed at the mate long and wonderingly. "Who are you? Please go away. Will you call the police? Something terrible has happened to me."

Aloft, terror-stricken, Willy Gifford peered down. The big mate, perplexed, could only stare and sway to the roll of the schooner. All stared—even the man at the wheel, whose expressionless face was be­lied by the eager curiosity in his eyes.

"Something terrible has happened," Captain Decker repeated, his voice huskily plaintive.

He started to get to his feet, and shrank away from the mate who helped him. He staggered to the rail and held on to the shrouds, looking in bewilderment at the trade-wind sea.

At this juncture Mrs. Gifford arose from her chair, supported by Sedley Brown's arm around her waist. The skipper looked at him and startled.

"Why, Sedley," he said. "It is you. But what has happened? You look so old. Have you been sick?" His eyes passed on to Mrs. Gifford. "Amelia!" he cried. The arm around her waist seemed to excite him. "Sedley, are you aware of what you are doing? That is my wife. Kindly remove your arm. —Amelia, I..... I am surprised."

He stepped toward her, but she cowered away.

"Oh, that terrible man!" she sobbed, and hid her face against Sedley Brown's shoulder.

"Amelia! —what is the matter?" the skipper pleaded anxiously. "Sedley, please remove your arm from my wife. You will make me very angry."

Patty was the first to divine the situation.

"Father!" she exclaimed. "Oh, father! And we all thought you were dead."

"Dead? Fiddlesticks. I don't know you. Go away. I am not your father, young woman. I wish to know—"

But here the skipper again caught sight of his hands and tried to fling them from him.

"Mother—don't you understand?" Patty was now by Mrs. Gifford's side. "It's father! Look at him. Speak to him."

Mrs. Gifford stole a shuddering look. Captain Decker was running the tips of his fingers over his face.

Seth—is it you?" she murmered faintly.

"What silliness!" the skipper retorted. "Of course it is I. But my face, my beard....... what has happened. I am smooth shaven..... Amelia, tell me. Who is this young woman? —Sedley, for the third time I ask you to remove your arm."

"Seth! Bless me, it is Seth." Sedley Brown advanced to shake hands, then staggered away to the cabin wall, against which he leaned.

"But why are we out sailing?" Mr. Gifford complained. He looked about, and his eyes lighted on Flat-Nose Russ. "If you are the captain, sir, it will be best for you to put your vessel about at once and return to San Francisco. —Oh, I know. I am beginning to remember. It was an outrage. The police must investigate at once. Last night... I was set upon. I was clubbed on the head repeatedly. It's a mercy my skull was n't broken." He gingerly felt his head until he encountered the welt raised by the tar pot. "There. It is badly swollen. It was at half past eleven, last night......."

"Listen," Patty pleaded. "It was not last night. It was eighteen years ago, I am your little Patty. Don't you remember her? I am grown up, of course. —Mother, why don't you kiss him? —Father. Kiss her."

Mrs. Gifford recoiled; nor did Seth Gifford take advantage of the invitation. Again he tried to fling his unrecognizable hands from him.

"I... I need a bath," he muttered, then tottered to the edge of the cabin and sat down. "Oh dear, oh dear," he moaned, and burst into tears.

IX

"Really, you know, he's the same Seth—not changed a particle in all that time," Mrs. Gifford announced.

She had just come on deck and joined the others in the morning cool.

"But he makes me feel so elderly," she went on. "He has stood still. He is all those years younger."

"I feel as if I had witnessed a murder," said Temple Harrison.

"I don't see why," Patty objected.

"I do. What has become of Captain Bill Decker? He is now dead, isn't he?"

Patty shook her head.

"There is no corpse," she said. "Captain Bill Decker has merely gone into the silence which father occupied for eighteen years."

"And I hope, I most fervently hope, that Captain Bill Decker stays there," was Sedley Brown's contribution.

"It is very strange," said Patty. "A miracle," Mrs. Gifford added. "Me—I did it—with my little tar pot," said Willie, brazenly puffing a cigarette to windward of his mother.

All turned to regard the miracle, who was standing by the lee rig­ging, gazing seaward and unconsciously striving to fling overboard his dirt-grimed hands.

1912