Barter (Rowland)/Part 6

Whacking a Schooner Up the Coast in Midwinter and Short-Handed is No Dolce-Far-Niente Job

XXX

A LITTLE later we parted, not without a pang, as the brave little Tinker, which had laid the foundation of our fortunes, swung off on her southerly course. Allaire could not help but feel what I felt, and with a sentimental association besides.

“Poor Jack, how he would have loved this! Well, Pom, we might as well carry on.”

“Where do we go from here?” I asked.

“Haiti,” said Allaire.

“Why Haiti?”

“Well, you see, Pom, we're in a fair way now to go ahead with this barter scheme of yours. We've got seventy-five hundred dollars' worth of bright-colored bungalow aprons and beautiful white and yellow shoes down below. Can you think of any better place to market them than in an up-and-coming negro republic?”

“That market is probably well covered,” I objected.

“For money, yes. But our object is not to sell our wares, but to swap them off for whatever they've got. Davide opened two of the cases and showed me what he'd bought. Tomorrow you will see Mrs. Fairchild and me in bungalow aprons and bright new canary-yellow shoes. If I can't resist them, what chance have the ladies of the Black Republic?”

Bungalow aprons—it had a seductive, insidious sound. “Mother Hubbard” always held a slatternly suggestion, bad psychology as selling words. “Empire” was too upstage, and “Robe Josephine,” though gracious in sound and significance, practically unknown except in the French West Indies, Martinique and Guadeloupe. But “bungalow apron”—and bright yellow shoes. One could visualize the dusky beauty taking her siesta in this enticing garment and fine near-kid shoes the color of a jonquil tapping its high heel as she swayed the Carib hammock with one dangling bare brown leg.

My trade sense perceived immediately that every lady in Haiti would have to have immediately a bungalow apron and a pair of those shoes. Davide's eye had been right, as one would expect of an artist, but his commercial valuation faulty for the market place. Herein lay the subtlety of trade. And herein also lay the subtlety of Allaire, to profit by Davide's knowledge of the first and neglect of the latter.

“Good!” I said. “To Haiti we go and flood the brunet beauty mart to the cost of the hard-working ebony male. You will go ashore, Allaire, as a million-dollar manikin and set the spring style in bungalow aprons and shoes. Stroll about a little in Grand Prix de Longchamps fashion.”

“In a bungalow apron?”

“Why, yes. If we had a job lot of rabbit fur or skunk or something, I would ask you to display that, regardless of the tropic clime. Since it's aprons, so much luckier for you. Then, once I see the poison working, I will get Cyril to look up a big storekeeper-merchant-banker and ask him how much cacao and coffee and coconuts and stuff he will swap for seventy-five hundred dollars' worth of élite styles.”

Allaire nodded.

“Getting first the customs list of prices and duties and freights.”

“That is part of Cyril's job. Once we know about what the values are, all we have to do is to steer Cyril up against this local merchant and let Nature take its course.”

But after the women had turned in and I talked it over with Cyril, the commercial instinct of our Phenician instantly picked out the flaw in this scheme.

“Why carry the stuff a thousand miles to market on a trade route? Let's take advantage of Arias' having lugged it all this way.”

“He said it stood him a loss.”

“Yes, in money. No merchant is going to buy stock when he's not sure but that the greasy soldiers of the new government may be helping themselves to give it to their girls at any moment; like Paraguay, that ought to be rich but isn't, because they stage a revolution two or three times a year. It might be all right, though, in British Honduras or Guatemala. Their natural products would be cheaper and our stuff worth more, because we're just that much farther from Northern markets. Besides, we are almost there.”

This sounded like sense. In fact it was the first principle of old-time barter—carrying to some remote place rich in native products the manufactured ones of advanced mechanical industry, then exchanging them for as good a bargain as one could drive. Not only the fundamental basis of all early international commerce but even practiced in many regions of our own country today; as, for instance, where a negro farmer might make three or four bales of cotton and lug them to the warehouse of his local merchant-banker-storekeeper to trade for such indispensable articles as a radio set and an early vintage flivver. Davide's idea was all right up to the point of his wanting money for his wares, and to deal in money at least two conditions are imperative—sound money and a stable government.

Yet our situation was bizarre; drifting round out there in a vessel with which we had yet to become acquainted, and wondering where to take a job lot of bright bungalow aprons and asphodel-colored shoes. Also, we were undermanned, not having kept any of Davide's crew. But even without the motor, the six of us would have managed at a pinch, either of the women competent to take the wheel, with the rest of us to pull and haul.

Without waking Allaire or Mrs. Fairchild to tell them of Cyril's plan, he and I decided then to run up into the bight of Honduras Bay, about one hundred and eighty miles distant. Captain Poole had said that the Evangeline would do when light her seven knots in a smooth sea, so we started the engine and got under way. Aboard the little Tinker, we had never bothered to keep a forward lookout either day or night, but with this fine big vessel it was different; and as we were on the coast, it would be necessary for me to be on deck until daylight.

The others having had a busy day ashore, I took the watch with McIntosh.

McIntosh had proved himself to be a good, dependable sailorman, so I now promoted him, endowed him with an old blue serge yachting cap of Davide's found below. McIntosh was an old-fashioned Bahama black, respectful and dignified like most West Indian “British objects” when given a little responsibility and authority.

“Hereafter you will rate bos'n cf this packet, McIntosh,” I said, “with an increase of five dollars gold a month and your clothes. As soon as possible we will sign on three more hands.”

McIntosh beamed through the murk.

“Thank you, sar. This a werry fine wessel, captain.”

“Yes, they build good ones in Maine.”

“Right yo' are, sar. Lak in my country, sar.”

“Nassau?”

“Ise speakin' ob Greenock, sar. Ma fambly come from Scotland way back yander. I once quahtamaster on a British ship hail from Greenock. Mak one v'yge, but h'it too col'. Rain an' blow, then shift an' blow an' rain. 'Twixt time plenty fog.”

“Yes, this is better. Keep a bright lookout ahead, bos'n, until I call Mr. Whitecliff to relieve you.”

“Bright lookout ahead, sar.” And this sable Scot saluted and strode forward.

Probably the descendant of some faithful slave of an early Scottish colonist and planter on New Providence whose people had assumed the family name. That was the more pleasing view to take of it, and certainly McIntosh showed no slightest trace of white blood. There is plenty of precedent for such nomenclature, like the colored Washingtons and Lees and Jacksons and numberless others of our own country.

A little later, as I was standing at the wheel—or sitting, to be exact—a pale but substantial wraith came up through the companion hatch and glided up to me. It was Allaire, and as she failed to notice that we were heading west instead of north, I did not call her attention to that fact.

“Why aren't you asleep?” I demanded.

“Too excited, Pom. Isn't it wonderful?”

“You are. The rest of it is too much like a dream.”

“A dream come true, Pom.”

“Partly true. It's all right for a night dream, but daydreams go through to the happy ending.”

“Why shouldn't this?”

“It should, But most often it doesn't. While you're lying on your back staring at your cloud castles in Spain they turn into thunderheads, and pour rain; or you find your pillow is an ant hill.”

“But this is different,” said Allaire. “We haven't been lying on our backs staring at clouds. We've been working like Sam Hill.”

“Sam never worked like you, my dear. But I've been working like Jack and the Bean Stalk—climbing on the stalk furnished by your bean. I don't deserve all this. That's the reason I'm waiting for the jinx or joker in it. Sit down on this box. There's room for two.”

“It's not good ship's discipline for the lady supercargo in a bungalow apron over silk pajamas to sit beside the man at the wheel,” Allaire objected.

“It's worse to broach cargo—the last crime in seagoing traditions. I suppose it makes a difference, though, when it happens to be your own.”

“Like talking to the man at the wheel, when a quarter of it happens to be your own,” said Allaire. “Move over, Pom.”

I shifted over and Allaire sat down beside me on the empty box. it was too low for her to look into the binnacle and we had not yet raised Castilla Light, for the night was murky and the stars now blotted out. Allaire must therefore have taken it for granted that we were heading north for the Yucatan Channel, and I did not undeceive her. Time enough tomorrow.

“And all of the man at it happens to be your own,” I said

“Is he really as much as that?”

“That and a whole lot more, Allaire. The more is you. Ownership cuts both ways when it is vested in flesh and blood. Then the fact of owning makes you owned in return. This part of it is what I am not so sure about your acknowledging the obligation. That's what I meant when I said that my daydream hadn't gone clear through.”

“I think it has, Pom. We've got what we were talking about only last night—a proper vessel for our scheme and money enough to carry on with and plenty more in sight.”

“Through a series of lucky flukes,” I muttered.

Allaire leaned closer and rested her hand on my shoulder.

“Now, Pom, that's just what Mrs. Fairchild says; but I see it differently, and so does Cyril. There was luck in it, of course, but not flukes, because all that's happened has been the result of knowledge and experience and effort. I had no faith at all in this barter scheme at first. It seemed to me absurd. But when I came to think it over I saw its possibilities, and then I went at it for all I was worth. The whole thing hinges on the distribution of goods without the complications of a lot of middlemen profiteers, open markets where you can exchange real values. That's what we have managed to do by going at it thoughtfully and sensibly, and that's what we are going to keep on doing.”

“How about that priceless old stuff on the island?” I asked. 'Tapestries and rugs and furniture?”

“Well, call that luck if you like. But what if in cruising about on land or sea your knowledge told you that you had struck on something of which the value was not recognized locally? It might be diamonds in the rough, or oil on top of a swampy creek, or a Man o' War colt in a back pasture. It might be anything that the knowing eye would see the worth of. Rare orchids or a million-dollar movie girl or dinosaur eggs. It might be a hotel site. Lots of people are walking past or over fortunes every day, because they don't know.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “I used to walk past you now and then.”

“And I walked past you. Perhaps I knew better than you did. But that's not the point. The island gave us a good start, but we would have managed to keep going and win out if we had never put in there. The proof is that we have kept on getting to windward. The credit is evenly divided. Cyril had the original idea. Mrs. Fairchild had all that stuff in her store. You were a practical sailor and I had a little boat. We pooled our resources and started.”

“Keeping you in the dark about the real game,” I muttered, and reflected that I was doing that thing now, but merely as a joke. Cyril's reasons were sound.

“Yes, and I resented that when I found it out. But I don't any more. I see now that you were right. As it turned out, though, it was good that I was sore, as otherwise I'd merely have tagged along instead of trying to get even with you by working something on my own.”

“Well, that was one way to get even—to enrich us all.”

Illustration (unusable): Raising their hands in sign of surrender, they backed away up into the bow

“That's not the fact. We all did it. We were four people of diverse experience and abilities who pooled their efforts.”

“And their capital,” I said. “We couldn't have managed without your boat.”

“Nor without Mrs. Fairchild's store stock and the money you got for your bonds. But the idea was Cyril's, and without that it never would have happened. I'd soon have had to sell the boat for what she'd bring, and Mrs. Fairchild her stock, and you your bonds, to pay a doctor or a sanitarium, for you were in a pretty low nervous condition, Pom, and Cyril would probably be answering bells on some liner. No one of us could have been spared. Besides, our actual numbers were necessary.”

“Yes,” I admitted. “It just had to be a foursome.”

“Precisely, Pom. But after this voyage it had better be a twosome. Mrs. Fairchild and Cyril feel that way about it. They seem to think that we have really done it all and will keep on doing it all. They would rather sell out their share and get married and start a shore business, or perhaps a small family hotel, somewhere along the beach.”

“And you really want to go on with it, Allaire, along these lines?”

“Of course I do. This has been the time of my life. I love the sea, but hate yachts and passenger ships. I want to be in the movement, run my own floating show. All the seas and all the ports of the world look good to me. It's in my blood. My ancestors were seafaring people, merchant marine and Navy both. They came from Newport, England, and settled more or less at Newport, Rhode Island. Their early fortunes played out with my father's generation.”

“All right,” I said, “then we will buy out the two others and try running it on our own. But of course you know what that means.”

“No, I don't,” said Allaire, and slipped off the box. “But I can guess what you mean. This would be no more than a purely commercial business partnership, as if we were to buy and run a shop together.”

“In that case,” I snapped, “unless we were first to be married, we would scarcely take up our abode together in the rooms over the shop and confine ourselves to them and the roof, perhaps, for weeks on end not quitting the premises. That's what our living together on this vessel would mean.”

“Nothing of the sort,” said Allaire. “A ship is different. There would be no prying, gossiping neighbors.”

“Don't think for a moment that you would escape the gossip,” I retorted. “It would start with the crew and get bandied about every port we nosed into. You would be subject to slander and disrespect and I would be continually involved in silly fights that would not prove anything. Repetitions of the Carstairs affair.” I rose and faced her angrily. “What you propose is foolish and impossible. The story would be published at home and abroad and your good name go glimmering. Then if finally you should want to marry me after all, if only as a matter of convenience, I should politely decline. No right-minded man would subject his potential children to any such maligning.”

“Then am I to understand you decline to go into this thing with me, Pom?”

“Oh, I'll go into it, if you like, married or unmarried. I'd do that because it interests me as a commercial venture and for the fun of the thing. I like the life and am sure that we could make some money. If you choose to blight your reputation, that's your own affair.”

“Then what are you grousing about? Your own fair fame?”

“No; but it's got to the point where I want you for my wife. I'm not quite sure myself just why, but I do. I want you to marry me more than I've ever wanted anything in the world, or am ever apt to. But if you insist on going ahead with this trade scheme and refuse to marry me first, then I shall put all idea of our ever being married entirely out of my mind, for the reasons that I have just stated.”

Allaire stood for a moment staring at me with that tantalizing, provocative look in her tawny eyes. She might have been some sort of soulless sea-nymph denizen of that mystic Caribbean who had taken the malicious whim to slip all aboard the schooner and torment the helmsman with her seductive beauty and luring, maddening voice.

Her perception was uncanny, too, or perhaps I showed more of what was rising in me than I was aware. She had moved away, forward of the wheel, and was watching me closely over the spokes. If she had been within my reach I would certainly have yielded to the long-restrained desire to catch her in my arms, crush her supple body to me, put in action the persuasive power of force majeure. But it was evident that she was poised there like a watchful siren, ready to elude any movement of mine. And dignity forbade my chasing her round the deck like some amorous buccaneer, in plain sight of my newly appointed bos'n, a man of decency and worth.

Allaire drew in her breath deeply, throwing a swift glance back over her shoulder at the companionway.

“My word, Pom, don't glare at me like that!”

“Come here,” I said in a low voice.

She moved forward involuntarily. Her eyes never left mine. The yellow gleam in them widened.

“Come here,” I repeated; “right here to me.”

She laid one hand on the wheel.

“But I don't want to.”

“You come here to me now—or never.”

I think that she would have obeyed if I had not broken the spell by that ill judged “or never.” I should have let well enough alone. But the suggestion of an alternative was fatal to an attempt of the domination of a nature like Allaire's. She drew back again, brushed her hand across her forehead, then gave a low, nervous laugh.

“Really, Pom, I believe you're growing dangerous. For about a second you had me on the go. I must be tired. But that's not my idea of love, Pom, and I don't think that I could ever be satisfied with less. So far it's passed me by without so much es a bowing acquaintanceship, so you see I can't claim to know anything about it. But if ever I should—well, I think I'd find it worth even more than that reputation thing you prize so highly. Good night, Pom.”

“Allaire ——”

But she was gone; slipped down the dark companionway like a sea nymph seeking sanctuary in her grotto.

XXXI

AS IF to substantiate the old adage that it is poor policy to swap horses in the middle of the stream, the engines of the Evangeline suddenly fell into a fit of coughing, then passed into « state of syncope. The schooner lost her way, then stuck, glued in the flat calm as if she had been painted there.

This was about half an hour after Allaire had pointed out my error in psychology and gone below. It seemed to me that I had jinxed the ship. One failure is apt to be followed by another and then several. It frequently happens that such an avalanche of bad luck or bad management, often synonymous, does not fetch up until the erring one is completely smothered.

We were at this moment not far off the spot where we had been boarded the night before by Col. W. McK. Gomez, though out on the edge of the bank. The Evangeline had what appeared to be and no doubt was a perfectly good fifty-horse-power oil engine, and thus had no excuse for fainting on our hands on this still water. But the trouble was that neither Cyril nor I had any more acquaintanceship with oil engines than Allaire claimed to have with love.

This statement may not be exact, however, because the former mate, who was acting engineer aboard the Evangeline, had introduced us to the engine and given it the warmest recommendation. But like most such casual presentations in a moment of hurry and excitement, we had not insisted on more than the briefest inspection. So that now we found ourselves in the humiliating position of a man who having bought a complicated patent toy for his children in a Christmas eleventh-hour rush finds himself unable to make it go on the glad Yuletide morning and has to bale it up and lug it back to the shop for elucidation. The directions had not been packed, or else were lost.

Cyril and I now spent an hour fretting over the confounded contraption, with no result at all. Better machinists have possibly done the same, because it is doubtful if there were any worse ones. My end of nautical affairs had always been the deck and chart room, sail and navigation, and Cyril's the berth and mess decks and saloons. So that in the murk of the engine room it was a case of the blind leading the blind, when it came to reasoning with a strange, sullen slave that missed its master and whose jargon we neither spoke nor understood.

McIntosh could not help us. He was conversant with Sanders' sloop motor, just as we could always reason kindly with the Tinker's. He was convinced that the trouble must be with the electric ignition, and on being told that this engine did not possess that thing he lost all interest in it, just as one might in a denatured beverage with no snap and sting to it.

Mrs. Fairchild and Allaire, awakened by the silencing of vibratory sounds, stood round in bungalow aprons and guyed us mildly. To Allaire I had been stripped of the accouterments of sea sheik and deflated to the mere appropriate aspect of sweaty, grimy, snarling, inefficient motor cusser. A sudden wind squall at that moment would have restored my self-respect and that of the others for me. But wind squalls, unlike fluid, fuel squalls, are still beyond the reach of skilled human artificers.

There was really nothing for me to be enraged about, as all we had to do was to make sail and wait for the breeze. The trouble with the motor could not have been serious, since it had been running well enough up to that moment. More likely some slight matter of adjustment that one familiar with it would have corrected by a turn of the wrist. But coming just then, after my talk with Allaire and the consciousness that I had missed an opportunity that might not come again, this interruption drove me wild.

“Here's what comes of not letting well enough alone,” I said. “Here's what comes of doing things in such a tearing hurry,” I growled. “Also of trying to combine an important business venture with a practical joke on your captain. If only you had told me that you intended to make this trade, I could have spent the afternoon learning the tricks of this engine.”

“You could not have, though,” said Allaire. “Everybody was ashore and everything locked up.”

“Well, they might as well have locked up this engine room and thrown the key overboard for all the good we're apt to get out of it tonight. Let's hope there'll be some machinist in Honduras Bay that knows the combination.”

“Honduras Bay?” Allaire echoed. “You surely don't intend to go way back there just to get somebody to show you how to start a simple oil engine.”

“No,” I snapped, “we are going that way anyhow. We've been going that way ever since we started this confounded contraption.”

I fetched up short to stare at her. If I had told Allaire that the schooner had been rapidly sinking ever since we started, she could not have looked more aghast. Then the blood poured suddenly into her face. Her long eyes opened very wide, their old gold color seeming to blacken as their pupils dilated. She looked for she moment as if ready to pick up one of the big spanners and brain me where I stood.

“How dared you do that without telling me?” she cried furiously. “We agreed that we were going to Haiti—to Port-au-Prince.”

At any other moment I might have been dismayed at this exhibition of rage. But as matters stood just then it merely roused a similar emotion in myself. I had bitterly resented the whole high-handed transaction and its being put through without my being consulted up to the last moment, when my hand had been practically forced. On top of this had come my nerve-trying interview with Allaire on deck, in which she had seen fit to treat my offer of marriage with disdain and herself propose an absurd sort of partnership which if followed was bound to result in discrediting us both.

While I was still rankling from that and the way in which she had slipped out of the grip of my momentary ascendancy and left me humiliated at my failure and tormented by the insidious glamour of her, the beastly engine had quit, and I had spent a fuming, perspiring hour in that stuffy hole trying vainly to coax it into further service. And here now was Allaire treating me to the sort of look and speech that she would scarcely have ventured to use to a deceitful servant.

It was too thick, coming just as it did. I am ashamed to say that I cut loose and treated her to a slice off the rough side of my tongue.

“Who and what are you, young woman, to speak to me like that?” I demanded. “You seem to think that I'm the sakawinkie of this ship, with nothing better to do than tangle up my tether and then untangle it again; or a 'prentice boy, or engine-room wipe or something. You've got a nerve that we could bust in our bows on, and you've had it from the first. You make a trade without consulting me because it's your idea of a joke. You've held out on us at every turn. And now, when acting on Cyril's excellent advice that we can trade far better right here off the big commercial lines than in Haiti, you squawk like a mad parrot.”

“Oh, I say, Mr. Stirling,” Cyril protested.

“Well, it's true. This young person is getting too big for her—her ——”

“Now, Mr. Stirling!” This from Mrs. Fairchild.

“—— for her bungalow apron. You take her in and put her to bed. If you don't, I will. I'm all fed up on her silly stuff.”

“Oh, you abysmal idiot!” Allaire began, but I cut her short.

“Go out of this engine room and go quickly, before I lose my temper. There are limits to human endurance. You go, or I'll stuff you through the hatch.”

Allaire let out a peal of laughter.

“And about an hour ago he asked me to marry him! And I declined the honor because I thought he was too meek and long-suffering to make an interesting husband. Well, live and learn. I must say, though, it's an even bet if any girl foolish enough to marry a man with a temper like that would live long enough to learn.”

“You heard what I said, Allaire. Now get out of here before I put you out! You've gone entirely too far. Trying to bawl me out as if I were a stowaway that had sneaked aboard this bad-luck ship!”

As I spoke there came a curious sound from the other side of the forward bulkhead—something between a cough and a sneeze. My tour of inspection below had been brief and hurried, so that I was under the impression that just forward of the engine room there was a storeroom or lazaret or something of the sort to which one had access from on deck through a small flush hatch.

“What's that?” I demanded.

“What's what?” Allaire stared at me with a curious expression.

“That noise the other side the bulkhead. What are you holding out on me now?”

“Oh, you're hearing things. You had better cut out the rum, Pom. You'll be seeing ring-tailed monkeys in the rigging next. Those sakawinkies you just mentioned. Come on, Mrs. Fairchild, let's leave this bear in his pit.”

I stepped past her and put my ear against the grimy bulkhead. As I did so I distinctly heard a brushing sound on the other side, the sort of faint vibration that might be given if somebody were rubbing against it, possibly following my own tactics to listen.

“Cyril—Mrs. Fairchild, do either of you know what that is in there?”

They promptly disclaimed any such knowledge. I looked with growing suspicion at Allaire. Her angry color had entirely faded, leaving her pale, and with the first really frightened look that I had ever seen on her usually unruffled face. I leaned down, picked up a long spanner and turned to the iron ladder.

“Well, it looks to me as if we had an unbidden guest. Unbidden by the rest of us, that is. I'll darn soon find out.”

“Pom, Pom!” said Allaire appealingly. “I'll tell you all about it. But do please try to start the engine and get out of here.”

“Haven't you seen us both trying our bloomin'est for the last blighting hour?” I demanded. “Or have you been too preoccupied with this fresh pussyfooting of yours?”

“Oh, Pom, please don't be cross. I did it for all our benefit. I kept still about it because I was afraid you'd make a fuss. But I told you about it last night, before we picked up the land.”

“Well, tell us again. Your fresh moves are so sudden and complicated that a low intelligence like mine can't keep up with 'em. What have you been trying to put over on us now?” And, a sudden flash of recollection coming out of the murk, I barked at her, “You've gone and smuggled Gomez aboard, with the war chest of this blithering republic.”

“No, Pom, it isn't Gomez. Just two political refugees who were in wrong and apt to get stood up against a wall and shot.”

“My aunt!” Cyril breathed.

“And this-soon-to-be-stricken country's treasure?” I demanded.

“No, their own, Pom. They are friends and former associates of Papa Gomez, rich bankers and merchants. They got foolishly mixed up in politics; and when they saw that they were sure to get caught on the wrong side of this present governmental issue, they quietly liquidated their property and have been watching for a chance to get clean away.”

“So that's it. Clean away with what is no doubt their unclean graft money. Did Davide know about this?”

“Yes; when I agreed to land them on the end of Cuba he got word to them and slipped them aboard. He got half. We're to get ours as soon as they leave the ship. Five thousand, Pom.”

I leaned back against the ladder and stared at her. So here was Allaire hard at her old game of intrigue again. Tricky, unfair to us others, and yet when all was said and done a deal that seemed to promise safe and easy money. Davide was actually the one who had taken the risk, as Allaire now pointed out.

“You see, Pom, I couldn't see where we stood to lose anything. On the other hand, if Davide had been caught at it he would have lost his schooner. They'd have confiscated her. He sent them word and at dark they got a native to paddle them offshore and he picked them up on his way out.”

“It wasn't yet dark,” I said. “When you pull this sort of thing, Allaire, why can't you put us wise? Why do you want to be so sneaky about it?”

“Well, you've got such fussy scruples, Pom. I was afraid you'd say what you said just now, that they were thieving politicians that had got at the state funds and were making off with them and that you wouldn't have anything to do with it. But they really are not.”

“How do you know?”

“I—I was shown. More than that, Gomez told me that unless they managed to get away they would have to start something in the forlorn hope of saving their the skins, and he wanted to avoid bloodshed and shooting up the place and the killing of a lot of innocent, helpless people—women and children.”

“All the same, it was your plain duty to tell the rest of us, Allaire.”

“I would have told you, if I'd thought for a second that we were in any danger, or that there was any chance of your going back. When we agreed on Haiti, I decided to tell you tomorrow morning. Why didn't you tell me when I was up on deck that you had turned back?”

“For one thing, we were discussing more absorbing matters,” I answered grimly; “and for another, since you would have your little joke on me, I thought I'd surprise you for a change; let you wake up in the morning and see the high peaks of the Cordilleras. Do you know where we are now?”

“No; where?”

“We are almost where Col. W. McK. Gomez held us up last night. And if that gentleman or any of his crowd has happened to hear from any of these fishing boats that we were passing the time of day with Davide out here, they might take it into their heads to put off and see if we are still loitering about to land your precious arms.”

“Oh, lordy, Pom, but we must be outside the three-mile limit!”

“Not so far but what they'd stretch the tape a little on us. Here we sit in a flat calm with an engine that's doped and a couple of absconding bandits that you've seen fit to tuck away in the extra sails. For all we know, their absence may have been discovered too. If we were to get collared now, then, thanks to your cunning little way of making dubs of us, we stand to lose the ship and everything aboard her. The chances are these birds have managed to loot somebody's till before doing their bunk.”

Allaire looked very wan.

“Then for heaven's sake, don't let's waste any more time talking! There must be some air stirring.”

I stuck my head up through the hatch.

“Not a baby's breath. The best we can do is to keep on tinkering with this infernal engine. I've got a hunch that the trouble's with the fuel; dirt or water or sticky valves or something. You two women go back to bed, and let those two poor devils out of there. Give 'em a drink and a cigar. They'll be smoking in there first we know and set the bally ship afire, or burn holes in the sails.”

“Well, I'm sorry, Pom.”

“I beg to withdraw my overpositive remarks,” I said. “They came welling up from a full heart, under pressure of quite a collection of emotions. So we had better consider the incident as closed, just as when we get safely out of this we may consider our business partnership as closed.”

And at that moment we heard a hurrying footfall overhead. Then McIntosh stuck his cannon-ball toppiece over the hatch and called down softly, “Big boat pullin' up dead ahead, sar. Look lak a ship-loadin' lighter full o' sogers, sar.”

XXXII

I LEANED back with a despairing groan. The same tub that had laid us alongside the night before, no doubt. So here at last = intriguing Allaire had overstepped herself.

As I crawled up the ladder my legs seemed scarcely able to lift the weight of my leaden heart. Here promised to be a proud finish for a trading venture that, starting with next to nothing, had forged ahead in a series of leaps and bounds that had already enriched us to a degree that seemed positively absurd. And now, just as we had entered into possession of precisely such a vessel as I had set my heart on one day having, enter the raiders.

The situation was obvious enough. We had been reported lying alongside Davide's schooner at sunset. Some fishing boat had carried in the news. The inference would be evident to our friend the colonel. He must believe that we had traded off the munitions for Davide's cargo, when Davide, instead of jogging on home, had decided to take a chance for bigger money and deliver his contraband to some party or parties with whom he had struck a bargain. Clumsy work enough, considering how it looked to have been done; but the sort of folly one might expect of a gay, inconsequential painter of marines and pampered only son like Davide Arias.

There seemed also rather more than a chance that the flight of the two suspects had been discovered and their means toward its accomplishment guessed at or even known. They would have been closely watched, offered the opportunity of giving cause for their apprehension and seizure of their funds.

The big boat was dead ahead, about a cable's length away, and coming up slowly under power of a heavily panting engine, gas or oil.

And then, at this harrowing moment, our engine began suddenly to cough and sputter. As it started my heart stopped. I grabbed for the wheel and shoved it over. The schooner started slowly to swing, moving gently ahead. A clamor of shouts rose from the big lighter ahead. The tenor of them was unanimous—a command to stop.

“Duck!” I called to McIntosh. “Drop down the hatch!”

At the same instant I acted on this advice myself. With the helm well over, the schooner would sheer enough to clear the barge. No prairie dog ever hunted its burrow quicker then I did that engine-room hatch, except that I went down feet first, landing more or less on Allaire, who had started up. As we floundered there entangled at the foot of the ladder, there came, just as I had expected, a salvo of rifle firing from the lighter, or fish boat, or whatever she was considered. And before the scattering shots were discontinued that soulless brute of an engine stopped again.

“Keep her going!” I yelled at Cyril, under the impression that he had been so rattled by the firing as to stop it.

“No good, sir,” he answered, calmly enough. “That was just a priming of gas and oil she fired on.”

There came then a bump, not heavy, but none the less sickening. Followed the rush of many feet along the deck. In the confusion of this boarding onslaught by a mob of wildly excited Central Americans, there would be every splendid chance of getting a bullet or slash from a machete or sword bayonet by any of us to poke up our heads, so I counseled remaining where we were until the first enthusiasm subsided.

This happened immediately it was discovered that not only was there no resistance—McIntosh having prudently dived down the companion—but nobody in evidence at all. Then a sharp voice called out in Spanish, and with a puzzled tone, “Caramba! Where the devil is everybody? Where is Señor Arias?”

Allaire gave a stifled, nervous giggle.

“It's all up, Pom. Better go do the honors.”

I acted on this urge. Crawling up through the hatch with the full dignity of a woodchuck smoked out of his hole—this literal, as the place was full of stifling fumes—I discovered a young man in white standing by the wheel. He stepped back and surveyed me in some astonishment. A mob of men, probably the same as the night before, I thought, were clustered round the deck and at the head of the companionway as if waiting orders to search the ship.

“What the devil does this mean?” I demanded savagely, in English. “Firing on an American vessel!”

He stared at me in stupefaction, less for my words, which he did not entirely understand, than at my own unexpected personality. Then, as out of this same dark and fuming aperture that had given me exit there came first Allaire, in silk pajamas and bungalow apron, followed by Mrs. Fairchild in a similar overgarment, he looked as if desiring to cross himself. Here, evidently, was not at all the crowd he had been led to expect.

“Do you understand English?” I asked in the same harsh voice.

“A leetle, Señor. Not very gude.”

“Vous parlez français, peut-être?” I tried.

He did, fluently, so I repeated my first question in that tongue. Allaire spoke perfectly good French, as also did Cyril, who now appeared, which put us all on a basis of comprehension. The curious conversation continued in that international tongue.

“But I do not understand,” he protested. “This vessel is the Evangeline, belonging to Mr. Arias. Where is Mr. Arias—and his captain and crew?”

I managed to get it through his head that we had traded ships, then suggested that we go below, where he could examine the documentary evidence of the transaction. We trooped down into the cabin. This young lieutenant, or whatever he might be, did not impress me favorably as seen in the glow of the standing lights. He was a thick-set fellow with a sullen, stupid face, and his white quasi-uniform very far from clean. I noticed also that it bore no insignia of rank. He looked in fact more like a bandit than an officer.

“For whom are you acting,” I asked, “and by what right do you first fire on us, then board us with these brigands of yours?”

It was not a very diplomatic procedure on my part. But for one thing, I was not feeling diplomatic at that moment; and for another, there are times when it is better to take the offensive. He did not immediately answer, evidently trying to decide on what course of action to pursue. I decided to follow up my hand with more recriminations.

“You will be called upon to explain this attack,” I said. “Fortunately, we were all below trying to start this accursed engine, with which we have not had time to become familiar. Then, after hours of effort, no sooner do we get it going than you paddle up and fire on us. Are you soldiers, or are you pirates? It is necessary to know, in order that we may have an idea of our position.”

Then came the knock-out. He stared at me for a moment with a sort of sullen defiance and answered coolly enough:

“Since you insist upon knowing, monsieur, we are neither. We are a party of brave men who are not content with the present government and who have allied ourselves to dispute its rights. It is not yet decided which new party we may wish to support. But meanwhile we have got to get ourselves established. We are in need of money and supplies.”

I managed to assimilate this tough piece of meat.

“Then so far as regards ourselves,” I said, “we are to consider you as pirates?”

He gave an unpleasant smile and his eyes flitted toward Allaire.

“As you wish, monsieur. What difference does it make? Over on the land they would probably tell you that we were brigands. Whoever does not see fit to o their stupid laws they call brigands.”

Well, here certainly was a nice mess; worse than anything we had anticipated. Fortunately, Mrs. Fairchild knew no French and so was spared for the moment the disagreeable knowledge of just what had happened. But Allaire and Cyril got it just as I did, and I saw the tautening of their expressions.

“In that case,” I said, “what are your plans in regard to ourselves?”

He shrugged, glanced round the cabin, then answered coolly enough:

“You seem to be rich people who can afford to voyage comfortably for your amusement. There must be a great many things aboard this boat of which we are in need. We shall therefore take off what we can; then, to avoid attracting attention, we shall have to sink the vessel. As for yourselves, no doubt we may be able to arrange some way by which you may be able to enjoy your liberty again on payment of a certain sum of money. Failing that, it is necessary to reflect; but I am afraid that your situation might be very grave.”

“Thank you for your frankness,” I said, and looked at Allaire.

“It is better to be frank,” said this cheerful brigand. “Do you happen to have a little cognac?” And his shifting eyes went again to the girl whom I had been so berating not many minutes before.

XXXIII

I SAID to Cyril in English, well laced with slang to make it more obscure, “This guy hates himself as a hold-up, I don't think.”

Cyril was quick to catch the idea of this masked speech.

“I'll say, sir! That's because he's a four-flusher and this pirate stuff a frame.”

The professed sea brigand looked from one to the other of us suspiciously. I had an idea that he understood English perfectly well, but it was plain that he could make nothing at all of American.

He snapped out in French, “What's that you say?”

I rose, stepped to the sideboard and got a decanter of old cognac and a glass which I set in front of our guest, then seated myself opposite him.

“We say that you are a fraud, and that you are not a pirate or a brigand at all.”

He looked more startled and angry than would the average honest man at being called a pirate and brigand. This fact confirmed Cyril's statement, the truth of which I had already been led to suspect.

“What do you mean, a fraud?” he demanded. “And if I am not a franc-tireur, what do you think this is—a delegation sent out to welcome you back to our troubled shores?”

“Your very speech betrays you, monsieur,” I said. “It is that of a man of education. This opéra bouffe of yours is very raw. You should have worn a pirate's big false mustache or sworn some fearful oaths.”

He did that last then, quite sincerely.

“What are you trying to say?”

“Merely that your game is very evident to people of intelligence like ourselves. We have all been about a little. This brigand rôle of yours is staged to mask the real motive for your capture of this schooner. You are acting under the orders of another man, and I have a very good idea of who that man is.”

“You are crazy,” he growled. “It is true that I am not entirely a common fellow, but I have been obliged to turn outlaw from having been discovered as a conspirator against the government. Therefore I am now to all intents and purposes a brigand, as you may very soon discover.”

“All that is blague,” I said. “You are actually a secret-service agent in the pay of the existing government. This pirate farce is to cloak a performance for which your chief does not care to assume the responsibility. You are very much surprised to find us in possession of the vessel instead of Arias; but since that is the case, it seems best to you to go through with it on the same pretensions.”

Allaire gave me a burning look. She had not seen through the trick herself, but it was now plain to her, and she showed no relief at the turn of the situation. I really believed that she would have preferred this man to be the pirate he professed himself, as in that case her own skirts would have been clear of blame for what had happened. If by our turning back we had blundered into the clutches of a freebooter, that let her out, and the fault was Cyril's and mine; whereas if, as I now claimed, our captor were a secret governmental agent masquerading as a pirate, then his search of the vessel would disclose her pair of smuggled absconders and all would be lost. In fact, it looked as if all were lost, from any slant on our position.

The young man own his cognac. He looked very much upset. I think it hurt his pride and dignity to be exposed like a schoolboy playing bogy man with a sheet and pillow case.

He shot me a sullen look and asked, “Why did you exchange vessels with Señor Arias?”

“Because we had some goods aboard that it had become impossible for us to dispose of, and he offered a good price for them. He told us also that this schooner had shown a loss ever since he had been running her, and that he was sick of the business and would much prefer a handy little vessel like our own, that was entirely a pleasure yacht. We saw the chance of a good trade, so we acted on it.”

The bogus pirate listened to this statement with a gathering frown. Then, as the full gist of it penetrated his none too brilliant mind, he ripped out a real oath and leaned forward on his chair, red and furious.

“Car—then you mean to say that the munitions are not aboard? That Arias has sailed off with them?”

“You will please to remember that there are ladies present,” I said harshly, for his expletive was not “caramba,” but a very objectionable word. “Señor Arias not only sailed off with them but by this time has probably landed on these troubled shores of yours.”

I injected this untruth partly to protect Arias from a possible report to his destination that his new yacht had something more interesting than works of art aboard, partly on the off chance that this news might get us rid of our pirate, who at this moment really looked the part. He sank back into his chair, glaring at me, then tilted out another dose of cognac.

“I shall search this vessel,” he said sullenly,

The time had come to bluff. If the man was what I suspected him of being, an agent of Colonel Gomez, and were now to search us, then Allaire's two paying guests must surely be discovered, in which case it was apt to be all up with us and them. They might be friends and colleagues of Papa Gomez; but I was by this time convinced that this gentleman had told us the truth in stating that he and his son were on different sides of the party fence, which is a dead line down in these chile-con-carne countries. Not only would we find ourselves charged with having rendered aid and comfort and provided the means of escape for two enemies of the state, who might be proved to have got away with state funds, but this unfortunate couple stood every chance of being shot.

“Very well,” I said quietly. “Then you may search her in your own home port, for which we were bound when our engine went back on us.”

“I shall do nothing of the sort,” he blustered. “I shall search her here and now.”

I leaned forward and shook my finger under his nose.

“Listen to me, young man! You have already done enough to get yourself tried and convicted of piracy on the high seas. Our last sounding showed us to be at least ten miles offshore. You come upon a peaceable vessel, put this day under the American flag in the office of our American consul in Trujillo. Our papers are all in order. You yourself have seen them. You fire on our ship, then board her. Then, after being shown our papers, you now insist on searching us. If you do that, you will be committing still another very serious breach of international law, for which you will pay the penalty. There is an American cruiser at Bluefields, and she will be here within thirty-six hours of the time I get to the cable office, when you will find yourself a fender ground between the government of Honduras and ours at Washington. Your chief will disclaim all responsibility for your act. So if you think it is going to be worth your while, then go ahead and search us—and see what you get.”

He leaned back in his chair, goggling at me with his slightly bulging eyes. Seeing that I had him on the go, I followed up the attack.

“We gave your chief our parole d'honneur not to land or try to land any contraband in your country,” I said, “and we have kept our word. In order that he may be assured of this, I am willing to stretch a point and let you look into our hold. There is a little cargo of clothing that Señor Arias found he could not dispose of at a profit and therefore sold to us at cost. You may open a case or two at random if you like. But I shall not permit any general rummaging of this vessel by those bandits of yours. If you insist on that, then I warn you that the consequences for you at least will be very grave.”

He appeared to ponder sullenly on this, then asked, “Do you know where Señor Arias intended to land the munitions?”

“Yes,” I said; “but I do not feel under any obligation to tell you that. Besides, it would not do you any good. He must have managed it by now, and be on his way again.”

This seemed to discourage him. He shrugged, then helped himself to another cognac. The situation was evidently beyond the range of such authority as he might have been given, and even farther outside the scope of his intelligence. Then abruptly he rose.

“You say you cannot make your engine run, monsieur?”

“We managed to start it just as you came up,” I said, “but it immediately stopped again.”

“I have a good machinist in this band of mine,” he said. “No doubt he may be able to discover what is at fault. Then, since you are going back to the port, I shall go with you. There is a good deal about this affair that I do not understand.”

Allaire shot me another of her baleful yellow gleams. I got the full register of its import. In fact I had that already. It looked now as if I might have bluffed us out of one mess only to blunder into a worse. The fatal error had been in stating that we were bound back for Trujillo. But it was now too late to remedy that. A change of plan could only rouse suspicion.

The lieutenant, or whatever he might actually be, made for the companionway and went on deck. Cyril, at a nod from me, followed him. Mrs. Fairchild, who had been sitting on a locker unable to follow any of what had been said, looked at me forlornly.

“What's it all about, Mr. Stirling?”

“Well, I seem to have made a mess of it,” I answered. “He is going to take us back into port, and there we will be put under guard and searched and these two birds of Allaire's dragged out, when there's no telling what may happen.”

“I must say, Pom,” said Allaire, “you handled it in true diplomatic style up to a certain point, then went and bungled it.”

“Oh, I know. Talked too much, as usual. There was just a moment when I thought I'd got rid of him. Perhaps we can manage it yet.”

She shook her head.

“He's the stubborn, stupid sort. The more he drinks the stubborner he'll get. That sort of fool is the hardest of all to deal with.”

“Well, anyhow, he doesn't know anything about the get-away of these two nuisances of yours. They must be having a gay time down in that stuffy hole.”

“They'll know all about it in Trujillo, though,” said Allaire. “Can't you think up something, Pom?”

“It's not so easy. He's got ten or a dozen armed men, and we haven't so much as a pistol. Davide begged so for ours that we let him have them at cost, and a few of his sea studies. Just as well, perhaps. If it wasn't for those two beggars in the lazaret, there's not a thing they could put on us. But that's enough.”

“And those poor things are almost certain to be shot,” said Allaire. “They cooked up the insurrection that's ahead, then had it financed. when somebody squealed. So they gathered up all the contents of the till and a little for their trouble and got Papa Gomez to persuade Davide to ease them out of the place. And I saw another little turnover for us.”

“That's all right,” I said; “but where the shoe pinched was in your not coming across with it. The first principle of any partnership is teamwork. There was only one reason for your holding out on me, and that's your horrid vice of wanting to flash a coup de théâtre, dazzle the rest of us with your flaming finesse. Well, it's apt to come high this time.”

Gloom descended on us then. It was unrelieved even when the engine began to turn over, erratically at first, then with a strong and steady beat. I could not see that was going to help matters much.

Neither did I see how we could hope for any assistance from our own country. The whole rotten business was too involved, too compromising. It might be shown that we had first tried to filibuster, then traded ships and made an effort to sneak two conspirators against a so far stable government out of the country with a large slice of the country's funds.

Cyril came down, He looked worried, but still hopeful.

“That black-and-tan mechanic put his finger on it,” he said; “but it's a bit like driving the policeman to the station with you now. We've just got to do something, Mr. Stirling. Couldn't you coax this little bounder into a duel?”

“'Fraid not, Cyril. He is too worried about the upshot of all this. If he knew how he had us, the ship couldn't hold him. How many chocolate soldiers has he got up there?”

“About a dozen, sir. They've roused out Pompey and set him to serving them port and rum; aguardiente, so to speak. That tub of theirs can do only about four miles an hour under power alone, the mechanic told me, so they are taking her in tow to let her spin along astern.”

“And the gang of them aboard us?”

“Yes, sir. They like like it better here. More rum and biscuits. I'm sorry for those passengers of ours in the lazaret. They're getting restless. The machinist heard them when we were starting that old bloky that let us down, but he thought it was some of us.”

“Poor things,” said Allaire. “It's awful, Pom.”

“Well, you would have your joke,” I answered bitterly.

So down came gloom again, and with it our captor, after more cognac. No chance of his getting drunk though. Like most of his sort, his drinking technic was that of repeated little sips. His manners had improved however. He was far more respectful, and even tried a little jollity, but met with poor support. But one thing was evident—that he did not for a moment consider the possibility of our becoming recalcitrant. No restraint at all was put upon our movements. We were free to come and go as we saw fit.

Mrs. Fairchild and Allaire, thoroughly exhausted, went to bed. The lieutenant rose and bowed them out of the saloon. Cyril and I then took a drink ourselves and went on deck.

McIntosh was not in evidence. It transpired subsequently that one of the soldiers, sergeant or corporal or something, had locked him up in the forecastle, merely as a sort of technic.

A man who was probably the pilot of the tub towing astern had the wheel. Looking down into the engine room, I saw the machinist stretched out on the tool locker, lulled to sleep by the rhythm of the engine he had so easily set to work. The other soldiers were grouped variously about, munching biscuits, smoking and occasionally straying to the galley hatch for another drink. It looked to be a happy ship.

Nobody paid any particular attention to Cyril and myself. We stood by the quarter rail talking in low tones about where this affair was apt to land us all. Personally, I could not see much of a way out of it so far as our investment was concerned. We were too deeply mired, or would be when the ship was searched.

Then suddenly Cyril said, apropos of nothing much, “I've got a plan, Mr. Stirling.”

“To do what, Cyril?”

“Get rid of this rotten crowd. It may not work, but it seems worth trying.”

“What's the makings of it?” I asked.

“Heave the blighters overboard, then cut their tub adrift and clear.”

“Too many of them, Cyril,” I said, “and all armed more or less. At least they've got their knives, and that blighter swilling cognac has his pistol on the hip.”

“All the same, it might be managed, sir. I don't like to see Miss Forsyth let down like this.”

“She's not let down. She let us down.”

“That's just it, Mr. Stirling,” Cyril said earnestly. “Young ladies like Miss Forsyth can stand no end of letting down by other people. But when they know that they are to blame it nearly kills them. Breaks their spirit like proving to somebody that all he believed in most was founded on a fault. That's herself, in Miss Forsyth's case. And we don't want to see her bowled after all the well-earned runs she's made.”

“No,” I agreed, “and we don't want to see Mrs. Fairchild bowled either, or ourselves, for that matter. I'd be inclined to put either group ahead of the self-sufficient Allaire. What's your plan for this murder?”

“It all depends on these two men Miss Forsyth has stowed away, Mr. Stirling. If they are game and have their wits about them, we might clear the decks of this litter. Provided they are armed, of course, and you can hardly imagine a team getting away with the swag of a country, being unarmed.”

“But we're not,” I said, “and they've got McIntosh cooped up somewhere.”

“That doesn't matter, sir,” Cyril said. “Better without him, perhaps. This is white man's job. That blighter at the wheel is watching us, and some of these other swine beginning to take notice. We better not talk any more. If you just watch and listen, sir ——”

“Watch what?” I asked, and was going on to say more when the lieutenant came up through the hatch.

He seemed steady enough, but was evidently getting ugly, for on catching sight of us us standing there by the rail he walked over and said truculently, “Tell me, by what right do you come own here and interfere with our affairs, trying to smuggle guns on your yacht?”

“All such questions will be answered when you are called upon to explain this performance,” I answered.

“Oh, really? Well, it is plain enough to me. Old Gomez hired you when he was in the United States. He had it all arranged.”

“Yes, and he seems to have accomplished it, doesn't he?” I said. “Don't you want to look into the hold?”

“Curse the hold! It's plain enough you tricked us. But you may not get off so freely as you think. You have conspired against the government.”

“You may have trouble proving that,” I said. “If you had the sense of a louse, you would have guessed what was going on, We are not such fools as to tranship contraband in plain sight of everybody, then turn in for the shore with it. I should say that your mother had dropped you when you were a baby and that you landed on your head.”

Cyril jogged my elbow. Perhaps he feared that whatever plan he might have formed was in danger of being nipped in the bud by a fight on the side lines. But there was something about this fellow that put the finishing touches on my temper, which I had been on the point of losing several times that night.

I now set aside this vexation in my surprise at Cyril's next move. For he went to the hatch of the lazaret, uncovered it and slipped down into the place, coming up almost immediately with a coil of light line. Then, seating himself on the hatch cover, he unlaid the end of it and started to put in an eye splice. I stepped over to where he sat, the lieutenant remaining by the rail, in easy earshot.

“What are you up to?” I asked.

“Rigging a lead line, sir. Ours is worn out. It is a pity, sir, to have the command of the ship taken from you by such swine as these. They are apt to run her aground or on a reef.

The lieutenant barked out, “My pilot knows this coast better than you know how to say prayers, animal.”

I glanced round at him.

“So you understand English after all, señor, even though you don't speak it politely. Well, it is lucky for you that our captain is not quarrelsome and that we are neither of us armed. Otherwise you might have to say a few prayers yourself.”

“Oh, you think? And what could you hope to do against ten soldiers?”

“So they are soldiers?'” Cyril sneered. “They look more like peon cane cutters to me. Two resolute men well armed could march the whole rotten mob of you straight overboard, to be picked up by your boat.”

“Be still, you!” The lieutenant moved over toward us. “You talk too much with your mouth.”

Cyril rose to his six feet and some odd inches.

“Listen, little man,” he said. “I am unarmed, so you have nothing to fear. But if I had but two good men with pistols to back me up, I would very soon clean this ship of all you pack of land crabs. If only I could clap my hands and see two desperate men who knew that it was their only fighting chance of life suddenly appear by my side, I would quickly give you a lesson in politeness. You understand?” He leaned forward and glared at the angry and astonished lieutenant. “If two men such as I describe were suddenly to appear when I clap my hands ——”

And then at last I understood.

XXXIV

BY THIS time the lieutenant's bewilderment at Cyril's curious way of voicing what seemed a vain and foolish boast had given way to rage. Cyril was on the other side of the open hatch of the lazaret, talking directly over it, and with a purpose that now was clear to me. I heard a rustle down below. But the lieutenant required some attention.

“You had better stuff something into the mouth of that Jew mate of yours,” he snarled, “or I am apt to let him chew a bullet.”

“There is trouble enough ahead for you with the United States,” Cyril retorted, “without your asking for more from the colonial government of the British West Indies, where I am a British subject. As for Jews, let me tell you something. There are as many different sorts of Jews as there are different nations, and in some of them the fighting spirit has been crushed by oppression for so many generations that it will need some few more to get it back. But some others of us, whose recent ancestry has been that of free people, have still in our veins the fighting blood of ancient Israel. So if a fight is what you want, there is nothing I should love more than to oblige you.”

“You are an ugly, impudent fellow,” said the lieutenant. “I had better lock you up.”

He half turned to call to his soldiers, but I checked him with a gesture.

“Wait, young man! The least violence you attempt on us will put you entirely in the pirate class; and though you may not know it, the old international laws for the punishment of pirates have never been repealed. The British consul would have you hanged in chains if you were to shoot this young man.”

“Yes, idiot,” Cyril snarled, “and you would have to shoot me first before any of your mangy soldiers, as you call them, could lay hands on me. All they can shoot is some poor devils who may be stood up to a wall tomorrow for having tried to save their property from the paws of brigands like you. If only there were two like that to back me up at a clap of my hands ——”

The lieutenant interrupted savagely:

“What the devil is this fool raving about? Is he drunk or loco?”

“We learned from Señor Arias that there are two financiers of yours who are to be shot for conspiracy and theft of state funds,” I said.

“Yes; Arjolas and Mordecai. They are to be arrested tomorrow, then buenas noches. But what has that got to do with this locoed mate? Ah, por Dios, I see!” He threw up his hand with a gesture of comprehension. “Mordecai is a Jew! I see! I see!”

And then he saw more than he had counted on. Cyril brought his big calloused palms together with a resounding clap. Scarcely had the smack of it died away when up through the open hatch of that lazaret came the two armed and desperate men that Cyril had been praying for, and to. His long chance had caught on.

What immediately followed was so swift and frenzied as to be difficult to describe in detail. I was, of course, myself entirely prepared, having caught the drift of Cyril's method that must have sounded like madness to the puzzled lieutenant. I understood that he had been explaining our situation and theirs to the fugitives in the lazaret as precisely as though directly addressing them. He had made clear to them the desperate nature of their position and our readiness to launch a surprise attack if supported by them and their weapons, and he had several times intimated the signal for his sudden offensive, the clapping of his hands. But perhaps his greatest artistry was in his claim for the valor of the Jew militant, of which he was himself so stalwart an example.

In all justice to the pair, I do not think they needed any great amount of heartening. They came up through that square black hole like two panthers making a ferocious sortie from their lair. And the way was already cleared for them.

Cyril, discovering them to be mobilized, leaped across the hatch and smashed his big fist into the lieutenant's face before that muddle-headed hero could snatch out his pistol. I sprang upon the man at the wheel and served him in similar fashion. Cyril dragged his victim's weapon from its holster and handed it to me, then started forward in prodigious leaps, howling like a cave man and brandishing his arms, our two backers at his heels.

The effect of this furious assault was too much for the soldiery grouped forward. Taken thus completely off their guard while contentedly munching biscuits and guzzling rum and wine, they broke and fled, dodging round the foot of the foremast and windlass and forecastle booby hatch. Cyril, bounding after them, overtook and smote them down. The others, at the harsh command of our absconding financiers, who seemed to understand this sort of fracas and to keep their wits about them, made no effort at resistance. Raising their hands in sign of surrender, they backed away up into the bow.

Not a shot had been fired, and the only physical damage to anybody that from Cyril's flailing fists. Keeping the lieutenant and his pilot covered, I reached for the wheel and put it over, heading back on our wake. Cyril gathered up the rifles that had been laid down here and there and came aft with a double armful of them.

Glancing then at the hatch, I saw the pale faces of Mrs. Fairchild and Allaire framed there.

“It's all right,” I reassured them. “We've taken charge again, thanks to this fighting son of Israel of ours. I always said he was an avatar of the old Phenician traders.”

“Oh, Pom, is anybody hurt?”

“Not badly, I should say. This fake pirate of ours might do with a little liniment.”

Cyril came aft with his spoils of war.

“Put these below, please,” he panted. “This seems to be an unconditional surrender.”

We took council then as to what had best be done. We were pretty close in to the cape, and it seemed to me that if we were to put the crowd aboard their boat immediately and let them make for port, their version of the affair might lead to our chase and capture by some faster vessel. We decided therefore to run on to the eastward for the rest of the night and at dawn to say adios to the crowd.

But Cyril did not let off the lieutenant without some badgering, this to pay him off for his arrogance when holding all the trumps, as he had fondly thought. McIntosh had been released and was at the wheel. Our two passengers were guarding the prisoners forward and partaking of food and drink. The situation being thus reversed, our former captor asked sullenly when and where we proposed to set him and his men ashore.

“At Kingston, Jamaica,” Cyril answered, “and in irons, like the bloody pirates that you are. You won't be the first of your sort to get short shrift and a long rope in that port. We British West Indians make quick work of you sea thieves.”

“But we are not pirates,” snarled the frightened man. “You found out for yourselves that we are not pirates.”

“We found out nothing of the sort, señor,” Cyril said. “That was just a bluff of ours to put you off your guard, to make you think that we believed ourselves to be under official arrest and therefore would not try to resist. We knew all the time what you really were.”

“But I tell you, imbecile, that I am actually an officer of the government and these men are my soldiers.”

Cyril shrugged.

“Well, then, you went and turned pirate for the sake of what might be in it. That's been known to happen before. There's good precedent for it in Jamaica. A former governor-general named Sir Henry Morgan did that thing. They still remember him, so I'm afraid your defense won't be worth a handful of sea water. They'll hang you first and listen to protests afterwards.

“But that would murder—a massacre!”

“Not a bit of it, old top. We are six reliable witnesses, four white and two colored, ready to swear under oath that you announced yourself a pirate at sea and brigand ashore, and that you fired on and then boarded us with piratical design. Two of us, this Bahaman quartermaster and myself, are British subjects in good standing. We four whites can swear honestly that you told us of your intention to loot, then sink the ship, after which you proposed to take us ashore and hold us for ransom. I hardly think that in the face of such testimony your own government will interest itself in your behalf or assume the responsibility for your act. No, my poor fellow; even if there should be any truth in what you claim, you will find yourself the scapegoat. In a fortnight's time you will dangle at the end of a rope.”

I must say, I to feel a little sorry for the poor devil. Cyril had certainly made out a strong case against him; so strong in fact that, knowing something of the summary methods of British colonial penal law, I was inclined to believe that there might be as much truth as torment in what he said.

So also did the unfortunate victim of Cyril's relentless baiting. Perhaps he had been told that the coup intrusted to his management was in the nature of things irregular, and that he could expect no official support if he were to fluke it.

Meanwhile we plugged along with his heavy power boat in tow, her engine running to ease the strain on us. One man had been left aboard her, and to him it had been made plain that he was to take his none from us or get riddled with rifle bullets.

Then, at the first sign of dawn and as a little southerly breeze began to ripple the water, I said to our by this time hopeless captive, “Señor, your offense is very grave, as you must see for yourself. As the mate has pointed out, you have run your head into a noose. But I happen to be a humane person and dislike to see a young and foolish man executed for an error of judgment. Perhaps you have a mother.”

“That is true,” he mumbled, He was by this time nearly in a collapse, what with the cognac wearing off and Cyril's rough handling.”

“Then I shall consider her sorrow and let you go,” I said. “You can tell your chief that you fell into a trap. Tell him also with my compliments that if he desires to accept defeat and consider this incident as closed, we shall do the same.”

The lieutenant showed signs of reanimation.

“You say that you will let us go?” he asked eagerly.

“Yes; under the circumstances, I am willing to call this a fiasco, You and your men may go aboard your boat and get back to port. You ought to make it in about ten hours. Have you fuel enough?”

“I am afraid not, sir. Nor food and water.”

“Then we shall give you what you need. To save you from too great disgrace, your men may also take their empty rifles. You must admit that I am dealing generously with you.”

“That is true, sir.”

Cyril, who had a good deal of dramatic sense, pretended to raise an awful fuss about this decision, but I silenced him. We slowed and threw the engines out of gear, hauled the tub astern alongside, provided her with the necessities of her run back to port, then marshaled the gang aboard her. Then, keeping them under the muzzles of our loaded weapons, we handed down their empty ones and cast off.

“Bon voyage,” I called, “and our compliments to your chief. Perhaps we may have the pleasure of meeting him some day when he sees fit to visit our own more or less hospitable shores,”

XXXV

“WELL, Pom,” said Allaire, “I feel pretty well deflated; about as much as that unpleasant brandy-guzzling sham pirate.”

“That,” I said, “is an excellent state of soul for you and can do no harm. Let's hope that it may even do us all some good.”

Allaire frowned. This was not, perhaps, the way in which she had expected her apology to be received.

“Well, we managed to wriggle out of it, thanks to Cyril.”

“We did,” I agreed. “As a matter of fact, I am inclined to think that Cyril could have swung the job without asking any help of anybody.”

“What did you do?” Allaire asked.

“Kept score,” I answered. “Messrs. Arjolas and Mordecai held fast the slack. Less conservative business men would have been pumping lead into that crowd. All those soldiers asked for was protection from Cyril. They didn't think it was merely a revolt. When he sailed into them, like a combination of howling dervish and the whirling kind, they took it for granted he'd gone mad and run amuck. They might have heard the lieutenant accuse him of being crazy.”

We were under sail with a reef in the mizzen, crashing through a short chop and on a course for Santiago de Cuba. The scattered banks and shoals to the southward kept down the sea that might have been expected under that clear humming twenty-knot breeze. We were making a close reach of it and spinning off our eleven knots without the motor. This was at noon of the day after our escape.

Our two refugees had explained their situation to me; and so far as I could determine, it was one of historic precedent by which they might be considered as traitors or patriots, according to which way the political cat jumped and then maintained its position. They had not stolen any funds, that I could see; but had managed to get away with the bulk of their own and those of certain friends pledged to the financial support of a party which they had recently decided to be on the wrong side of the issue, both in its policy and chances of success. Personally, that was the least of my cares.

These were now considerably lightened. Being a fair-minded person, it seemed to me that inasmuch as Messrs. Arjolas and Mordecai had helped us to save the ship, we ought to waive the price agreed upon for their transportation; but on my suggesting this to Allaire she promptly vetoed the idea.

“Don't be silly, Pom. It was their being aboard that exposed us to the risk of losing everything. Besides, it has probably spoiled our chances of making a good trade for the shoes and bungalow aprons. All they did, anyhow, was to guard the prisoners; and anybody in their position is supposed to do their bit in a jam.”

Cyril was of Allaire's opinion, as he always was.

“They wouldn't think of it themselves, Mr. Stirling,” he assured me. “They are two good old sports and claim we've saved their lives and fortunes, and they're right. Chances are they'll want to give us a bonus rather than expect a rebate.”

“Well,” said Allaire, “if they insist on that I shan't put anything in their way. Since I've turned gold digger, the niceties of social relations can be thrown on the dump.”

“Along with the conventions,” I said crossly. “For my part, I believe in sticking to what you start to do. Our original idea was barter, and that's the way we got our stake. Since then we've dealt in smuggled antiques and real-estate improvement and gun running and shipping properties, and now it's the ticklish business of transporting indicted financiers.”

“Yes, plain old-fashioned barter is going to be a little dull after this,” Allaire misagreed. “But it all seems to work in together pretty well.”

“As if we were running a general store,” I retorted, “with a soda fountain in the front and a prescription department in the middle and a blind tiger in the rear, with a real estate and insurance agency as a side line and furnished rooms upstairs front and a gambling layout in the rear; added to that, a public garage in the back yard and boats to let where the premises border on the creek. No doubt the proprietors of such premises average up a pretty good turnover—until they get pinched, which ——”

“'Which I 'opes it don't 'appen to me,'” Allaire quoted flippantly.

“Well, but I say, Mr. Stirling,” Cyril put in eagerly, “after all, this is the sort of thing the early voyagers did. Their profits weren't entirely from barter.”

“Your Phenician forbears weren't,” I snapped. “They did a bit of piracy when it look good, and white-slaving, with a shore raid here and there to break the dull monotony of life at sea.”

“Quite so, sir, but I'm speaking of the later ones. The Columbians. They grabbed off islands and coastwise tracts and cleared and farmed 'em and prospected for minerals and valuable vegetable products and sometimes did a tidy bit of raiding themselves. It's all of a piece with this barter idea—to grab off what you can without breaking anything.”

“But the Ten Commandments, international law and the less important ones of your own country,” I said. “But I suppose Mark Twain was right. 'If you see a chicken that ain't roostin' comfortable, take it. Becuz if you don't want it yourelf, you kin always find somebody that does, and a good deed ain't never forgot.'”

Cyril laughed and left us. Perhaps he saw that I was feeling irritable and guessed that it might be owing less to all these past irregularities of ours than something that struck closer home. The good lad and Mrs. Fairchild, too, were, I think, a good deal worried about the cat-and-dog relations between Allaire and myself. No doubt the romance they had scented at odd moments when the wind was right looked now more apt to develop a hiss, a sideswipe scratch and the top of a tree; or possibly canine yowls and retreat.

Cyril gone, we now resumed our bickering. Allaire seemed to court it, while for my part it threatened to become a nerve-disturbing vice, like cigarettes or strong, frequent cups of tea, openly and respectably indulged but none the less pernicious.

“Then you are still determined to carry on with this barter thing, Pom?”

“Of course lam. I mean to give it a fair tryout, with none of these complicating features that you and Cyril defend.”

“With this schooner?”

“Yes, if you feel like selling out your share.”

“But you said the other night that you would take me on if I insisted.”

“That was before I knew the last one you put over on me. I'm rather glad that lets me out. 'We be not of the same blood, thou and I.'”

“You would be horribly lonely, Pom.”

“That's better than being continually irritated. Besides, I'm used to being lonely.”

“You used to be used to it, Pom; but you no longer are. When you were working in the boiler factory you were used to being irritated part of the time and lonely the rest. Now you are only irritated.”

“All the time,” I amended. “That's worse.”

“Not for your health. You look like a new man, a much stronger one.”

“Free air.”

She laughed.

“And free Allaire. You are pretty well cured of your ingrowing thoughts, Pom. It's better for a man to have to think about a pest than to think too much about himself. David Harum was right.”

“Women,” I said, “were undoubtedly put on this earth for the tormenting of men. Witness Adam.”

“No, the Creator perceived that the man could not possibly manage to get along without somebody to blame it on. Witness Eve.”

“Well, they made a mess of it between them. Breach of trust in the first generation of mankind and a murder in the second. Fratricide at that. The object lesson is obvious.”

“Precisely,” said Allaire. “That's why I advocated our running this schooner together, but on a business partnership alone.”

“Yes,” I said, “and that is exactly the way in which Adam and Eve were supposed to administer the Garden of Eden. And see what came of it.”

This took her aback for a second.

“Why, yes, Pom, but we've got their experience to teach us.”

“Of course. Two things. The second seems to have had more vogue. There is no record of any office of holy matrimony having been performed in Eden. Yet consider the present population of the earth. One might say that the lesson of the Fall hadn't taught us a whole lot. The gardener was plugging along well enough, a little dull and lonely perhaps, but keeping up the borders. Then Eve ribbed in and got them both fired, started her holding-out tactics. Persons built like her have been doing it ever since.”

“Yes,” Allaire admitted, “most women are restless and all men are fools. The combination is fatal for the peace of the world.”

“It's fatal for the gardens of the world,” I said; “but there's an enormous area of its surface that's still unpolluted, and that's the deep sea. It's lonely, but clean.”

“Like you, Pom.”

“Why, Allaire”—I leaned toward her—“thank you for the first kind thing you've ever said to me.”

She looked surprised.

“Is it really, Pom?”

“Yes, our conversations have always been combative, when personal. You have pointed out a good many defects in me, but this is the first compliment. I'm afraid it must have slipped past when your back was turned.”

“No, I meant it. You are like the sea, Pom; clean and bitter. I thought at first it was a phase, but I'm beginning now to think it's constant; or else it's due to me.”

“To not enough of you, perhaps,” I muttered.

“Well, perhaps. But if we squabble now because you can't have all you might like of me, think what might happen when you found you had too much of me. And I've an idea there is rather more of me than you ever guessed, Pom, and that it's far from perfect.”

“No man wants perfection, Allaire. He wouldn't care to be under the strain of trying to live up to it. I shouldn't, anyhow. What's more important is to be in agreement about certain mutual faults. Hasn't it struck you that every one of our scraps has come from the resentment in one of us for the same fault in the other?”

Allaire nodded.

“I hadn't thought of it that way, but now you speak of it, I believe you are right, Pom. We got away for a bad start. I was furious when I found that you had let me make a fool of myself about what I took for granted to be your plans for the schooner. I felt that you had got her from me by cheap trickery, which was bad enough, and that I had been an easy silly mark, which was worse. I made up my mind then to let no chance get past for fooling the rest of you, especially you, and no matter at what risk of fatal consequences. It wasn't all avarice by any means. The background of it was revenge. So you see what a lovely nature I've got down underneath.”

“Well, I must admit you backed your hand, Allaire, not only with your money but yourself. That man Carstairs would have made one mouthful of you if he had got away with me.”

“Then he'd have choked on it, I think. And there was always Cyril.”

“Cyril was unarmed. And this lieutenant fellow wasn't looking at you pleasantly. Are you still looking for revenge, Allaire?”

“No; my ledger is ruled off. This strategic error spiked my guns for good.” She gave a nervous laugh. “When that infernal racket broke out overhead, with you cursing like a buccaneer and Cyril howling like a pack of wolves, I thought you had goaded that brandy hound into rabies and he had ordered a general massacre. It was pretty awful, Pom. I realized for the first time that I was only a girl.”

“Well, then let's call it square. I've regretted my act every day since the start. It was a rotten thing to do. But we were all pretty desperate, even yourself, or you would never have considered rum running.”

“I know. I've got a different slant on it now. Dirty business. You can buy me out at cost whenever you like, Pom. I'm through.”

I leaned forward and laid my hand on hers.

“Marry me, Allaire.”

Her tawny eyes fixed on mine with so strange a look that I half expected a bitter stream of words to follow it. It flashed into my mind that she might have been waiting to get at me under my guard, take me defenseless and tell me the entirety of her dislike.

She seemed to be staring straight into and through my eyes to read what was behind them, and then to scorn it.

This impression passed instantly, and I discovered that she was not preparing an attack, but fighting silently to resist. Those clear amber eyes of hers that were so strikingly disturbing between their black double lashes had a stricken look, as if I had said something to hurt her terribly, and from which she could not defend herself.

The odd part about it was that I could not seem to speak, myself, which was just as well, perhaps, as the last time our wills had locked I had broken the hold by too much speech. The present duel—for it amounted to that—was all the more curious because here we were sitting on the breezy deck in the broad light of day, with McIntosh at the wheel and Mrs. Fairchild talking to our two passengers amidships in the shadow of the foresail, all three facing us and no doubt glancing at us with friendly interest from time to time.

Scarcely the time and place to choose for the pressing of one's suit, it might appear; and yet perhaps after all it was better than the glamour of a soft tropic starlight night because of the lack of these emotional props. Any decision reached now would be sure and final, and later to be ratified more ardently.

At any rate, Allaire seemed utterly oblivious to our lack of privacy. That stricken flat glare, for it was scarcely less, softened and grew misty.

“Are you sure you love me, Pom? Really love me, and not just want me?”

“I adore you, Allaire. It's real love, my dear.”

“I love you, Pom. I've loved you since I found how I'd misjudged you so, back there on the island. If Carstairs had killed you, I think that I should have run down to the beach and swum straight out until I could swim no farther.”

“Then you'll marry me?”

“Of course I will. In Santiago, if you like. I think I need you, Pom.”

I raised her hand and kissed it; then still holding it, I rose and drew Allaire up after me. She looked completely dazed. Glancing round, I saw Mrs. Fairchild and our two passengers staring at us with a sort of embarrassed consternation, as if they felt they had no business on this stretch of deck that seemed suddenly to have become a sort of sanctum sanctorum, a tilting, swaying, wind-swept temple d'amour.

Leading the bewildered Allaire by the hand—and Allaire bewildered was the most bewildering thing about the business to those of us who knew her—I walked up to where the trio were sitting on the main hatch cover. Cyril at this moment appeared from the galley, munching a biscuit, which fell from his nerveless hand.

“Mrs. Fairchild and gentlemen,” I said, “we ask for your congratulations. Miss Forsyth has this moment done me the honor to promise to become my wife.”

XXXVI

SAID Mrs. Fairchild to me a few hours later, after a very festive luncheon that was yet distinguished for its propriety, “Well, Mr. Stirling, I was never so taken aback. I must say, you weren't any way bashful about where and when you proposed

“Mrs. Fairchild,” I answered, “the old order changeth, Allaire and I agreed that henceforth all our contracts, understandings and gentlemen's agreements should be above decks, with no reservations in the hold.”

“Good for you two,” said the widow. “That makes me feel as if all this we've been through was worth it, not counting the money profits it might show. But to think of your proposing right there before our very eyes! And not five minutes before I was worried for fear you were starting another fight.”

“Let's hope that your fears were unfounded,” I said. “Some girls can only be captured by a fight. But we have buried the hatchet, smoked the calumet, put the house in order, signed the peace pact and disarmed. We have also made covenant that neither shall henceforth withhold any plan, project or scheme from the other partner to the treaty.”

“That's right, Mr. Stirling,” she said heartily. “All the trouble started from deception.”

“Entirely my fault,” I admitted. “But consider the straits we were in. You on the verge of bankruptcy, Cyril on the beach, I the waste product of a boiler factory chucked out on the dump, Allaire fed by the crumbs from her rich friends' tables. After a long run of bad luck, the self-starter is usually jammed. The old machine is apt to take a bit of cranking. And if we managed to change it by hook or—as I must confess—a little by crook, then I'll say it was about time.”

For the remainder of our run to Santiago, Allaire and I found that by tacit agreement we were given the freedom of the deck from about eight bells of the evening watch. Arriving in that port, we found the tide of our luck still running strong in a manner more gratifying to me than if the results of it had shown four times the profit but through some happy fluke, instead of what it actually proved, good old-fashioned barter.

Señor Mordecai, after discharging his obligation, went ashore; and without losing a moment or saying a word to us about it, busied himself in our behalf. Cyril, for whom the banker had conceived a high regard, went with him. They found a merchant who was interested in shoes and bungalow aprons when he learned that we were quite willing to take local products in exchange. It was the same old story. Trade was active, even eager, provided it could be conducted on a basis of barter without that fluctuating medium of juggled and insecure exchange, which was the world over at this moment, money.

But this was not the half of it. The merchant, desiring to inspect our wares, came off aboard end went down into the hold. Before glancing at our scant cargo he let out a yell

“Sapristi! And all this!”

“Ballast, Señor,” I said. “Old car rails for a little construction railroad down on the Isthmus. The former owner put them aboard because the vessel was previously too light. I'm not keen about it as ballast, because it seems to me to put so much strain on hull and spars.”

“Then perhaps we can make another trade, captain. I can use these rails on a sugar plantation in which I have an interest, provided you will take sack sugar in return.”

“Can do,” 1 said, “if besides the sugar you will undertake to put aboard about a hundred tons of this coral-lava stuff so that we can unload it without disturbing the sugar.”

“What do you want of that, Pom?” asked Allaire, who had gone below with us to overhaul the bungalow aprons.

“Backing your bet, my dear. It's just what will be needed for grading and filling on Pelican. Then we can take on some fine sand ballast to carry North and trade it off for loam to bring down the next time we come, for a top dressing. That way we turn our ballast into profitable cargo.”

We turned the whole business over to Cyril then, Allaire and I having more important to consider. We were married in Santiago, and I am almost ashamed to describe the jeweled wedding present given to Allaire by Messrs. Arjolas and Mordecai. Then we bought a flivver and motored to Havana, returning in a week's time and loading the little car on deck, well swathed in tarpaulins.

Sayles' yacht had just left for Nassau. Allaire cabled him, “Have you seen Pelican, and do you want it?”

The answer came promptly, “You bet. It's my Isle of Golden Dreams. What are you up to and who are you doing?”

 

Allaire: You. Can you use a hundred tons of lava coral for grading and filling on Pelican? Have got.

Sayles: Sure. Can use a thousand tons. Deliver to Sanders, who is there in charge with dredge and lighters. Have ordered cargo of coral stone from Bermuda. Who else have have you been doing? Please be more explicit.

Allaire: Getting married to Pomeroy Stirling in Santiago. Now on honeymoon in Havana. Why don't you do the same?

Sayles: Can't, since Stirling beat me to it. Getting option on another of your persuasion. Hope to spend honeymoon on Pelican. Great place for it. Love and all best wishes to you and your Pom.

 

“Well,” I said, “so that's all right. Let's stop cabling now before we have to take a mortgage on the schooner.”

“After all,” Allaire said, “Nick's a dear. But there are dearer.”

XXXVII

E CALLED at Pelican, where we found Sanders more or less in charge of field operations. He seemed glad to see us, as considerably surprised to discover how the little old Tinker had grown. A dredger was at work dredging the channel to the jetty, where a crib was being built so that Sayles' yacht could lie alongside.

“There's, a sight of money being spent, Miss—I mean Mrs. Stirling,” Sanders said. “Who'd ever ha' thought this here place would catch the fancy of a millionaire like Mr. Sayles?”

“I,” said Allaire. “I hope you're getting yours, Sanders.”

“Can't complain, Miss—I mean Mrs. My brother's runnin' the store. This takes all my time.”

Sayles had been there and gone on to Georgetown, South Carolina, to order some lumber. We unloaded our ballast, just what was needed for filling behind the crib, then put back to Turk's Island for a load of salt that Cyril had a charter for. Barter and charter both this run. It was a game that could not be played in routine fashion, nor could it always be the New Lamps for Old lucky strike that had started us. Neither could it be strictly compared to the commerce of early voyagers with fresh fields of trade. We had to work in between markets, with some study of the sort of tempting articles to offer folk who paid in produce.

“It's not a game of chance,” Cyril said. “What it needs is knowledge: the best sort of stuff to take to certain places, and about what theirs will bring less duty on the wharf at home. You buy the cheapest stuff wholesale, a lot you pick up secondhand, but in good condition. You save money, exchange, agents' commissions, freights and the upkeep of offices and warehouses. It can't be done in the old-fashioned way of barter direct with the natives, because that would make trouble with the local government; but by trading through a merchant you can keep your port charges and import and export duties re and proper.”

Allaire and I dreaded losing Cyril. Not only was he an ideal shipmate, cheerful, breezy, enthusiastic and invariably optimistic, but very fond of us both in an unpresuming way, as if we had been his patrons or benefactors. His attitude contained a sort of feudal loyalty that Mrs. Fairchild seemed at times rather to resent. Therefore we were delighted to find that we were not destined to lose him. This news came as a surprise a couple of days after our arrival in New York. Mrs. Fairchild received an amusing letter from Captain Poole, in which that Yankee skipper gave us their news with dry Maine humor:

“My owner was right when he said his papa would be pleased with our horse trade out in the stream. I guess those fireworks came in right handy for a little Fourth of July celebration some of the boys were fixing to spring as a surprise party. The señor told me on the q. t. that they thought better of it when they found there was a rival fire company all set to turn the hose on it. Papa was pleased with the boat, likewise. The Evangeline was getting to be too much of an elephant on his hands. You folks don't need to worry about taking a stick of candy from a child. The señor only paid eight thousand dollars for that one, and she cost five times that to build. Fine stuff in her and the best sort of work.

“I'm quitting my job here and coming North to look after some shore property of mine down home that they want to open up for summer cottages. Good chance for a hotel proposition too; the only big one thereabouts burned up like I told you. Hope to land in New York April twentieth.”

“Why, that's tomorrow!” Allaire said.

“So it is,” Mrs. Fairchild answered, and for some reason blushed.

Cyril flourished his long arms over his head with a tragic gesture.

“I'm jilted—cut out—torped—-scuttled—sunk! It's no surprise, though. I saw the writing on the wall. My bloomin' heart is broken, and all that's left for me is to run rum or Chinks.”

He turned his head aside and I caught the flicker of a long black eyelash.

“Don't be silly,” Mrs. Fairchild snapped. “I told you the day before I met Sherman Poole ashore that I was much too old to marry you, and that you had better put it out of your head. Besides, there's nothing settled at all. This is just a friendly letter.”

“Ho, is it?” Cyril challenged with ferocity. “Then read us the ending. That's the part that tells the tale.” He thrust out his big hand. “Let me read it.”

Mrs. Fairchild, blushing still more ruddily snatched the sheet away.

“I'll do nothing of the sort.” She looked at me appealingly. “You know what sailormen are like, Mr. Stirling.”

“I know what this one is like,” I said. “And Captain Poole struck me as a go-getter.”

“Go get her is right,” Cyril rasped. “He is coming to get her now. A fast worker too. And I've had all winter! That was just the trouble. Sea love never lasts. First day out, attraction; third day out—oh, my; seventh day out, distraction; and landing day, good-by.”

“He's a silly boy, Mr. Stirling, but all the same he's a dear,” said Mrs. Fairchild. “It would have been ridiculous for me to have married him, now wouldn't it? And me five years older.”

“I know how you feel, Mrs. Fairchild. I'm thirteen years older than Allaire. Twenty-five and thirty-eight. May and ——”

“——July,” Cyril said gloomily. “Ain't it awful? When Mr. Stirling is a decrepit old crock of sixty, Miss Forsyth will still be a flapper of forty-seven, and if he lasts to fourscore she will be just reaching the zenith of her dancing age at sixty-seven.”

“Cyril is right,” Allaire said. “You can prove it in any Palm Beach hotel ballroom.”

“Yes,” I admitted sadly. “Women age more rapidly than men up to fifty. After that they learn the trick of suspended animation, like other ——”

I paused discreetly.

“——r-r-reptiles!” Cyril blared, and removed himself in haste, fists rotating over his head.

All the same, he was pretty hard hit, and I felt sorry for him. I knew his real devotion to this pretty blond widow partner of ours. It had started in gratitude and forged ahead to a vigorous and wholesome love of her as a women as well as benefactress. There was a stalwart male protectiveness about it, one that asked to serve not only in the big things but in the little. I had often observed how he rushed through or set aside work of his own to relieve her of some unpleasant detail of her own.

It seemed to me that Cyril, with his thirty years and abilities and eager, boyish enthusiasm, was a lot better choice as a husband than the bleak, hard-faced Capt. Sherman Poole, a man past forty. I said so a little later to Allaire.

“He's the male critter of her kind, Pom, as you are of mine. Women always come back to that. One's own breed always seems more of a person, no matter how clever or distinguished the foreigner might be. That's the reason international marriages usually go wrong.”

So Mrs. Fairchild stepped out and Cyril stayed in, a third owner. Lucky for us, as he could not be equaled for driving a trade. He had a mixture of cajolery and bullying hard to beat, and he could do it in several different languages. But when it came to—well, I dislike to call it graft, though the victim might, he was not in the same class with Allaire. She that cool, pleasant-spoken ruthlessness peculiar to Englishwomen of high caste when engaged in business or gambling, which gives them wrongly the reputation of cold-bloodedness. This trait had led me to believe that Allaire was cold-blooded, but I had discovered my mistake. That faculty of smiling pleasantly and trimming the other fellow to the quick did not interfere with warm and generous impulses. It was no more than the poker face and manner of the good player.

Sayles' check came in and was duly apportioned; also the proceeds from the products we had taken in barter for shoes, bungalow aprons, rusty car rails and a few other odds and ends. There was also the charter money for the salt.

I called on the hard-boiled boiler-making uncle to whom I owed so much for having fired me. At first he was wary, but relaxed when he found that I had come to praise and not to bury him. We lunched together and I gave him a brief of what I had been up to, omitting certain details that I thought he might not entirely approve. He listened, so absorbed that at moments he forgot to eat.

“That wife of yours must be a wonder, Pomeroy. Not only made the nucleus of a fortune but a new man out of you.”

“Yes, I was like a burned-out boiler, uncle; an empty shell that wouldn't hold its pressure.”

“That's the reason I fired you; as much for your own sake as mine. Speaking of boilers, how would you like to make a charter for a long voyage?”

“Where to?”

“Buenos Aires. I've got an order for a consignment of small tubular boilers to be delivered by the first of June. You could carry them and the piping with some space to spare, I should say. The stuff is ready for shipment now.”

“Long runs and slow freights are where sail scores,” I said, “and our vessel is primarily a sailer, with the motor to save towage at both ends.”

“Well, I'll make you a good rate. You can figure on it and let me know tomorrow.”

When I told Allaire about it she clapped her hands.

“I've always wanted to go to the Argentine, Pom.”

Cyril also seemed pleased.

“It's sure money, and that's worth something, Mr. Stirling. Besides, we can manage to chink in with some trade goods.”

“Bungalow aprons and shoes as dunnage,” I said. “We did pretty well with them. Anyhow, it will give us a bit of a rest from huckstering for a couple of months.”

That night in our bird's-eye-maple cabin I said to Allaire, “So here I am back to where I started—or quit, to be more exact—in the boiler business. It makes a lot of difference, though, whether you're in the shop or driving the delivery truck.”

“Right-o, matey mine. And it makes a lot of difference to me whether I'm tucked into the chummy roadster of some silly millionaire listening to his truck, or sitting pretty beside my best beau on a delivery truck of our own.'

“You have said it to the nth degree, sweet.” I flopped down into a big leather-upholstered armchair installed by the luxurious Davide, for I needed rest. Whacking a schooner up the coast in midwinter and short-handed is no dolce-far-niente job. “The luck of this ship changed when you brought your cargo aboard, Mrs. Me.”

Allaire made her mooring in that home port of brides, her husband-lover's arms.

“It followed our gang. The ship was swept by a green sea of luck that washed her decks and ran down below.”

“After all,” I said presently, “we are doing for profit precisely what we would be doing for our pleasure if we had happened to be rich in gold. My dream was always to have a big sailing auxiliary and run her myself. Being skipper-owner of a merchant vessel is better.”

“I think so,” Allaire agreed. “A free life on the only part of the earth's surface that's still free. Star-hung nights, strange ports—and, a wife in every one of them.”

“What?”

“Yes, wife and sweetheart in every one of them—and she always the same.”

THE END