"It's not Guariqui I'm afraid of," was McKinnon's evasive answer. He was thinking, not so much how some spirit of youth and adventure less sophisticated than his own might be stunned and intoxicated by such prospects as these, but just how he was going to discover Ganley's undivulged plan for keeping Puerto Locombia clear of all outsiders.
"Then what are you afraid of?" demanded Ganley.
"It's so big," complained the other. "So big for me, I mean!"
Ganley laughed, a little scornfully.
"Then take a day or two off and get used to it. Sleep on it, and let me know how you feel about it to-morrow or next day. Is that satisfactory?"
"Anything you say," McKinnon answered.
The other man rose heavily to his feet, crossed slowly to the door, and turned back to stare absently about the crowded little room.
"You'll be with us all right," he said, without emotion.
But instead of going below, after bidding the operator good-night in his suave and deep-throated guttural, he slowly and meditatively paced the bridge-deck, idly blinking up at the stars above the mastheads and out over the rail at the dark sea on either side of them.
