MARGERY MANESTY.

Otago Witness, Issue 2761, 13 February 1907, Page 70

MARGERY MANESTY.

By OSWALD WILDRIDGE,

[Copyright.]

CHAPTER XX —TELLS HOW A TRYST

IS MADE AND KEPT

tIYOND a doubt Michael Strang was deeply disturbed. Furrowed brow, lowered lids, and puckered lips all conspired in the creation *of a frown. Stronger proof still of mental distraction, a little dab of colour showed redly upon his yellowy cheeks. In his hand he held a scrap of dirty paper, on the floor lay an envelope of corresponding hue. Again and again he read the note, then threw it upon the table, but only to instantly snatch it up and once more peruse its three lines of pencilled scrawl —

"Be careful. D. G. may get his peepers opened. Am lying by on the Hercules. Expect you to-night at 9 >'clock. — M. M."

He turned the paper over, though he knew that its underside was bare of 6ign in pencil or in pen ; rescued the envelope from the floor, and, ripping it open, ;xamined it inside and out.

"Curse the fool who wrote it," he exclaimed ; "who can he be, and what has he got hold of? M. M ? — not a soul in Allerdale I can fit the letters on to. D. G.s as clear as daylight. D stands for David and G. for Graham. And he knows something, eh? I wonder what and how much. I wish now that I'd

"Shaf ! What a ninny I'm growing into. Why didn't I see it at first. It's Tom Tinion, and no one else. The Noah would come in last night, and this is a dodge to frighten a bit more money out of me. But I'll show him. And aboard the Hercules, too : actually got the cheek to invite me to a blackmailing meeting on board one of my own ships. A likely thing, indeed. Til not go, I'll not — not another penny shall he have.

"And yet" — this after a, few moment's further thought — "if it's Tinion, why this secrecy, why aboard the Hercules, and why M. M. ? Besides, if it should be Tinion there's no telling what he may Jo. What if he took his secret to David Graham?" Strang positively shivered with apprehension. "It's worth money in that quarter. Graham would pay, and pay handsomely, and, fool though he is, Tinion knows it. And I won't be baulked now ; I've got him down in the mud, and he shan't wriggle out of its slime. I suppose I'd better go — yes, there's no help for it — I'd better go." And now to the man who has gained his end, fulfilled the vow made by the brown clods of a new mounded ,grave, and yet is wretchedly dissatisfied, because that end wai self and his vow an iniquity, harlti&sed, too, by a crowding legion of suspicions, tortured by an indefinable sense of brooding evil, the moments drag tardily ; and when he dons his jloak and steps out into the night to keep his tryst, it seems as though an age has passed since he fingered that miserable note. In feverish basic he traverses the town, his brain clamouiing for the hidden thing — he must know the woist >r best, and know it without delay. Down upon the harbour he blunders on to the wrong side of the mooring posts, stumbles against the tautened ropes that bind the reluctant ships to the land, curses them, and crosses again into the zone where safety lies. Now he can see the triple lights for whose gleaming triangle the home-coming mariner looks and longs, now the briny breath of the Solway meets him, and here, at last, is the Hercules. The Hercules, be it known, is one of Allerdale's derelicts, and years ago her name should have been expunged from the register. In Michael Strang's lexicon, however, the word "derelict" had no place, and ane of the counts in the indictment against him was that ho had' never been known to har.d a vessel over to the knackers. His ships must sail until they sank, and no one doubted that this was the fate reserved for the one at present reclining on the oozy bod )f the tidal dock ; and when her turn came she would be placed on the grid and patched and patched, acd then E<"nt off to sea once more, to float or sink, the latter alternative for preference, as being the most profitable. Bending low over tLe harbour iiide,

Strang peers with apprehensive eyes trpoa * the deck., but the night lies thick and heavy, and all detail is blended into mass. Still crouching on the fender, he fits his hand to his ear and listens intently, but the deck is silent, he hears naught save the babbling song of the rising tide and th*» boom of the surf on the Solway shore.

'Once, twice, thrice he walks the length of the ship, foTe and aft he searches the hull foi glimmer of lantern ray, but finds none, and finally he grips the mizzen shrouds and swings himself on board. Head drooped in carefullest scrutiny, feet padding stealthily, he slowly shuffles down the larboard side, and veturaing by the staxboard rail fetches to by the cabin hatch, over which the hood is drawn and locked. What shall he do now? Await on deck the coming of his man or go below? Better seek the cabin the deck is too open ; there conversation may be overheard. Moreover, he has little' taste for an interview in the dark : light has often proved a valuable ally with its rays upon tho other man's face. So he shoots back lock ard hood and doors, and is swallowed in the maw of the empty brig. Down upon, the lower deck he fumbles on the shelf above his head for a lantern, and having found one, coaxes the wick into feeble life. This he carries into the noisome kennel of a cabin, sets it upon the table, aud to its sickly glimmer proceeds to add the stronger rays of the lamp swinging from the deck beams.

He looks at his watch. The fingers inform him that impatience — or can it be fear? — has brought him to the trysting place 10 minutes in front of the appointed hour. So anxious is he for the meeting and its revelation that he retains the watch in his hand and. his eyes fixed upon its dial, marks the march of the minutes.

Five now — four, three, two!

A footfall beats lightly on the planks, above his head. One hand leaning heavily upon the table he fronts the- oabin door. Now Tinion — or, if not he, then the man who wrote that note — is on the stairs.

Now! Crash ! Michael Strang's watch is on th^ floor, its glass shivered into countless fragments. In the doorway a girlish form is framed. Margery Manesty !

Face to face, merely the span of a ship's tiny table between them, shadows, black, brown, grey, massed behind, below, evuywhere, thus, down in the pestiferous cabin of a rotting ship, they meet ; thus Michael Strang keeps his tryst. No need to ask what he thinks of his summons now. By-and-bye he will be frigid, callous, self-contained as of old, the orge of whose infamy Margery has heard ; but for the moment all his nerv© has left him ; dismay riots in his heart and brain, there is the brand of terror in his eyes, and speech i 8 denied him. Reason, too, is paralysed, prompting no question of the why and wherefore of the girl's presence; all he knows and cares is that she is there, that the girl statuesquely posed under th« lintel of the little door is Margery Manesty, she whom David Graham might nofc wed.

Silent also is the girl, but her bearing is at least invested with confidence. Out of the mystery of the meeting, the gloom of the timbered chamber, the ghostly voices, laughing, hissing, rumbling, as the ship lifts upon the tide and rolls upon the tendered wharf, the cringing figure of the man, a sense of awe has issued ; but it is not so insistent as the devotion which has sent her hither.

Amazement, too, puzzled, interrogative amazement, she knows. Why should this man be so manifestly^ afraid of her? Why does he not speak ? * She seems to have been hours in his presence, and still his unkindly eyes are dancing before her, declaring naught but consternation. At last the strain becomes intolerable. She enters the cabin, and smiling wistfully into his face, begs for speech — "Won't you speak to me, Mr Strang?" "Speak — oh, yes, certainly, certainly," h" stammers. f l— I — I — how d'ye do?" A frown sweeps the smile away. "What is it you want with me, Mr Strang ?" j» "Want with you? Want with you* "Yes ; you sent for me, you know, else I shouldn't have been h-ere."'

Now, in truth, surprise is crowding on surprise .Strang abandons the support borrowed from the table, and draws himself, erect. The thin lips tighten, the fear lessens in his eyes, the old, hard, steely floor returns ; once more his brain is working. 'Sent for you?" he repeats. "Oh, no; there's a mistake somew here. I never sent for you."

■'But I have your note. I didn't know that you had sent it, but it bears your initials, and it bids me come hjere tonight, so that I may hear aomething about — about David Graham and the terrible wrong that is being done to him." David Graham — terrible wrong — a eecond note! Verily here is disaster most complete ; he sees himself routed, the stones of hit fortress flung upon the ground. He i& sorry, but — ah, yes, this 16 the note, is it' Received by post only this morning. He spreads the ilip out upon the lable where the lantern light may fall on it. The paper is different, cleaner, but the pencil scrawl is the same as in the one reposing in his Wallet and the initials his own — • "If you want to help David Graham, meet me on the brig Hercules, now in the old dock at Allerdale, 9 o'clock tomorrow night. Tell no one j come

alone. — M. S. 1 '

Bending low so that Margery may not detect the working of his features, Be Tea3s it again and again. And while he reads the conviction, that his secret is shared by another than his dupe steals overpoweringly upon him, and after that a de« termination to bluff the thing out. "I'm afraid that someone has made yon the viet-m of a cruel hoax, Miss Manesty,'* he says, confronting the girl again. "Thtf initials are certainly mine, but the Trritin^f is not. I know nothing about the note.

1 never sent it, this is the first I have seen of it." 5

"You didn't send for me?" Stunned by the avowal, the Castle of Hope, on whofo eon-kissed towers her eyes have been fixed throughout the day, thus rudely crumpled into dust, Margery regards him with shocked and unbelieving eyes ; after a fashion, too, her brain makes shift to sort the tangled threads of circumstance. And for the better acting of his part the man looks down upon her, trying hard to fit compassion to hk features ; and neither of them sees that overhead, in the gsp ■where the decklight is thrown open to the heavens, another face, pallid as Margery's and keen as Michael Strang's, is baJanced.

He hadn't sent for her — then why that overmastering confusion? Why that fear? Why — ah, here is a point worth testing.^ ''You haven't called me here to-night?" she says. "You haven't asked me to meet you? Then will you tell me why you are here yourself:" Caught off his guard he seeks refuge in bluster, but remembers his ownership of the Hercules, and asks her whether a man may not make the round of his own property at any hour. "A mere coincidence, Miss Manesty. Some clumsy fool sent you that note ; I desired to see that my ship was all riglrt ; fre selected the same hour — ard that it all."

"All !'" she repeats, rather to herself than to Strang ; "and I had expected so much. What must I do now?"

"Better go back home, Miss Manesty," he advises her. "-Go back, and pay co more heed to anonymous invitations to secret conferences. Go home and forget to-night's meeting, forget the Hercules, forget me, and — if I may offer a little friendly counsel <m a matter of such d>eep personal interest — forget David Graham." "Ah, yo» are no friend of David's," she tells him.

"Miss Majoesty, thoee words are not fair. j »

"You are no friend of David's," she interrupts, with the emphasis of conviction, "else yon would not advise me to deserthim now when his friends are only a handful and his need is 60 great."

"Then your ambition, I presume, is to place him again on the throne which he has so willingly abdicated?"

"I don't know much abont thrones, Mr Strang," she replies sadly — "it seems to me that there has been too much of this regal {dreaming. I want to help David to his name again, I want to help him to become « good man once more, to Tealiae 'that power and gold are not life's choicest prizes." With a fine show of benevolence, be ateps to her side and lays his hand upon her shoulder and again offers counsel. Tells i ber that he is aa old mam and has seen mom of the world, and, as a father might advise a daughter, begs her not to waste the best years of her life in a barren zeal. But she slips away from him as though his touch hurt her, and anew declares her purpose and her faith. "David and I are friends." Nothing more than that : no heroics, no Taunting prophecy. And etill through the gap of the lifted lid The Captain looks approvingly upon her. "That's fine," he whispers, and again, "David Graham's in luck; she deserves to be helped," and finally — this with a grin, "I'll have to make a few more appointments for some folks." As for appointments, Strang has had more of this one than is pleasing to his palate. Those miserable scraps of pencilled paper have overwhelmed him ; in each of them lie recognises a terrible menace to his campaign, together they symbolise a hidden foe* eyes that have seen his handiwork, a brain that has measured his design, a veiled hand raised to the striking of a shattering blow.

Margery, too, though she knows it not, has him hard and fast upon the rack. Still of the assurance he has given her, it is patent that she mistrusts him; her brave, honest, wistful eyes torture him whenever ho dares to meet them, and he half suspects that she knows more than she has confessed. Moreover, he is beginning to fear her power, and confidence in his own strength is wavering. A question on her part, a slip on his, a phrase, a word, and he may be undone. Better g«t away, lest greater evil befall jxim, lway to look for Tinion, and after him the man who wrote those notes. He picks up his hat and lantern, and, coaxing from his reserve another bland smile, offers to light her ascent of the cabin stairs. But Margery, not yet foiled in her quest, checks him with uplifted hand. "Not just yet, Mr Strang ; a few minutes longer please. There is something else I want to say, something to ask. What have you to tell me about Da-vid Graham?" "Tell you about David Graham?" he snarls. "Miss Manesty, you are compelling me to be rude. "Will you oblige me by leaving my ship?" He moves towards the stairs. Margery, retreating, bars his progress. "When you've answered my question, Mr Strang. What do you know of David? You can give me some of the knowledge I'm seeking— l'm sure of that. Something tells me that our meeting heTe is not an accident? Who wrote that note, signed ™th your initials? Why are you here? Ship-owners are not in the habit of inspecting derelicts by lantern light. For whom ■were you waiting? Why were you smitten •with fear when I entered your presence? You have no cause to fear me — I'm only a girl — but I'm David's friend — and you shaix tell me what you know.''

He sets the lantern upon the table again as her torrent of speech ceases, jauntily Shrugs his shoulders, and utters one of his most biting sneers. "You must pardon me, Miss Manesty, bul — ha, ha, — but this is uncommonly like play-acting." Proof against his gibes, her purpose unshaken^ehe meets him — "What do you know about David Gralani?"

"This," he savagely retorts — he has learned that a sneer is a useful weajpon.

when turned against Love — "this, that he is a mean, miserable screw, one who is grinding gold out of the bones of his men — a wrecker of ships, a something for which the scum of the harbour-side revile him. That is what I know of David Graham."

"Is that all?"' His callous outburst she turns aside with a smile. "Why, I know moTe than that myself. I know at least that David is not a wrecker ; I know that he didn't cast the Habakkuk away nor scuttla the Noah ; and I think I have found the man who did — and one of these •days I shall find out why 'he did it."

Steady, Captain, steady!

"As for the rest " — Margery is speaking again — ''I know it is only too true, but — why, why, why? It isn't David's way. From the little that I've learned I'm persuaded that some other genius of eA'il is at work prompting him. to u"ie thing that I know he must despise. Who is it, Mr Strang? Can you tell me tint? "You will tell me if you know !"" She passes swiftly to his side, her hands secure his cold, unresponsive fingers and hold them fast. " You will help me to undo the wrong that has been done? He's very young, is David ; he's only a boy yet, and all his days are before him ; and if it please you, Mr Strang, if you have the secret I'm looking for, you may fill everyone of those days with joy, and if it please you, you may weight every one with woe. And why should he suffer? Surely you cannot know him, or you would never hesitate ; he has a heart of gold, has David, and until this happened everything he did bore the stamp of truth. You will help me to clear him, Zvlr Strang — dear Mr Strang, you will tell me what you know and help me to 6et him straight with his little world ?

"For my sake, then, if not for his." Still holding his hand she sinks upon her knees on the filthy cabin floor. "I'm only a girl, Mi* Strang, and David and I are — friends. His joys are my joys, and his griefs are my griefs, too, and if the path he has yet to tread be one of shame, I also shall walk the same way. No happiness can be mine unless he shares it, and he can have no sorrow of which I may not bear a part. For my sake, then, you'll do the thing I ask, won't you? I'll forget all the past, I'll look upon all these hideous days with joy, because of you, and I'll pray for you on every one of the days that God has yet to give me!"

Do you hear that, man? Margery Manesty kneels to you. Margery Manesty is praying to you, praying to you as if you were a god instead of what you are. Margery Manesty offers her benisons for you ; think of it — for yyoyou — you — you ; vows that, crouching at the mercy seat, her pure lips shall whisper your foul name and ask for its cleansing. " Not since the kindly finger of Death touched your mother's lips has such a chance been yours.

Prayer ! What is prayer where Self is regnant? Thought ! Ay, he is thinking in very sooth, but only of his own evil design, burrowing for a way of escape, if perchance one be left him. Andj alas for Margery ! whilst her appeal is only half made he detects its point of weakness, and though he realises that his scheme is in jeopardy he haa not yet reached the tine of surrender. Boughly he breaks in upon her pleading and bids her cease. He has had enough of there hysterical vapourings, and now he must insist that she leaves the ship. For the last time — David Graham is nothing to him; for the last time The words lie would utter die away from his lips. Margery's gaze has 6harply turned from himself to the cabin roof; she £>prhiffs to her feet and stretches out her hands. C!os>e by his head, so near that it gently flicks his smooth black locks, a wisp of white eddies and swirls and falls into the waiting fingeis. It is but the work of seconds, and at first Strang fails to detect in the happening any link with his ciisls. Then it dawns upon him that the d^cklighfc Is wide open, and the thing which has floated in from the outside work! is another slip of paper.

He steps to Margery's side, and together their eyes burning with wonder, their souls even touched aito awe, they read the message that unknown hand has sent them —

' ASK— TOM— TTNION. "

Overhead there is a scuttering of The Captain's shoeless feet, but his message has dulled their ears, so that they htar it not. In that moment there is nothing for either of them in the whole world but that slip of paper. Only that, until from the note Mkhael Strang's brain flashes to the writer, to the hand that hurled it from the deck : and, galvanised into life, he darts up the stairs, scurries on a furious hunt among the litter of the deck, and then vanishes in the gloom of the quay. Just beyond the raihvav crossing he falls in with the Sleddlemere brougham, John Curthet on the box and within Nanny Manesty, awaiting in a fever of impatience and anxiety the return of her niece.

Ere the old church clock has called the midnight hour he encounters it again. This time it has halted by the Beckside, that street which hangs on the edge of th-e tiniest of Allerdale's triple- streams, and now Cap'n Dan has been called, and is playing the pilot to Margery, their destination Tom Tinion's home.

But Tinion, scared by ghosts of Michael Strang's raising, his pockets lined with more of Michael Strang's gold, has become a fugitive upon the waters. To-night a tiny boat curvets across the Firth, and drops him ashore on the rock below Kirkcudbright. The morrow shall find him in the narrows of the Clyde, an emigrant in search of a home, a transgressor flying from his transgression.

CHAPTER XXT.-CAFN DAN HOISTS

A NEW FLAG.

An extraordinary creature in many respects, The Captain had at least one commonplace attribute. He was capable of cruelty, was inspired by that subtle 6pirit of everyday demonism which can witness the writhings of a tortured soul and extract enjoyment from the spectacle. His quaint theory of help was indeed one of the products of this condition,, hia indif-

ference to the moral decline of David Graham and his roundabout device for David's regeneration, two of its examples. David lie would save for Margery's sake, but not until Michael Strang had been whipped with the scorpions of retribution and his own morbidity had been satiated. Deep as was the interest that Margery had excited in his breast, the lust of torturewas all-powerful, subduing sympathy, driving him to further expedients of refined cruelty, delaying the word of liberating mercy and the d^ed of man-restoring human kindness. For two weeks he held his hand, and then, when his master, half satined that Tinion's flight had removed the only factor of real peril, was again finding life leas burdensome, Tlie Captain dropped another pencilled note into the letter box.

It was enough — only half a dozen lines ; but it turned the riven rock on which the man had climbed into weltering bog, and the man himself into a palsied craven. From that hour the last scrap of contentment left to the ship-owner by Sell and Spite was torn from his life. Black suspicion dogged him, mystery coiled its slabby tentacles around him, terror walked with him, dined with him, slept with him. Every letter was opened with trembling fingers, every sailor on the quay, every wayfarer in the streets, loomed in his sight a potential foe.

It was the completeness of the disaster that appalled him. From the first he had recognised a certain menace in Tinion's knowledge, and it was for his silence rather than his help that he had paid the mate so heavily. But, after all, Tinion only knew part, whereas the being who scrawled those wretched notes had the entire record in his keeping.

One by one they had dnbb'ed in upon him, this one accusing of the churchyard vow, that one of his hatred of the Grahams, another of his exploits as the wrecker of another man's ships, until in the bulk their pencilled fragments were as so many chapters in a completed tale. Fot a time he dreamed of flight, resolved upon it — anything, even death, was to be desired rather than his presence when the scarifying claws of exposure were bared for the attack. Resolved and then repenting, impelled thereto by the very mystery that terrorised him. In the mass of hidden circumstance there might be a way of escape. Men were weak and great the power of gold. Though he had lost his secret, he might when the hour dawned find a price upon it, and if it came to a pinch he would sacrifice the last coin, in his golden hoard. And while he waited in quaking dread for the lifting of the hidden hand, the opening of the veiled lips, Nemesis, in a peajacket with braid of tarnished gold, gave mocking service to him, and in ruthless savagery waited, too. But in neither plan nor anticipation did tli-e two make any account of the maiden who dwelt in the plain by black-browed Barf.

For Margery, the hour of waiting was spent. From that conference aboard the Hercules she had emerged animated by a new vitality. Down there, amid the reek of the cabin, her vision had become enlarged, the probable crystallised into fact, possibilities flushed into being, mokLng concrete her purpose, binding it with the bonds of rigorous resolution. At once she became the leader in a campaign of pauseless activity. No longer did she ask for guidance; it was she who inspired, suggested, commandied. Robbed of her chief prop by the disappearance of Tinion, she bade Cap'n Dan reveal the story, so far as she had worked it out, to the trustiest of David's men, and thus,- amid all the throng of suspicions which harried the soul of Michael Strang, chere was at least one of them garbed in robes of reality. He was suspect on the harbour ; and the men who watched him so quietly at home scoured the warrens of other ports for the fugitive who had earned his gold. In all her activity, Margery made no show of unreasoning, inconclusive hast*. Every suggestion was franked by thought, every instruction the issue of nicely-bal-anced inference and deep deliberation. In Miss Manesty and Cap'n Dan she aroused a spirit of overpowering wonder, and after that, hope and fear— hope for David and fear for herself, lest in the end failure should be her portion. Little did they reck of the length sfce was prepared to go ere she confessed that end ; little did they dream of the thoughts that came to her, terrifying even herself by their very audacity, as she rambled' ilone through the maze of the woods or high upon the trackless wilds of the silent fells. Winter spent its wrath, and the three rejoiced that David's ships bad all won through. "We must get him back to the old way, missy, before another winter comes round," Cap'n Dan, pleaded ; and then once more he voiced the dread that somehow seemed to dwarf all othere — "Some of his boats'll not stand another battering, an' if only one goes down with men aboard He broke off sharp. They realised in all its completeness the contingency he had in mind. "With men aboard!" That represented the final catastrophe, calamity converted into crime. The black blot of shame might be erased, but never the crimson stain of blood. "We must get him saved before another winter, missy. Oh, if only we. could lay hands on that Tinion wastrel.'

"Yes — but as we can't we must manage without him." "Ay, missy." Dan, who was pacing the floor, stopped and looked down upon the girl. Miss Manesty -turned inquiringly toward her. "Ay, missy ; w hat it is you're thinking on?" Bravely she tried to meet them, tried and faltered. What if to her mountain of difficulty the opposition of those whom she trusted might add another mass? Only a matter of seconds, and then — ■ "You promised to help me, Cap'n Dan." "I'm here, missy; say the word." "You still think that David's in the dark, that he isn't conscious of all that's being done in his name, and won't investigate J"-

'"Sure as death."'

"I shall need more help than yours. How many of David's men can you rely on to do just what they're bidden and care for no consequence?"' "How many? Well, 1 don't think there's any more Tinioiis left. I can't say I mistrust any of them, but, anyway, those I'd want an affydavy with wouldn't man one of David's brigs."

"And you yourself, Cap'n Dan? Whatever I ask you'll not refuse me, not turn back — you'll" not call me foolish nor my scheme a mad one?"'

''Miss Margery, you're hurtin' me.' 1 "Forgive me, Cap'n Dan,"' she pleaded ; ''but I'm so- terribly afraid. All the time I've been building up this plan the way has seemed so s-mooth and easy, but now it is simply strewn with difficulty.'

"What is it you want us to do, missy? I'm growing fearful curious.''

Margery told him. Told him the thoughts that had come to her m the heights and amid the stately trees, told lrm of the desperate design -whose dirin^ had staggered her at first, and then charmed, and again cast down in timorous uncertainty — told the thing *he asked of him and those others who sailed the seas on David's ships.

And then slis braced her«elf to meet the steam of opposing protest, but instead of the tempest became peacefully conscious of i great calm. Nanny Manesty's lips wers laid upon her brow, Xanny Manesty paid tribute to her genius ar.d pronounced a benediction upon her prol>ct

As for Cap'n Dan, he was reduced to a condition of limp ineptitude, his limpness was as that oi a sea -soaked cable. When, after a period of waiting;, Margery begged for his verdict, he weakly waved bis hands and craved foi time.

''It simply caps everything, this does, missy. I'm lost ; can't tell whether I've got s°a room ot am drifting on a lee shore ; can't say whether I'm hove-to or runnin' with stun'sails an" royals set. By-an'-bye, missy, by-an'-bye, when I've got my bearings." His bearings obtained in the by-and-bye time, Dan delivered himself oracularly.

- "Miss Margery." he said — surely never had the face of the little skipper worn such a glow — "to-night I'm sailing under a new flag. The red duster's always been good enough for me, an' I've teen proud of it, but now I've hoisted i new ensign, an' I'm going to ship as mate. I've broken the Manesty flag at the fore, and I'm takiag me orders from Cap'n Margery."

(To be continued.)