"STAR" TALES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 10684, 3 February 1913, Page 4

"STAR" TALES.

v',. . . . . 1 *i ♦ « :\ THE- CAPTAIN OF THE ff'i'' SUSAN BREW. .;. " ' (By JACK LONDON.) jjjfev',' CHAPTER T. ~;~,, ' -A sunset of gilt and blue and roso "p. palpitated on the horizon. A tapestry jjLH of-.misty rain, draping downward from "■'"" Indefinite clouds, obscured tho eastern « liyie of soa- and sky. Midway between, .' slightly nearer to the rain, a painted '( s rainbow reached almost c-o the xenith. ■;■ So lofty was its arch that the ends 1 'seemed to curve inward to the ocean j",' in a vnin attempt to complete the per- "'/" fe'c.t circle. Into this triumphal arch, ';■ toward the blue twilight beyond, sailed ■'' ) an open boat. '; - Nor did ever more strangely freight<r <ed Jboat float on the Pacific. In tho ? '■ sternsheets, on tho weather side, a };- stupid-looking Norwegian sailor, in juniform of a quartermaster, steered .''■' 'with one hand, while with the other he '', i .'jlield the sheet of tho spritsaii. . From * -a' holster, belted about his waist, peop'i ,ed the butt of. a business-like revolver. Vf- 'His cap lay on his knees, removed for -');*',-shs sake of coolness; and his short y flaxen hair was prodigiously ridged v\ *over a bruise of recent origin. 3f'l";- Beside the sailor sat two women. The £/ nearer one was comfortably stout and '-: matronly,' with large, dark eyes—full, V-' direct, human. Her shoulders were fwotected against sunburn by a man's Ight overcoat. Becauso of the heat, C, .this' waa" open and unbuttoned, reveal- &* ing tho decollete and rich .materials of '' "dinner dress. Jewels glinted in th-e - hair, at the neck, and on the fingers. ■° .Beside her was a young woman of two l -, or three and twenty, likewise decollete, surf-shielded by a strip of stained oil-' / ' ekin. - Her eyes, as well as the straight ;\ jfiiie'nose and the line of the red curve i V pf the not too passionate mouth, adverV ,tised the closest relationship with the /< [ferst .woman. In the opposite l , stern- '}-''. sheet and on the first cross-seat, lolled j. three men" in black trousers and dinfv sier; Jackets. Their heads were pro- ' " teoted by small squares of stained oili skin similar to that which lay across 'p ih© young woman's shoulders. One, a j .' youngster of eighteen, wore an expres- |- *sion of deepest yearning; the second, t, 'half as old- again, talked with the p daughter; the third, rciddle-aged and y 'complacent, devoted himself to the v ■■ I motrtov. %'\ • Amidships, on the, bottom alongside r 'the ,centrebcard case, sat two darkleyed women, as evidently maids as : - 'their nationality was, the % one Spanish and the other Italian. On 1 -the other side of the centreboard, very V . straight-backed and erect, was an un- ] v Iniistakable English valet, with gase al- '-, !' wa y s SB t on the middle-aged gentleman , ' to anticipate any want" or order. For'ard of the centreboard and just aft the • m3st-stcp, crouched two hard-featured ' Chinese, both with broken heads swath'ed in bloody sweat-cloths, both clad in .- .dungaree garments, grimed and black- ; 'eiied with oil and coaldust. When it is considered that hundreds jCf weary sea-leagues intervened between the open boat and the nearest ' land,, the inappropriatencss of costume ■' |of half of its oocupants may be appro- ,'- j ."Well, brother Willie, what would fjj ;you rather hare or go swimming?" * jieftsed the young woman. ■w, ."A cigarette, if Harrison weren't v ißuch a pincher, 5 ' the youth answered !' bitterly. . "IVe only four left," Harrison said. "■■You've smoked the whole case. I'vo had only- two." { t- Temple Harrison wns a joker. He : '," ; winked privily at Patty Gifford, drew P, ; a curved silver case from his hip ;" ' pocket, and carefully counted the four f. 'cigarettes. Willie Gifford watched v "Kith so ferocious infatuation that his ■• lister,cried out: i. j " B-r-r! Stop it! You make me V ( ehiver.- You look positively canni- ','! //ballistic.''' „[ ."That's all right for you," wa3 the ;"■ irdther's retort. "You don't knoAv '] what • tobacco means, or you'd look ' t cannibalistic yourself. You will, any ' tWay," .he concluded ominously, "after ,-_ a-couple of days more. I noticed you ~< jwerenH a bit aky of taking a bigger tcup of water than the rest when Harp -'rison passed it around. I wasn't M.', Patty flushed guiltily. 4' '\ "It was only a sip," she pleaded. ';-, ...Harrison took out one cigarette, * t-handed it over, and snapped the case .'shut.

'. '."Blackmailer!" lie hissed. , • But "Willie Gifford was oblivious. Already, with trembling fingers, he had ], lighted a match and was drawing the , ■ first inhalation deep into his lungs. On liis face was a vacuous ecstasy. _ "-Everything' will oorne out all '. right," Mrs Gifford was saying to Sedley' Brown, who sat opposite her in the stemsheets. "... "Certainly; after the:miracle of last , night, being saved'by"'some passing ship is the merest "bagatelle,'' "he agreed. "It was a'miracie. I cannot understand now how "our party remain- ,'. Ed-intact and got away in the one boat. And, if it hadn't been for the purser, * Peytbir wouldn't have been saved, nor ', -jour'maids." . i „"Nor would we/-if it hadn't been , -for dear, brave Captain Ashley," Mrs ;" Gifford took up. It was he and the % \ first officer." *_. v' : J f t They-'were heroes, 1 ? "Sedley Brown ' . praised warmly. "But still there -„ ' could' have been so few saved I don't -. see* . . ." /:. '■:": . f. •, /± I don't see why you don't see, with . you and mother the heaviest stock- ",' ' holders in the line," Willie Gifford ~ dashed in. " Why shouldn't they have made a special effort? It was up to . them." -Temple Harrison smiled to himself. t -Between them, Mrs Gifford and Sed- . "'lep Brown owned the majority of the ' ■* ,- stock of the Asiatic Mail—the flourishing 'steamship line that old Silas Gifford had built for the purpose of feeding his railroad with through freight from China and Japan. Mrs Gifford had married his son, Seth, and the . atock. at the same time. • . ". J am sure,_ Willie, we were given . no unfair consideration," Mrs Gifford reproved. "Of course, shipwrecks are -- attended by confusion and disorder, and strong measures are necessary to utay a panic. We were very fortunate, 'that is all." '. "I wasn't asleep." Willie replied. *' And all I've got to say is, it's up to you to make the Board of Directors Sromote Captain Ashley to be commoore: that is, if. he ain't dead and gone, which I guess he is." " As I was saying," Mrs Gifford addressed Sedley Brown, "the worst is , past. It is scarcely a matter of hard--ship ere we shall be rescued. The ivca--ther is delightful, and the nights are not tile 1 slightest hit chilly. Depend upon it, Willie, Captain Ashley shall not be forgotten, nor .the first officer and purser, nor " here she turned with a smile to the quartermaster—''nor shall Gronwold go unrewarded." " A penny for your thoughts," Patty challenged Harrison several minutes later. He started and looked at her, <:?nok • off his absent-mindedness with a laugh and declined the offer. _ For he had been revisioning the horrors of less than twenty-four hours before. It had happened at dinner. The crash of collision had come just as coffee was serving. Yes, there had been confusion arid disorder, if so could be termed the madness of a thousand souls in the face of imminent death. He saw again the silk-gowned Chinese table stewards join in the jam at the foot'of the stairway, where blows were already beng struck and women and children trampled. He remembered, as his own party, led by Captain Ashley, worked its devious way up from deck to deck, seeing the white officers, engineers and quartermasters buckling on their revolvers as they ran to their positions. Nor would he ever forgot the eruption from the bowels of the great ship of the hundreds of Chinese stokers and trimmers, nor the half a thousand terrified steerage pnssengers , —Chinese; Japanese and Korea ii*,*

coolies and land-creatures all, stark mad and frantic in desire to live., Not all the deaths would be due to drowning, ho thought grimly, as ho recollected the crack of revolvers and sharp barking of automatic pistols, the thuds of clubs arid boat-stretchers on heads, and. the grunts of men going down under the silent thrusts ol sheath-knives.

Mrs Gifford might believe what she wished to believe; but he, for one, was deeply grateful to his lucky star that had made him a member of the only party of passengers that had been shown any consideration. Considoraton ! He'could still see tho protesting English duke flung neck and crop from the boat deck to tho raging'steerage fighting up the ladders. And there was No. 4 boat, launched by inexperienced hands, spilling its i>aese»gers into the sea and hanging perpendicularly in th% davits. The white sailors who belonged to it and should have launched it had been impressed by Captain Ashley. Then there was the American Consul-General to Siam — that was just before the electric lights went out—with wife, nurses and children, shouting his official importance in Captain Ashley's face and being directed to No. 4 boat, hanging on end. Yes, Captain Ashley surely deserved the commodoreship of the Asiatic Mail —if he lived. But that lie survived, Temple Harrison could not believe. He remembered the outburst of battle—■ advertisement that the boat deck had been carried—that came just as their boat was lowering away. Of its crew, only Gronwold, with a broken head, was in it. The rest did not slide down the falls, as was intended. Doubtlessly they had gone down before the rush of Asiatics; and so had Captain Ashley, though first he had cut the falls nnfl shouted down to them to shove clear for their lives. And they had, with a will, shoved clear. Harrison recalled how he had pressed the end of an oar against, the steel side of. the Mingalia and after■ward rowed insanely to the accompaniment of leaping bodies falling into the sea astern. And when well clear, he remembered how Gronwold had suddenly stood up and laid about with the heavy tiller overside, until Patty made him desist. Mutely taking the rain of blows on their heads and clinging steadfastly to the gunwale, were the two Chinese stokers who now crouched for'ard by the mast. No; Willie Gifford had not been asleep. He, too, had pressed an oar-blade against tho Mingalia's side and rowed blisters into his soft-hands. But Mrs Gifford was right. There were several tilings it would be .well to forget.

<• CHAPTER 11. : Daybreak found the. boat rolling on a silken sea. Half the night had Deen dead calm. The big spritsail had democratically covered coolies, servants and masters. It was now thrown aside, and Harrison began doling out ha If-cups of water. Willie,, smoking another of the precious cigarettes, looked studiously away when a sip more than the others received was poured for his sister.

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

"Now, Willie, row—we're saved!" Pattv cried.

" Nothing to stop me from getting my drink of water first," replied that imperturbable youth, addressing himself to the forgotten water-breaker and drinking cupful after cupful. As the boat drew near the schooner, they saw several faces peering at them over the rail in the waist of the ship. On the poop a large, heavy-shouldered man smoked a blackened pipe and surveyed them stolidly. Sedley Brown did not know the etiquette of being rescued at sea from an open boat: but he felt that this, some how, was not the way. It was embarrassing. He resolved to make an effort. " Good morning," he said politely. "Good morning," growled the big man in a vast, husky voice that seemed to proceed from a scorched throat, and that caused Mercedes and Matilda to jump and cross themselves. ' What luck?"

"Finest in the world," Sedley Brown replied brightly. . "We're saved." "Aw hell!"'was the surprising comment. "I thought you was out fishing."

This was too much for Sedley Brown, who retired from the negotiations. "We're the sole survivors of the Mingalia. sunk in collision night before last." Willie cried out. "I suppose I'll have to let you. come aboard." came the coffee-grinder voice. " Harkhis 'em a line there." '•'You don't seem a bit glad to see us," Mrs Gifford said airily, as she stepped on deck from the rail. " I ain't, madam, not a damn bit," was the reply of the strange skipper. CHAPTER ITI. Mrs Gifford came up the companion ladder from the stifling cabin, looked vainly about for a deck chair, and collapsed against the loiv side of the cabin house. Her handsome black eyes were flashing. "It's atrocious," she cried. "It is not to be endured. He is an insulting brute. Anything—the open boat—ia better than this horrible creature. And it isn't' as if he didn't know better. He does it deliberately. It is his way of showing we are not welcome."

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

There was no awning, and the pitch oozed from the sizzling deck. From below came the mild protesting accents of Sedley Brown, and squeals and Ave Maria's from the maids. "Done!" Mrs Gifford exclaimed. "What has he not done? He has insisted on putting Mr Brown and me into the same stateroom. They're awful little cubby-holes; no ventilation, no conveniences "-

She" ceased abruptly as Captain Decker emerged from, the companionway and approached her. Patty shuddered and drew closer to Harrison ; for the skipper's brown eyes were a-smoul-tler.

" Yoti must excuse me, madam," he rumbled at- Mrs Gilford. "How was Ito know? .1 thought you and tho gentleman below was married. Hut it's all right." His I'aco beamed with a laboured lienevolence. ." I tell you, it's all right. I can splice- the two of you legal any time, such boiii' a- captain's authority on tho high seas." "(Jo away, go away!" Mrs Gilford moaned. Captain Decker fixed his terrible eyes yearningly on Patty and Harrkon. "I've 'pulled teeth/' the skipper began, voluminously husky. " and I'vo buried corpse?, and, once I sawed off a man's leg; but damn me if-I've ever spliced a couple yet! Now, how about the two of you?" patty and Harrison shrank instantly apart. '•' ft might make things more convenient down below," the other was urging, when Bed ley Brown arrived on d*ek. . Him the captain immediately addressed :

"Hcy-~you; don't you want to get married? 1 can do it." Sedlov "Brown looked involuntarily at Mrs Cifford and gasped in astonishment. "No; bless me, no; of course not, certainly not!" he declined with embarrassed haste. .

Captain Decker's disappointment was mauii'est in his coffee-grinder throat. " All right, my bully. May bo you ain't seen tho cook yet. ' 1 won't say he's clean; but I; will say he's a Chinaman. " You'll'luuik withhim." He turned upon Harrison. "You still got a chance. Say the word an' I'll tie you up to the girl tighter 'n all hell." " And if I don't?" Harrison demanded. "Why, you'll bunk with At that' moment the cabin boy, a grinning, turbaned, moustached Lascar, passed -aft along the poop. "With the cabin boy—that's him," the skipper completed his sentence. "Then, I'll "bunk with the cabin boy," Harrison deeidod. "Suit yourself." Captain Decker strode to the eompanionway, and shouted down: " Where's ■ that mate? . asieop, hey? . . . Rout 'm out. Toll 'm I want 'm. . . Jump! you black devil, you! Jump!" Ho turned about to the survivors of the Mingalia. " Now, here's the slcspin' arrangements. Down below there'* six rooms: two starboard, two port, two aft undr the '"deck. You tvo women 'll bunk in number one port; the two women in number two puru; the cock and his nibs here in port afterroom "

"I shall not sleep there," Sedley Brown announced. " I shall sleep on the cabin floor."

" You'll sleep where I tell you to," Captain Decker roared. " Who asked you aboard the Susan Drew? I didn't. You'll sleep with the Chink, or I'll know tho reason why, or my name ain't Bill Decker. That servant of yourn 'll sleep on the cabin'floor." He now addressed Harrison: "You will bunk with the . cabin boy in the starboard after-room —Where's that mate?"

A most forbidding individual came up through the companion. He was as large as the skipper and as heavily built. Swarthy skinned and highcheeked, his features were distinctly mongoloid, despite cut lips, lacerated ears, a blackened eye, and a monstrously swollen nose. He was perplexed, stupid, and in very evident fear of the captain. " Ladies and gentlemen, this is tho mate of the Susan Drew. He was a beauty once upon a time. He was some man before he-run foul of me, which, wa-s only yesterday. Look at 'im now. Flat-Nose Buss is his name. An' take it from me that nose was flat I before I landed on it. Flat-Nose, you I got to take a bunk mate. Where's that '•' young whelp?" i'" Captain Decker turned and glared at Willie Gifford sauntering aft from the break of the poop, a brown-paper cigarette carelessly stuck to his lower lip. "Here, you!'; Willie stopped short. " Take that cigarette out of you;' mouth when I talk to you !"'the skipper bellowed. Willie hesitated, the skipper sprang toward him. and 'Mrs Gifford screamed. The cigarette came out with despatch, and Captain Decker turned on Mrs Gifford. \ v

'•'Madam, is there any reason why you and his nibs oughtn't to i>e married?"

Mrs Gifford disdained reply. "Is there any reason you ought?" She looked appealingly to Patty, who came to her side. The captain returned to Willie. " That's right, youngster. Learn to take orders. You see that handsome man by the companionway. That's Flat-Nose. And that's what Ido to them I don't love. Throw that cigarette over the side—that's right—and smoke no more of 'em. Take a pipe if you want to smoke like a man. Now, you an' Flat-Nose are going to bunk together. Flat-Nose, you're responsible for 'im. If ho cuts up any didoes, spank 'm." • Captain Decker strode the length of the poop and back, studied the clouddriftage crossing the sky from the north-west, debated, a moment, then remarked to the company in general: " It's mighty hot on this deck. Now, if by chance anybody might want to get married, I guess I could manage to rig up some sort of an awning." CHAPTER IV.

Below, they sat in anxious council. A week had passed, in which everybody had been bullied and variously insulted, while Willie had been rope's-ended twice for smoking cigarettes and then turned to at holystoning the poop and scrubbing paint-work. Mrs Gifford and Patty sat at the cabin table, their shoulders and arms at last covered by. extemporised shirts of cotton drill. The Susan Hrew was in violent motion. The surge and gurgle of the water could be heard through her thin sides, and by her long lifts and lunges it was apparent that she was winged out and running before a stiff breeze. "He is going to Hawaii," Sedley Brown was reporting to Mrs .Gifford. "I charged him with it to His face—told him it must bo so, judging by the course he was steering." " And it is only six days by_ our steamers, from Honolulu to San Francisco," Patty cried joyously. "But ho refuses to land us," Sedley Brown went on. "He gives no reason. Ho merely reiterates that we'll see neither hair nor hide of the islands any more than he will. 1 can't make out this vessel. There is something wrong about her. But what?" "Begging your pardon, sir," the valet spoke up;'»"but I know what. This ship is a smuggler, sir." "Nonsense, Peyton," Mrs Gifford reproved sharply. " That's just your imagination. The age of smuggling is past, except among; passengers from Europe landing in New York." "What could he smuggle?" Patty asked.

" Opium, Miss, begging your pardon," the valet replied. "Bv George, that's right!" Harrison smote" his leg loudly. " The new tariff law's been in effect over a year now. Opium is way up. I remember reading about it six months ago in tne San Francisco papers." "But what will wo do if he smuggler and won't put us ashore?" Mrs Gifford demanded.

All stared hopelessly. No suggestions were offered.

"Very well, then," she said firmly: "I shall speak to this brute myself. I shall pay him to land us. I shall " A pair of feet and legs appeared on the companion. ladder, and Captain Docker descended.

"Look here, sir," Sedley Brown gallantly sprang into tho breach. ""We're

"What situation?" demanded the bocn discussing the situation "

skipper. "We know ail about this ship," Mrs Gifford said sternly. '' We know, you are smuggling -opium into Hawaii, and that is why you refuse to land us. But I will pay you to land us. I will pay you five thousand dollars." " I wouldn't if you made it fifty 'thousand," was tho gruff rejection. "I do make it fifty thousand. I will pay you fifty thousand dollars to put our party ashore anywhere on tho Hawaiian .Islands-" Captain Decker gave her a searching glance, and seemed convinced that she meant it. But the effect upon him was contrary to what they expected. His smooth-shaven face, harsh and savage, set 'obstinately. - " You can't walk over mo with your money," he sneered. "Bill Decker ain't a pauper. Fifty thousand ain't no more to mo than a piece of shavin' paper. Yes; the Susan Drew is a smuggler, and I don't give a rap who knows it, an' I'll see to it none of you get shore in Hawaii to spread the news. ' Fifty thousand ! Huh! Me and my partners make enough on this one run to retire. I got fifty tons of'the dope below. It is worth fifteen dollars a pound. Figure it out. Think I'd risk a million an' half just to please you? Why, I'd give- fiftv thousand myself to get rid of you, if there was any way. But there ain't. Take it from me, madam, I ain't stuck on you."

CHAPTER V.

•The days came and Avent. In vain Harrison and Sedley Brown scanned the sea-line for land. They "knew the high peaks of the Hawaiian Islands were often sighted a hundred miles away; but Captain Decker was true to his word and raised neither hide nor hair of them. His rendezvous was a matter of prearranged latitude' and longitude in the ocean waste far' off from the travelled steamer tracks. One day, after the morning observation, he shortened sail and hove to. Though days and nights of fresh winds Hew, the Susan Drew drifted idly. After each morning observation he would put on sail, regain the lost position, and heave' to again. " Of course—the fox—he is too cunning to venture in to land," Harrison remarked to Patty. " This is the meeting place, where he will tranship the opium. He's made a good passage and is ahead of his time,, that is all." Captain Decker grew more "insufferable. He had little manners and less courtesy. He dominated any conversation he engaged in, and rudely broke in upon any conversation in which others chanced to be engaged. His table conduct was abominable. He could never keep out of paint or tar,

nor refrain from springing to haul on a rope. He was stronger than any two oi the sailors; and it was a splendid sight, swinging on a halyard with a turn under a pin, to see him throw himself back and. down till his broad shoulders almost touched the d«ck. But the effect on his hands of this inveterate sailorising was not nice—-at least, for those who sat with him at table. His hands, skinned and scarred, gnarled and calloused, filthy with dirt grimed deep into tho texture of the skin, were anything save appetising to contemplate. Furthermore, he insisted on serving, and did so with those same members, upon which, during the performance, every eye was glued. Shewed prunes was a prime favourite of his, and graced the table three times daily. "When he began on his full saucer, all conversation died away. Every persou at the table gazed fascinated at tho prunes disappearing into his mouth. But no pits came forth. Toward the last his cheeks would begin to bulge and his eyes to roll. Then, at \the end, he would solemnly bow to the empty saucer and spit out the accumulation in one single, heroic effort. Mrs Gifford he made especially uncomfortable. He would gaze at her for long periods in a curious, speculative way. They even knew him to break off in the middla of a sentence and so to gaze at her, with dropped jaw and puzzling eyes. "No, you are not my style," he remarked, emerging from one such brown study. "I never did see anything in stout brunettes. Besides, it. wouldn't be legal. A sea captain can splice anybody but himself. He's like a lighthouse that way." " A lighthouse?" Patty asked boldly striving to divert the conversation.

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

With her daughter and Temple Harrison very much occupied in aiding each other to. pass the time, Mrs Gifford was driven more and more by Captain Decker's persecution to accept the attentions of Sedley Brown. " Now, don't worry/' she told Patty, who had twitted her. " I haven't the slightest intention of marrying Sedley. He is too much like your dear father.— No, no, nothing invidious—your father was a dear; but he was too good, too sweet, too "mild. I never understood it, cither, how. such a gentle, nonassertive man could so successfully wield the immense financial power that was his. Of course, Old Silas laid the foundation and built the structure; but your.father ably realised all that Silas had planned and not yet achieved. And ho did more. The Caledonia and North

Shore was entirely his own idea; and. in the face of their calling it • Gifford's Polly ' for years, look at what it is today.'" "But T don't object to, Bodley Brown." Patty hastened to disclaim. "But I. do—as a husband," Mrs Gifford went on. "I know all you would say—our financial interests are so similar, Asiatic Mail, Carrnel Consolidated, and all the rest; but . . . well, I couldn't bring myself t* marry him, that's all. He's a dear, kind friend. As such, I adore him. But as a husband . Tatty, dear, if ever I. marry again it shall bo a man, a big, strong man." "But father was big and strong," Patty defended. "He played football at College. Sedley Brown says so, and says that he weighed nearly two hundred pounds. I scarcely remember him myself. I wasn't more than four or five years old at the time." "You've seen photographs and portraits of him, though. Don't you remember that ridiculous beard of his?— and on so young a man ! Don't you see. Pattv? That beard tells tho whole story'. 'He hid his face from men's eyes'. He was not aggressive. He could never norvo himself to walk over the face of things rough-shod. He was an adept at finding peaceful ways around. If ever I marry again, it will be a human man, with spunk, who can raise his voice and swear at least once in a while, and fly off the handle; and if ho does play the fool, play it with strength. I could even forgive such a man for drinking too much on occasion. Your father, my dear, was too perfect for a commonplace mortal woman like me. But it is all lx?sido the question. I shall never marry. Thero is no proof of your father s death—--" . "But the law?" Patty interposed. "Oh, of course, it is legally established, for business purposes! But I want-moral proof." "Yet, there was his hat, picked up off Yerba Buena a week after bis disappearance," Patty argued. "In my mind, in everybody's mind, there isn't tho slightest doubt but that lie was drowned in San Francisco Bay—"

Through the open skylight .froir below came squeals of terror from Mercedes and Matilda, the servile tones of Peyton, and the roaring liuskiness <if Captain Decker's whisky - corroded throat.

"Begging your pardon, sir. I don't understand," Peyton was- apologising. " Then, I say it again,'' rasped the skipper. " There's the two skirts. Cast your lamps over 'em. Which'll you havs?—the Dago? or the Eyo'talian?" More squeals and Ave Marias from the two maids, and reiterations on tho valet's part of non-understanding. "By the tarpaulins of Tartarus!" cursed Captain Decker. " Ain't it plain as the nose on your face? Ain't you a man? Ain't these here women? Ain't I goin' to marry you to one or the other?"

"But you can't, sir " > "Can't! May be you don't' know the authority of a captain on the high seae? I can do anything! I can mast-head you; I can keel-haul yotf ; I—and I will, if you don't pick one of them skirts, a.n' damivlively about it!" " But I won't be a bigamist, sir, begging your pardon/; Peyton wailed. "I've a wife, sir,' home in England—" Further explanations were cut short by a snort of rage from the skipper. "I always thought there was something underhanded about you—you, with your lick-spittlin' an' cringin'. An' a married man all the time!" "Begging your pardon, sir." Peyton stammered, "Mr Brown, my employer, sir, knows that I am married. You ask him, sir. He knows I send regular-re-mittances home, sir. He can tell you "

. Ar-r-r-g-g-g!" Captain Decker's inarticulate disgust was as. a coffeegrinder in'violent eruption. "Shut up 1 "What are you. .making all the noise about?"

Mrs Gilford and Patty heard the skipper s heavy tread on the companion ladder, and in trepidation awaited his appearance on deck. Instead of an explosion, all he was guilty of was a long stare across the sea,, culminating m a woe-begone: "Oh dear, oh dear'" CHAPTER Vl He would have been forty-eight years old_had he lived," Mrs Gifford was telling Temple Harrison. _ Most of the party of survivors were sitting on the lee of the poop, in the shady down-draught of the big mainsail.

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

"My husband," Mrs Gifford answered.

The skipper proceeded at once to dominate the conversation. "How old d'ye think I am?" ,J£ < ? bod y interest, though Willie, on hands and knees, scrubbing paint-work, favoured his persecutor with a glare of hatred. " I am eighteen years old, madam," xlie skipper continued. He struck his chest with emphasis. "I—me—this man' you see before you, for a fact, has lived eighteen years." " You must have been born mangrown," Sedley Brown observed. "I was., and with whiskers, sir and a moustache. I never had a'father or mother. I was born, a man, in a ship's fo c's'le."

n."I> l n (lid you ? efc 3'our name,' then?' Harrison queried. "From the ship's papers. There it was, m black and white, Bill Deckermo. The first thing I did after I was born ",

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

Captain Decker detected a shudder on Mrs Clifford's part. ''And proud of it, madam!" he thundered. " Proud of 'it I"

"But what is the joke, Captain Docker?" Patty asked. "It ain't a joke. It's facts. I first opened my eyes in the world in the fo'c's'le of the Ermyntrude, eighteen years ago. That's how old I am—eighteen years. And I fought my way up. When I was one year old I was bosun. Before I was two I was second mate. By the time I was three, I was mate, an' a proper bucko at that " He broke off abruptly! His seaman's eye, mechanically roving the sea-rim, had lighted upon something. "Sail ho!" he cried. "Where's that lookout? Two points on the weather bow, there!—l'll attend to his case.—Flat-Nose, you! Take the glasses up to the cross-trees and see what you can make of it."

\To be concluded to-morrows)