were no whispers in it; it was more like visions. He saw that girl
hanging round the neck of a low vagabond - that vagabond, the

vagabond who had just answered his hail. He saw her stealing bare-
footed across a verandah with great, clear, wide-open, eager eyes

to look at a brig - that brig. If she had shrieked, scolded,
called names! . . . But she had simply triumphed over him. That

was all. Led on (he firmly believed it), fooled, deceived,
outraged, struck, mocked at. . . . Beak and claws! The two men, so

differently haunted by Freya of the Seven Isles, were not equally
matched.

In the intensestillness, as of sleep, which had fallen upon the
two vessels, in a world that itself seemed but a delicate dream, a

boat pulled by Javanese sailors crossing the dark lane of water
came alongside the brig. The white warrant officer in her, perhaps

the gunner, climbed aboard. He was a short man, with a rotund
stomach and a wheezy voice. His immovable fat face looked lifeless

in the moonlight, and he walked with his thick arms hanging away
from his body as though he had been stuffed. His cunning little

eyes glittered like bits of mica. He conveyed to Jasper, in broken
English, a request to come on board the Neptun.

Jasper had not expected anything so unusual. But after a short
reflection he decided to show neither annoyance, nor even surprise.

The river from which he had come had been politically disturbed for
a couple of years, and he was aware that his visits there were

looked upon with some suspicion. But he did not mind much the
displeasure of the authorities, so terrifying to old Nelson. He

prepared to leave the brig, and Schultz followed him to the rail as
if to say something, but in the end stood by in silence. Jasper

getting over the side, noticed his ghastly face. The eyes of the
man who had found salvation in the brig from the effects of his

peculiar psychology looked at him with a dumb, beseeching
expression.

"What's the matter?" Jasper asked.
"I wonder how this will end?" said he of the beautiful voice, which

had even fascinated the steady Freya herself. But where was its
charming timbre now? These words had sounded like a raven's croak.

"You are ill," said Jasper positively.
"I wish I were dead!" was the startling statement uttered by

Schultz talking to himself in the extremity of some mysterious
trouble. Jasper gave him a keen glance, but this was not the time

to investigate the morbid outbreak of a feverish man. He did not
look as though he were actually delirious, and that for the moment

must suffice. Schultz made a dart forward.
"That fellow means harm!" he said desperately. "He means harm to

you, Captain Allen. I feel it, and I - "
He choked with inexplicable emotion.

"All right, Schultz. I won't give him an opening." Jasper cut him
short and swung himself into the boat.

On board the Neptun Heemskirk, standing straddle-legs in the flood
of moonlight, his inky shadow falling right across the quarter-

deck, made no sign at his approach, but secretly he felt something
like the heave of the sea in his chest at the sight of that man.

Jasper waited before him in silence.
Brought face to face in direct personal contact, they fell at once

into the manner of their casual meetings in old Nelson's bungalow.
They ignored each other's existence - Heemskirk moodily; Jasper,

with a perfectlycolourless quietness.
"What's going on in that river you've just come out of?" asked the

lieutenant straight away.
"I know nothing of the troubles, if you mean that," Jasper

answered. "I've landed there half a cargo of rice, for which I got
nothing in exchange, and went away. There's no trade there now,

but they would have been starving in another week - if I hadn't
turned up."

"Meddling! English meddling! And suppose the rascals don't
deserve anything better than to starve, eh?"

"There are women and children there, you know," observed Jasper, in
his even tone.

"Oh, yes! When an Englishman talks of women and children, you may
be sure there's something fishy about the business. Your doings

will have to be investigated."
They spoke in turn, as though they had been disembodied spirits -

mere voices in empty air; for they looked at each other as if there
had been nothing there, or, at most, with as much recognition as

one gives to an inanimate object, and no more. But now a silence
fell. Heemskirk had thought, all at once: "She will tell him all

about it. She will tell him while she hangs round his neck
laughing." And the sudden desire to annihilate Jasper on the spot

almost deprived him of his senses by its vehemence. He lost the
power of speech, of vision. For a moment he absolutely couldn't

see Jasper. But he heard him inquiring, as of the world at large:
"Am I, then, to conclude that the brig is detained?"

Heemskirk made a recovery in a flush of malignant satisfaction.
"She is. I am going to take her to Makassar in tow."

"The courts will have to decide on the legality of this," said
Jasper, aware that the matter was becoming serious, but with

assumed indifference.
"Oh, yes, the courts! Certainly. And as to you, I shall keep you

on board here."
Jasper's dismay at being parted from his ship was betrayed by a

stony immobility. It lasted but an instant. Then he turned away
and hailed the brig. Mr. Schultz answered:

"Yes, sir."
"Get ready to receive a tow-rope from the gunboat! We are going to

be taken to Makassar."
"Good God! What's that for, sir?" came an anxious cry faintly.

"Kindness, I suppose," Jasper, ironical, shouted with great
deliberation. "We might have been - becalmed in here - for days.

And hospitality. I am invited to stay - on board here."
The answer to this information was a loud ejaculation of distress.

Jasper thought anxiously: "Why, the fellow's nerve's gone to
pieces;" and with an awkwarduneasiness of a new sort, looked

intently at the brig. The thought that he was parted from her -
for the first time since they came together - shook the apparently

careless fortitude of his character to its very foundations, which
were deep. All that time neither Heemskirk nor even his inky

shadow had stirred in the least.
"I am going to send a boat's crew and an officer on board your

vessel," he announced to no one in particular. Jasper, tearing
himself away from the absorbed contemplation of the brig, turned

round, and, without passion, almost without expression in his
voice, entered his protest against the whole of the proceedings.

What he was thinking of was the delay. He counted the days.
Makassar was actually on his way; and to be towed there really

saved time. On the other hand, there would be some vexing
formalities to go through. But the thing was too absurd. "The

beetle's gone mad," he thought. "I'll be released at once. And if
not, Mesman must enter into a bond for me." Mesman was a Dutch

merchant with whom Jasper had had many dealings, a considerable
person in Makassar.

"You protest? H'm!" Heemskirk muttered, and for a little longer
remained motionless, his legs planted well apart, and his head

lowered as though he were studying his own comical, deeply-split
shadow. Then he made a sign to the rotund gunner, who had kept at

hand, motionless, like a vilely-stuffed specimen of a fat man, with
a lifeless face and glittering little eyes. The fellow approached,

and stood at attention.
"You will board the brig with a boat's crew!"

"Ya, mynherr!"
"You will have one of your men to steer her all the time," went on