against him."
"It would be no use your saying anything against

him," Captain Whalley affirmed a little moodily. "As
I've told you before, my life--my work, is necessary, not

for myself alone. I can't choose" . . . He paused,
turned the glass before him right round. . . . "I have

an only child--a daughter."
The ample downward sweep of his arm over the table

seemed to suggest a small girl at a vast distance. "I
hope to see her once more before I die. Meantime it's

enough to know that she has me sound and solid, thank
God. You can't understand how one feels. Bone of my

bone, flesh of my flesh; the very image of my poor wife.
Well, she . . ."

Again he paused, then pronounced stoically the words,
"She has a hard struggle."

And his head fell on his breast, his eyebrows remained
knitted, as by an effort of meditation. But generally his

mind seemed steeped in the serenity of boundless trust
in a higher power. Mr. Van Wyk wondered sometimes

how much of it was due to the splendid vitality of the
man, to the bodily vigor which seems to impart some-

thing of its force to the soul. But he had learned to
like him very much.

XIII
This was the reason why Mr. Sterne's confidential com-

munication, delivered hurriedly on the shore alongside
the dark silent ship, had disturbed his equanimity. It

was the most incomprehensible and unexpected thing
that could happen; and the perturbation of his spirit

was so great that, forgetting all about his letters, he ran
rapidly up the bridge ladder.

The portable table was being put together for dinner
to the left of the wheel by two pig-tailed "boys," who

as usual snarled at each other over the job, while another,
a doleful, burly, very yellow Chinaman, resembling Mr.

Massy, waited apathetically with the cloth over his arm
and a pile of thick dinner-plates against his chest. A

common cabin lamp with its globe missing, brought up
from below, had been hooked to the wooden framework

of the awning; the side-screens had been lowered all
round; Captain Whalley filling the depths of the wicker-

chair seemed to sit benumbed in a canvas tent crudely
lighted, and used for the storing of nautical objects; a

shabby steering-wheel, a battered brass binnacle on a
stout mahogany stand, two dingy life-buoys, an old cork

fender lying in a corner, dilapidated deck-lockers with
loops of thin rope instead of door-handles.

He shook off the appearance of numbness to return
Mr. Van Wyk's unusually brisk greeting, but relapsed

directly afterwards. To accept a pressing invitation to
dinner "up at the house" cost him another very visible

physical effort. Mr. Van Wyk, perplexed, folded his
arms, and leaning back against the rail, with his little,

black, shiny feet well out, examined him covertly.
"I've noticed of late that you are not quite yourself,

old friend."
He put an affectionategentleness into the last two

words. The real intimacy of their intercourse had never
been so vividly expressed before.

"Tut, tut, tut!"
The wicker-chair creaked heavily.

"Irritable," commented Mr. Van Wyk to himself; and
aloud, "I'll expect to see you in half an hour, then," he

said negligently, moving off.
"In half an hour," Captain Whalley's rigid silvery

head repeated behind him as if out of a trance.
Amidships, below, two voices, close against the engine-

room, could be heard answering each other--one angry
and slow, the other alert.

"I tell you the beast has locked himself in to get
drunk."

"Can't help it now, Mr. Massy. After all, a man has
a right to shut himself up in his cabin in his own time."

"Not to get drunk."
"I heard him swear that the worry with the boilers

was enough to drive any man to drink," Sterne said
maliciously.

Massy hissed out something about bursting the door
in. Mr. Van Wyk, to avoid them, crossed in the dark

to the other side of the deserted deck. The planking
of the little wharf rattled faintly under his hasty feet.

"Mr. Van Wyk! Mr. Van Wyk!"
He walked on: somebody was running on the path.

"You've forgotten to get your mail."
Sterne, holding a bundle of papers in his hand, caught

up with him.
"Oh, thanks."

But, as the other continued at his elbow, Mr. Van
Wyk stopped short. The overhanging eaves, descend-

ing low upon the lighted front of the bungalow, threw
their black straight-edged shadow into the great body

of the night on that side. Everything was very still.
A tinkle of cutlery and a slight jingle of glasses were

heard. Mr. Van Wyk's servants were laying the table
for two on the veranda.

"I'm afraid you give me no credit whatever for my
good intentions in the matter I've spoken to you about,"

said Sterne.
"I simply don't understand you."

"Captain Whalley is a very audacious man, but he
will understand that his game is up. That's all that

anybody need ever know of it from me. Believe me, I
am very considerate in this, but duty is duty. I don't

want to make a fuss. All I ask you, as his friend, is
to tell him from me that the game's up. That will be

sufficient."
Mr. Van Wyk felt a loathsomedismay at this queer

privilege of friendship. He would not demean himself
by asking for the slightest explanation; to drive the

other away with contumely he did not think prudent--
as yet, at any rate. So much assurance staggered him.

Who could tell what there could be in it, he thought?
His regard for Captain Whalley had the tenacity of

a disinterested sentiment, and his practical instinct com-
ing to his aid, he concealed his scorn.

"I gather, then, that this is something grave."
"Very grave," Sterne assented solemnly, delighted at

having produced an effect at last. He was ready to add
some effusive protestations of regret at the "unavoida-

ble necessity," but Mr. Van Wyk cut him short--very
civilly, however.

Once on the veranda Mr. Van Wyk put his hands in his
pockets, and, straddling his legs, stared down at a

black panther skin lying on the floor before a rocking-
chair. "It looks as if the fellow had not the pluck

to play his own precious game openly," he thought.
This was true enough. In the face of Massy's last

rebuff Sterne dared not declare his knowledge. His
object was simply to get charge of the steamer and