"It is easy to confess that which is already known," she murmured.

"Whether we are fated to live one day or fifty years, it will be all

the same to me, dear."

She lifted her face again to his, and would have returned the kisses he

gave her were it not that they lost their one-sided character this

time. It was an odd place for love-making, this darkened nook on the

deck of a disabled and beleaguered ship. But a man and a woman reck

little of time or locality when the call of love's spring-time sounds

in their ears. That magic summons can be heard but once, and it is

well with the world, for those two at least, while its ecstasy floods

the soul.

There was a chance that Joey might have been partly suffocated--though,

to all appearance, he meant to die a willing martyr--had not Suarez

leaned over the upper rail, and asked, in his grating accents, if he

heard the señor captain's voice below.

Elsie, all tremulous and rosy, and profoundly thankful for the

darkness, withdrew herself from Courtenay's embrace and answered the

Argentine.

"Ah," said Suarez, "I am glad you are there too, señorita. Will you

tell him that I am very hungry, and that I have not been relieved at

the proper time. I have been waiting half an hour or more."

"There!" cried the captain, squeezing Elsie's arm, "that comes of using

so many unnecessary explanations. I ought to have adopted the

recognized Jack Tar method and just grabbed you round the waist without

ceremony. I wonder where Boyle is. He and Christobal take the first

watch, and it must be two bells, or later. I will hunt them up.

Good-by, sweetheart. Meet you at supper in ten minutes."

It was a strange and peculiar fact that Boyle had cornered Christobal

in the saloon, and had insisted on telling him various remarkable

anecdotes concerning the one-legged skipper of the Flower of the

Ocean brig. It was still more odd that when Christobal yielded to a

fit of unwonted and melancholy silence after learning from Suarez that

the senor captain had been talking to the señorita for a very long time

on the promenade deck, Boyle should feel inclined to sing.

The chief officer's musical attainments were not of the highest, and

his repertory was archaic. But there must be some explanation of his

unwonted and melancholy chanting. He always spoke of Elsie with the

utmost admiration, and it was no secret that he rendered Courtenay a

sort of hero-worship hidden under the guise of an exaggerated belief in

the good luck which followed the captain of the Kansas in all his

doings. And then, with a chilling inspiration, Christobal knew why the

chief officer had caused him to miss the hour for relieving the watch.

Boyle had seen those two together, and had planned to leave them

undisturbed!




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