"Yes'm." He slid along the rail to get by her, though hungry to linger.

"To do what?" she asked. "I know; to bring out John the Baptist and
those other two men?"

"Yes'm." He backed off, but the compelling power of interrogatory,
especially of hers, retarded him.

"To turn 'em loose?" she asked.

He smiled ruefully. "It looks like it."

"Not with their pistols on them?"

"Oh, no, he's got their pistols."

"How'd he get 'em?"

"Oh--friendly persuasion. He's fine at that. They'll get 'em
back--unloaded--when they land."

She glanced forward after Mrs. Gilmore, and he sprang away. As the
actor's wife neared the captain's door it opened and Gilmore himself
came out, closing it after him warily. Either the captain was worse,
Ramsey guessed, or the actor had received some startling message, so
grave and hurried were the players. They moved several paces away and
stepped down to the hurricane-deck. She let them converse a moment
alone. At the same time the second engineer, his striker, and Ned passed
close and went below. Now Ramsey advanced, addressing the pair in a
smothered voice:

"It's monstrous! It shan't be! It shan't be done! You shan't go!" The
signal for landing tolled. She stopped short.

But the cause of her silence was Hugh Courteney, close before her. Mrs.
Gilmore tried to draw her back but she stood fast, repeating to him
savagely: "It shan't be! It shan't be done! You shan't do it!"

Again she ceased, as the senator and the general appeared, not with Hugh
though from his direction, but, like Ned and his fellows, bound below.
With a side step she brought them to a stand, saying once more to them:

"It shan't be! It shan't be done! You shan't----"

Both Hugh and Gilmore lifted a hand. There was a reply on the lips of
each, but Hugh's remained unuttered. He glanced to the actor, saying:
"Tell it."

The actor told. "It is not going to be done," he said. "No owner of this
boat, no officer, has ever promised, ordered, or intended it."

Ludicrously, from the well of the neighboring stair, the heads of
Hayle's twins rose and remained gazing. Fortunately for the dignity of
the moment they escaped the eye of Ramsey, who, on highest tiptoe, while
the actor still spoke, was piping incredulously:

"The clerk said it!--two passengers!--to go ashore!"

"He might have said five," Hugh gravely answered, while the senator and
the general blazed with astonishment.

"Five," he repeated directly to the sena