tor; "the three whose release
you demanded and those two scamps you made league with a bit ago on the
boiler deck."

The senator was a conflagration. "Sir, I cannot find----!"

"Words?" Hugh softly interrupted. "That's fortunate. If you do you'll be
landed on the next island."

He turned away and moved to the edge of the roof. Ramsey stared at the
three and fell back to the Gilmores, whose manner, as they returned
half-way to the sick-room, was more grave and hurried than before. The
engine bells were jingling, the wheels stopped. At the roof's edge, well
forward of Hugh, appeared the first clerk, giving commands. The shore
trees glided spectrally into the firelight of the steamer's torch
baskets. A solitary man stood on the bank. The morning star was fading
into the daybreak. In the pilot-house Watson pulled his bell-ropes to
back and to stop again, while veiled in its lingering dusk between him
and the parson's wife "Harriet" stood at a closed window, a vigilant
watcher of every movement below.

With the usual deck-hand on its outer end the stage hung half its length
over the narrowing water. On its inboard half, attended at one side by
the first mate and at their backs by a knot of white-jackets with hands
and arms full of baggage, waited the exhorter, his two champions, and
the sporting pair, outwardly well content, however large or dark the
retributions they were inwardly promising themselves. The twins had come
up from the stair, meeting the senator and the general and holding them
in a close counsel that kept the four scowling. These things the maid at
Watson's side noted so intently as almost to forget him and the lady
next her. She marked the actor go once more into the captain's room, the
Californian come out to Mrs. Gilmore and Ramsey, and the three move
toward Hugh with old Joy in their wake. Before they had quite reached
him he turned and addressed the actor's wife. She drew back
apologetically, the Californian doing the same, but by word and sign
seemed to bid Ramsey stay and speak for her.

As if to himself, but really to the two beside him, Watson murmured:
"Right you air, Mr. Hugh Courteney."

"How is he right?" asked the lady, though she most likely, and the maid
certainly, understood.

"He's telling her," said the pilot, "that it'll simplify matters for her
and her husband and this girl here to sort o' keep out o' the limelight
a spell."

The surmise seemed good, for Mrs. Gilmore and "Califo