't."

"Wife and child gone!" exclaimed O'Keefe.

"From the condition of his mouth he must have been alone at the wheel
and without water at least two days and nights before we found him," I
replied. "And as for looking for anyone on these waters after such a
time--it's hopeless."

"That's true," said O'Keefe. "But his wife and baby! Poor, poor
devil!"

He was silent for a time, and then, at my solicitation, began to tell
us more of himself. He had been little more than twenty when he had
won his wings and entered the war. He had been seriously wounded at
Ypres during the third year of the struggle, and when he recovered the
war was over. Shortly after that his mother had died. Lonely and
restless, he had re-entered the Air Service, and had remained in it
ever since.

"And though the war's long over, I get homesick for the lark's land
with the German planes playing tunes on their machine guns and their
Archies tickling the soles of my feet," he sighed. "If you're in love,
love to the limit; and if you hate, why hate like the devil and if
it's a fight you're in, get where it's hottest and fight like hell--if
you don't life's not worth the living," sighed he.

I watched him as he talked, feeling my liking for him steadily
increasing. If I could but have a man like this beside me on the path
of unknown peril upon which I had set my feet I thought, wistfully. We
sat and smoked a bit, sipping the strong coffee the Portuguese made so
well.

Da Costa at last relieved the Cantonese at the wheel. O'Keefe and I
drew chairs up to the rail. The brighter stars shone out dimly through
a hazy sky; gleams of phosphorescence tipped the crests of the waves
and sparkled with an almost angry brilliance as the bow of the Suwarna
tossed them aside. O'Keefe pulled contentedly at a cigarette. The
glowing spark lighted the keen, boyish face and the blue eyes, now
black and brooding under the spell of the tropic night.

"Are you American or Irish, O'Keefe?" I asked suddenly.

"Why?" he laughed.

"Because," I answered, "from your name and your service I would
suppose you Irish--but your command of pure Americanese makes me
doubtful."

He grinned amiably.

"I'll tell you how that is," he said. "My mother was an American--a
Grace, of Virginia. My father was the O'Keefe, of Coleraine. And these
two loved each other so well that the heart they gave me is half Irish
and half American. My father died when I was sixteen. I used to go