t down
suddenly on the hard cobbles, while Frobisher himself dropped one of his
portmanteaux.

The fat policeman on duty at the entrance chuckled loudly; Frobisher
laughed and picked up his bag, as he murmured an apology; but the victim
on the cobbles appeared to be saying unpleasant things venomously in
some language quite unfamiliar to the young lieutenant--who knew a good
many--and this caused him to pause an instant and look at the man.

He was a brown, or rather, yellow man; and for a moment Frobisher took
him for a Chinaman. But a second glance convinced the latter that he
did not belong to that nation, nor to the Japanese, although he was
undoubtedly of Eastern extraction.

Murray had no time to waste in conjectures, however, and with a hearty
English "Sorry, old man!" he proceeded to the _Quernmore_, where Drake
himself conducted him to his state-room.

Frobisher would have left his unpacking until the evening, and gone on
duty at once; but Drake informed him that there was no need. All the
cargo was aboard; the crew--specially selected men--were all in the
forecastle; and there was nothing to be done until three o'clock, when
Drake would get his papers, and the tug would arrive to help him out of
the dock. Frobisher therefore unpacked and stowed his things away;
afterwards getting into his first-officer's uniform, which had been
hastily adapted from his own old Navy outfit by the removal of the
shoulder-straps and the "executive curl" from the gold stripes on the
sleeves. He then proceeded to examine the parcel placed in his hands by
Dick Penryn.

Removing the brown paper, he found a square, polished mahogany box,
fastened by two hooks as well as by a lock and key; and, upon opening
the lid, he gave a cry of pleasure and surprise.

Inside were a pair of most business-like large-calibre, blued revolvers,
carrying the heavy .450 cartridge--serviceable weapons indeed, capable
of dropping a man in his tracks at a distance of a hundred yards. In
addition to the weapons themselves, there was a cavity beneath the tray
in which they rested, fitted up to contain exactly one hundred rounds of
ammunition, and it was this--deadly-looking, blunt-nosed bullets in
brass cartridge-cases--that had made the parcel so heavy. With his eyes
snapping with gratification, Frobisher locked away the case in a drawer,
and went out on deck to find Drake.

As he emerged from the companion-way, he saw that the tug was already