ongue-tied, dumfounded. Here was a man, apparently of
straw, who was jauntily inviting him to clear out and mind his own
business. He pulled himself together.

"Unless we pick up a Mudros escort somewhere round here," he muttered,
turning away.

Captain Rannie came out of the chart room from which his lean and
cadaverous head had been projecting to deliver his homily on obeying
orders, and looked all round at the white walls of fog. It was as though
he were contemplating some novel but highly convenient dispensation of
Providence which he was prepared to accept as one of the minor hardships
of life. All consciousness of Mr. Spokesly's presence seemed to have
vanished from his mind. He spoke to the helmsman, walked to port and
looked down at the water, looked aft and aloft, and resumed his stroll.

And Mr. Spokesly, craftily placed at a disadvantage, turned suddenly and
clattered down the ladder.

"Well," he thought to himself, pausing on the deck below and still
holding to the hand-rail, "he can't keep it up for ever. And I can't do
anything in this fog. He's going to pile her up."

But as he went into the saloon he could not help asking himself, "What
for?" What gain had Captain Rannie or Mr. Dainopoulos in view when they
ran a valuable cargo on the rocky shores of Lesbos or Anatolia? The word
"ran" stuck in his mind. "Running a cargo" in war-time, eh? One didn't
run cargoes on the rocks, in war-time. He stared so fixedly at Amos, who
was laying the table, that in spite of Evanthia's assurance of future
good fortune, the poor creature trembled and grew pale. Mr. Spokesly
understood neither Greek nor Spanish, or he might have derived some
enlightenment from a conversation with the young Jew. He frowned and
went on down to his cabin. He wanted sympathy in his anxiety. And it was
part of his Victorian and obsolete mental equipment to expect sympathy
from a woman.

She was standing before the little mirror, setting the immense
tortoise-shell comb into her hair at the desired angle, and she gave
herself a final searching scrutiny, as she turned away, before flashing
a dazzling smile at him.

"What is the matter?" she asked in her precise English, seeing the
worried expression on his face. He sat down on the settee, and she
seated herself close beside him, smiling with such ravishing abandon
that he forgot the reason for his concern.

"If I can only get you ashore," he muttered, holding her to him and
kissing her h