charged with righteous
anger, descended upon Picard's shoulder.

"Right about face an' back to th' ship, fast as yer legs c'n make ut!"

Picard calmly shook off the hand, and, adding a vigorous push which
sent the captain staggering among the little iron-tables, proceeded
nonchalantly. Holleran leaped to his feet, but there was a glitter in
Picard's eye that did not promise well for any rough-and-tumble fight.
Picard's muscular shoulders moved off toward the vanishing point.
Holleran turned to the captain, and with the assistance of a waiter,
the two righted the old man.

"Do you speak English?" roared the old sailor.

"Yes, sir," respectfully.

"Who wus that?"

The waiter, in reverent tones, declared that the gentleman referred to
was well known in Ajaccio, that he had spent the previous winter there,
and that he was no less a person than the Duke of--But the waiter never
completed the sentence. The title was enough for the irascible
Flanagan.

"Th'--hell--he--is!" The captain subsided into the nearest chair,
bereft of future speech, which is a deal of emphasis to put on the
phrase. Picard, a duke, and only that morning his hands had been
yellow with the stains of the donkey-engine oil! And by and by the
question set alive his benumbed brain; what was a duke doing on the
yacht _Laura_? "Holleran, we go t' the commodore. The devil's t' pay.
What's a dook doin' on th' ship, and we expectin' to dig up gold in
yonder mountains? Look alive, man; they's villany afoot!"

Holleran's jaw sagged.

CHAPTER XXII

THE ADMIRAL BEGINS TO DOUBT

"What's this you're telling me, Flanagan?" said the admiral perturbed.

"Ask Holleran here, sir; he wus with me when th' waiter said Picard wus
a dook. I've suspicioned his han's this long while, sir."

"Yes, sir; Picard it was," averred Holleran.

"Bah! Mistaken identity."

"I'm sure, sir," insisted Holleran. "Picard has a whisker-mole on his
chin, sir, like these forriners grow, sir. Picard, sir, an' no
mistake."

"But what would a duke . . ."

"Ay, sir; that's the question," interrupted Flanagan; and added in a
whisper: "Y' c'n buy a dozen dooks for a couple o' million francs, sir.
Th' first-officer, Holleran here, an' me; nobody else knows what we're
after, sir; unless you gentlemen abaft, sir, talked careless. I say
'tis serious, Commodore. _He_ knows what we're lookin' fer."

Holleran nudged his chief. "Tell th' commodore what we saw on th' wa