cended the ladder. He nodded and smiled. Then
she turned and faced Chard and the captain.

"Perhaps you would like to put me in irons too, gentlemen," she said
mockingly. "I am not very strong, though stronger than Mr. Carr has been
for many months."

The captain eyed her with sudden malevolence; Chard, bully as he was,
with a secret admiration as she stood before them, still holding her
revolver in her hand. She faced them in an attitude of defiance for a
second or two, and then with a scornful laugh swept by them and went
below to her cabin.

CHAPTER IV

At six o'clock that evening the _Motutapu_ was plunging into a heavy
head sea, for the wind had suddenly hauled round to the northeast and
raised a mountainous swell. Chard and his jackal were seated in the
latter's cabin on deck. A half-emptied bottle of brandy was on the
table, and both men's faces were flushed with drink, for this was the
second bottle since noon. Hendry did not present a pleasant appearance,
for Tessa's pistol had cut deeply into his thin, tough face, which was
liberally adorned with strips of plaster. The liquor he had taken had
also turned his naturally red face into a purple hue, and his steely
blue eyes seemed to have dilated to twice their size, as he listened
with venomous interest to Chard. "Now, look here, Louis," said the
latter, "both you and I want to get even with him, don't we?"

It was only when the supercargo was planning some especial piece
of villainy that he addressed his _confrere_ by his Christian name.
Secretly he despised him as a "damned Dutchman," to his face he
flattered him; for he was a useful and willing tool, and during the
three or four years they had sailed together had materially assisted the
"good-natured, jovial" supercargo in his course of steady peculation.
Yet neither trusted the other.

"You bet I do," replied Hendry; "but I'd like to get even with that
spiteful little half-bred Portuguese devil----"

"Steady, Louis, steady," said Chard, with a half-drunken leer; "you must
remember that she is to be Mrs. Samuel Chard."

"Don't think you have the ghost of a chance, as I said before. She's in
love with that fellow."

"Then she must get out of love with him. I tell you, Louis"--here he
struck his fist on the table--"that I mean to make her marry me. And
she'll be _glad_ to marry me before we get to Ponape. And if you stick
to me and help to pull me through, it's a hundred quid for you."

"How a