ere!"

"Not there! Grande Dieu!"

"Sh-h! Take it--read it. I will see you when we land. Not here--it
is too dangerous. Au revoir!"

Then he passed on and round the curve of the deckhouse to the
promenade on the other side; and "Monsieur," with the paper hard
shut in the grip of a tense hand, moved fleetly back toward the
smoke-room.

But not unknown any longer.

"Gawd's truth--a woman!" gulped Dollops in a shaking voice.

"No, not a woman--a devil!" said Narkom through his teeth. "Margot,
by James! Margot, herself! And what is he--what is Cleek?--that a
king should enter into compact with a woman to kill him? Margot, dash
her! Well, I'll have you now, my lady--yes, by James, I will!"

"Guv'ner! Gawd's truth, sir, where are you going?"

"To the operator in charge of the wireless--to send a message to the
chief of the Calais police to meet me on arrival!" said Narkom in
reply. "Stop where you are. Lay low! Wait for me. We'll land in a
dozen minutes' time. I'll have that Jezebel and her confederates and
I'll rout out Cleek and get him beyond the clutches of them if I tear
up all France to do it."

"Gawd bless you, sir, Gawd bless you and forgive me!" said Dollops
with a lump in his throat and a mist in his eyes. "I said often you
was a sosidge and a muff, sir, but you aren't--you're a man!"

Narkom did not hear. He was gone already--down the deck to the cabin
of the wireless operator. In another moment he had passed in, shut
the door behind him, and the Law at sea was talking to the Law ashore
through the blue ether and across the moonlit waves.

* * * * *

It was ten minutes later. The message had gone its way and Narkom was
back in the lifeboat's shadow again, and close on the bows the
lamps of Calais pier shone yellow in the blue-and-silver darkness.
On the deck below people were bustling about and making for the
place where the gangplank was to be thrust out presently, and link
boat and shore together. On the quay, customs officials were making
ready for the coming inspection, porters were scuttling about in
their blue smocks and peaked caps, and, back of all, the outlines
of Calais Town loomed, shadowy and grim through the crowding gloom.

The loneliness of the upper deck offered its attractions to the
Mauravanian and to Margot, and in the emptiness of it they met
again--within earshot of the lifeboat where Narkom and the boy lay
hidden--for one brief word bef