iged
to throw his left arm lightly around her waist in order to draw her
in safety to the platform deck. Mr. Farnum, after seeing her safely
aboard, vanished inside the conning tower, going below to smile quietly
to himself.

"As gallant as ever, my Captain!" murmured the handsome young woman
spy, gazing almost tenderly into Jack's face. "What a very strange
craft! And now, conduct me below, please. I am much interested in
seeing how you all live aboard such a little and odd vessel of war."

"I am utterly sorry, Mademoiselle," Jack Benson replied. "But my orders
are that no visitors except naval officers, or those brought aboard by
naval officers, may see the interior of the boat."

"Yet that Japanese has just gone below!" remonstrated Mlle. Nadiboff.

"The Japanese," replied the young captain, "is our cook and steward, and
belongs below."

A light glowed swiftly in Mlle. Nadiboff's eyes, but disappeared almost
instantly.

The handsome young woman opened her mouth as though to speak, then
compressed her lips tightly.

CHAPTER V

EPH LEARNS SOMETHING NEW

"You are not as gallant as you were last night," murmured Mlle. Sara, in
a low tone.

"Last night I was ashore, on social pleasures bent," replied Jack.
"To-day, I am on duty, and duty must go ahead of everything else."

"And I am hungry," continued the young woman, pathetically. "In my
eagerness to see that boat that you command, my Captain, I came away
from the shore before going through the ceremony of breakfast. Do you
mean to say, Captain Benson, that you cannot conduct me to your cabin,
there to have that--your Japanese--serve me with at least a sandwich?"

"Mademoiselle," cried Jack, apologetically, "you can't have the faintest
idea how sorry I am that my instructions are what they are I feel wicked
as I look at your distress, but it is simply wholly impossible for me to
ask you below. I can have food served to you on deck, however."

"What? Eat here before the eyes of all Spruce Beach? And have it made
perfectly plain to every onlooker that I am not welcome here?" cried the
woman spy, reproachfully.

"Oh, but, indeed, you are welcome here," protested Jack. "As welcome as
I am permitted to make anyone. My orders, you know--I am a slave to
those orders."

"Yet there is some one aboard," urged Mlle. Nadiboff, in her most
pleading voice, while there was an almost tearful look in her pretty
eyes, "some one who can change the or