ving brief replies; and gradually his irritation and puzzlement
passed; he was fascinated by the easy grace of the girl; every step he
took was as a rivet hammered into the armor of his determination to
scuttle Leyden's ark of success at the earliest possible moment.

His mind was set on means to that end when he at length looked ahead and
discovered that the girl had vanished. In a dozen steps he came to a
still narrower path leading riverwards, and here she was awaiting him.

"I'll take the basket now, Captain. Will you wait for me here?" she
said, looking into his face with a cool and plain hint that his further
attendance would be inconvenient.

"I may as well come right along," he returned, holding on to the basket.
"I know Gordon. I'm sorry he's ill. I'd like to see him."

"It will not be convenient, Captain Barry," she insisted firmly. "Mr.
Gordon is too ill to see strangers. This cannot be the Gordon you know.
He is a friend of Mr. Leyden. Please wait for me here."

"Now what the devil have I struck!" Barry grumbled, when the girl had
swept out of sight. The swish of her cotton dress could be followed
through the canes and lantanas, and the impulse was upon him to ignore
her command and plunge after her.

"Gordon a friend of Leyden!" he soliloquized, restraining his impulse
while he puzzled the problem out. "That's no mystery; suspense knocked
him out when I got here first. That's no puzzle either. But how in
thunder did Leyden get so solid with the little lady? That's my riddle."

The tangle was too involved for the sailor's matter-of-fact mind. He
obeyed his first impulse and dived ahead into the narrow path, bound to
see Gordon himself and thrash out the matter with him in front of Miss
Sheldon.

He parted the cane thicket, and immediately all about him began the
rustle and subtle movement of living things in concealment. He recalled
in a flash that something very like this had preceded that whirring
through the air, and that thud into flesh that had announced the attempt
on himself and the death of Mindjee, back at the stockade gate. But no
tangible obstacle fell in his way this time. It was a voice, sounding
ghostly in the whispering canes, from an invisible yet very close
speaker.

"You no go, sar. Go back. Fren' for you say it."

"Now by James, that's enough!" swore the sailor, leaping straight in the
direction of the voice. "Come out here and let's see who's running this
Pepper's Ghost hoodle!