you should read
it, for it is one long heroism. It will help you to realise more fully
what your flag stands for. It is my flag, too; I have lived in America
nearly ten years; and never do I grow so angry as when I hear an
American speak slightingly of his country. Here is the hotel. Forgive me
for talking like this; but it has done me good to meet you!"

"And me!" he said. "Must you go in?"

"Yes; my father will be wondering where I am. Good-bye."

She held out her hand and gave his a frank little pressure. Then she
turned and left him.

He watched until the door swung shut behind her; then he walked on
slowly, past the great basins, over the drawbridge, along the crooked
streets of the old town, past the station, and finally he stopped in the
shadow of a crag of rock which sprang abruptly three hundred feet into
the air. Its summit was crowned by the frowning walls of the great fort
which commands the harbour, and along the face of the cliff, blue with
heather, a narrow footpath wound deviously upward. He ascended this for
a little way, and then stopped, his elbows on the wall which guarded it.
Before him stretched the bay, shielded by its jetty, and beyond rolled
the white-capped ocean. That way lay America.

"The land of freedom!" he murmured, and his eyes were bright. "The land
of freedom!"

CHAPTER XI

SHIPMATES

When Dan got back to the hotel for lunch, he found that there had been
many arrivals during the morning. The _Adriatic_ was to sail that
afternoon, as well as the _Ottilie_, and the long dining-room at the
hotel was a busy place. As the head-waiter led him to a seat, he caught
a glimpse, far off, of the girl of the morning. She was sitting at a
table with a white-haired man--her father, of course--with whom she was
talking earnestly. She did not look up, and, in another instant, Dan's
guide had pulled out a chair, and he found himself sitting with his back
toward the only person in the room who interested him.

He told himself this deliberately, after a glance at his neighbours; and
then, in the next moment, he called himself a cad, for every human-being
is interesting, once you get below the skin. But degrees of interest
vary, and Dan felt that he had never met any one who promised so much as
this outspoken girl, with the shining eyes and sensitive mouth. Which
boat was she sailing by, he wondered? It was an even chance that, like
himself, she would be on the _Ottilie_. Yes--but secon