And somebody aboard of the _Marlin B._ was a
ventriloquist. Your whole crew weren't ignorant of the accident that
happened on her first trip. Somebody had it in for Sutro Brothers,
and made much of little, same as usual."

"Oh, they _did_?" muttered Horry.

"Anyway," said Captain Latham, "that's neither here nor there. We
aren't sailing the _Marlin B._, for she's in Chilean waters, owned
by a South American millionaire. You can stow that kind of talk,
Horry--anyway, while Miss Bostwick is aboard."

They were until late in the evening beating into Paulmouth Harbor,
but the heavens were starlit and the air as soft as spring. The
tolling of the bell buoy over Bitter Reef was mellow and soothing;
they heard it for a long time before the _Seamew_ made the short leg
of the final tack and went rushing in past the danger mark under
the urge of a sudden puff of the fitful breeze.

"The old bell is welcoming us, Ida May," Captain Latham said to the
girl who reclined in a canvas chair which the cook had raked out of
the lazaret for her use. "I've beat my way in here when it hasn't
sounded so cheerful."

"I am wondering what sort of welcome I shall receive when we get
to--Wreckers' Head, do you call it?" she asked softly.

"That'll be all right, too," he told her with confidence. "Just wait
and see."

They dropped anchor near the Main Street dock in order that they
should be able to warp the schooner in to unload her cargo in the
morning. Tunis allowed shore leave, late as the hour was. But he sat
beside the passenger on the _Seamew's_ deck, and they talked. It was
surprising how much those two found to talk about! Perhaps a good
deal of their inconsequential chatter was to hide the anxiety each
felt in secret as to the future.

However, that talk was a memorable one for both Tunis Latham and the
girl posing as Ida May Bostwick. Two young people can tell a great
deal to each other under certain circumstances in the mid-watch of a
starlit night. The lap, lap of the wavelets whispering against the
schooner's hull, the drone of the surf on a distant bar, and the
sounds of insect life from the shore were accompaniments to their
long talk.

Orion Latham, tumbling over the forward rail from a waterside
dinghy, whispered hoarsely in Johnny Lark's ear:

"What do you know about that? There they are, billin' and cooin',
just where we left 'em when we went ashore. Wouldn't it sicken you?"

But Johnny only grinned and chuckled,