captain!" laughed Heywood, in amazement. "Kneebone--ashore! He
can't be sober!"

All stared; for Captain Kneebone, after one historically brief and
outspoken visit, had never in all these years set foot in the port. The
two young men hurried to the stairs.

Chinamen and lanterns crowded the courtyard, stuffed the passage, and
still came straggling in at the gate. By the noise and clatter, it might
have been a caravan, or a band of half-naked robbers bringing plunder.
Everywhere, on the stone flags, coolies were dumping down bundles,
boxes, jute-bags crammed with heavy objects. Among them, still brawling
in bad Hindustani, the little captain gave his orders. At sight of
Heywood, however, he began once more to caper, with extravagant
grimaces. By his smooth, ruddy face, and tunic of purest white, he
seemed a runaway parson gone farther wrong than ever.

"I've come to stay a month!" he cried; and dancing up, caught Heywood's
hands and whirled him about. "I was fair bursting to see ye, my boy! And
here we are, at last!"

Though his cheeks were flushed, and eyes alarmingly bright, he was
beyond question sober. Over his head, Heywood and Rudolph exchanged an
anxious glance.

"Good! but this is Hackh's house--the nunnery," said the one; and the
other added, "You're just in time for dinner."

The captain found these facts to be excruciating. He clapped Rudolph on
the arm, and crowed:--

"Nunnery? We'll make it a bloomin' chummery!--Dinner be 'anged! A
banquet. What's more, I've brought the chow"--he swept the huddled boxes
with a prodigal gesture,--"lashin's o' food and drink! That's what it
is: a banquet!"

He turned again to his sweating followers, and flung the head coolie a
handful of silver, crying, "_Sub-log kiswasti!_ Divide, and be off with
ye! _Jao_, ye beggars! Not a pice more. Finish! I'll not spend it all on
_you_!" Then, pouncing on the nearest crate, he burst it open with a
ferocious kick. "Stores? The choicest to be 'ad in all Saigong! Look
here"--He held up a tin and scanned the label triumphantly: "Chow de
Bruxelles, what? Never saw chow spelt with an 'x' before, did ye?
French, my boy. Bad spellers, but good cooks, are the French."

Heywood lost his worried frown. Something had happened,--evidently at
Calcutta, for the captain always picked up his vernacular where he
dropped his latest cargo; but at all events these vagaries were not the
effect of heat or loneliness.

"What's up, Captain?" he laug