ter--was a
genial ruffian of familiar accost, red-faced, round in the stomach,
utterly unscrupulous at a bargain. The Commandant did not like him, and
particularly disliked the prospect of asking him a favour. Most of all
he regretted, as they pushed off, that chance this morning had forced
him to put such a man under a small obligation. He feared that, when it
came to asking leave to open an account, he might seem to be using this
advantage. (Such a fear, it scarcely needs saying, was groundless. In
his business dealings, The Bester was superior alike to gratitude and
rancour, and would bargain with his own mother as with his worst
enemy.)

The Commandant, oppressed with his own thoughts, bent his attention
upon the steering, and punctuated with monosyllables only the exuberant
flow of Mr. Tregaskis' conversation, which, bye-and-bye, as they neared
the roadstead, resolved itself into offers of wagers on the length,
tonnage, and actual carrying capacity of the liner.

She lay very nearly in the middle of the roadstead, broadside-on to the
morning sunshine, and the more the Commandant studied her the more he
wondered at last night's miracle. She had not yet begun to weigh,
though he discerned a couple of St. Ann's pilots talking with an
officer on the bridge. Presently the officer left them, and descended
to the deck, where he stood in the gangway awaiting the boat.

"Major Vigoureux?" he asked, lifting the peak of his cap, as she fell
alongside.

The Commandant, not a little astonished, returned the salutation. "That
is my name, sir."

"I have been expecting you," said the officer. "I am Captain Whitaker,
at your service--the skipper of this vessel, in fact, and thankful
enough, I can tell you, to be alive this morning and in command of her.
Madame's boxes are on deck here, if you do me the favour to climb on
board.... Ah, and here is Madame's maid, to give account of them!"

The Commandant, drawing breath at the head of the ladder, and glancing
down the _Milo's_ majestic length of deck, was aware of four large
trunks, and beside them a neat, foreign-looking woman, who curtsied in
foreign fashion as she came forward.

"M'sieur will take my duty to Madame, and tell her that I have done my
best to pack to her orders. The rest I am to report from Plymouth, when
we arrive."

"And I daresay," put in Captain Whitaker, with an amused turn of the
eye towards the trunks, then back at the Commandant, "Madame would call