"I have come to you with a grievance, Mr. Strang," he began. "A
grievance which I feel sure you will do your best to right. Perhaps you
are aware that some little time ago--about two weeks back--your people
boarded my ship in force and robbed me of several thousand dollars'
worth of merchandise."

Strang had drawn a step back.

"Aware of it!" he exclaimed in a voice that shook the room. "Aware of
it!" The red of his face turned purple and he clenched his free hand in
sudden passion. "Aware of it!" He repeated the words, this time so
gently that Nathaniel could scarcely hear them, and tapped his heavy
stick upon the floor. "No, Captain Plum, I was not aware of it. If I
_had_ been--" He shrugged his thick shoulders. The movement, and a
sudden gleam of his teeth through his beard, were expressive enough for
Nathaniel to understand.

Then the king smiled.

"Are you sure--are you _quite_ sure, Captain Plum, that it was my people
who attacked your ship? If so, of course you must have some proof?"

"We were very near to Beaver Island and many miles from the mainland,"
said Nathaniel. "It could only have been your people."

"Ah!"

Strang led the way to a table at the farther end of the room and
motioned Nathaniel to a seat opposite him.

"We are a much persecuted people, Captain Plum, very much persecuted
indeed." His wonderful voice trembled with a subdued pathos. "We have
answered for many sins that have never been ours, Captain Plum, and
among them are robbery, piracy and even murder. The people along the
coasts are deadly enemies to us--who would be their friends; they commit
crimes in our name and we do not retaliate. It was not my people who
waylaid your vessel. They were fishermen, probably, who came from the
Michigan shore and awaited their opportunity off Beaver Island. But I
shall investigate this; believe me, I shall investigate this fully,
Captain Plum!"

Nathaniel felt something like a great choking fist shoot up into his
throat. It was not a sensation of fear but of humiliation--the
humiliation of defeat, the knowledge of his own weakness in the hands of
this man who had so quickly and so surely blocked his claim. His quick
brain saw the futility of argument. He possessed no absolute proof and
he had thought that he needed none. Strang saw the flash of doubt in his
face, the hesitancy in his answer; he divined the working of the other's
brain and in his soft voice, purring with friendship, he followed