ir. They
never raised the ship, and in a little while it was all forgotten.

"But I never forgot it, and I always remembered her, way down there in
all that still green water, waiting there in that little state-room for
me to come back and open the door. And I've growed to be an old man
remembering her; but she's always stayed just as she was the first day
I saw her, when she came toward me smiling and holding out her arms.
She's always stayed young and fresh and pretty. I never saw her but
that once. Only afterward I got her picture from a native woman of
Trincomalee who was house-keeper at the Residency where the governor of
the island lived. Somehow I never could care for other women after
that, and I ain't never married for that reason."

"No, no, of course not! exclaimed Travis, in a low voice as the old
fellow paused.

"Fine, fine; oh, fine as gold!" murmured Condy, under his breath.

"Well," said the mate, getting up and rubbing his knee, "that's the
story. Now you know all about that picture. Will you have a glass of
Madeira, miss?"

He got out a bottle of wine bearing the genuine Funchal label and
filled three tiny glasses. Travis pushed up her veil, and she and
Condy rose.

"This is to HER," said Travis gravely.

"Thank you, miss," answered the mate, and the three drank in silence.

As Travis and Condy were going down the gangplank they met the captain
of the whaleback coming up.

"I saw you in there talking to old McPherson," he explained. "Did you
get what you wanted from him?"

"More, more!" exclaimed Condy.

"My hand in the fire, he told you that yarn about the girl who was
drowned off Trincomalee. Of course, I knew it. The old boy's wits are
turned on that subject. He WILL have it that the body hasn't
decomposed in all this time. Good seaman enough, and a first-class
navigator, but he's soft in that one spot."

Chapter IV

"Oh, but the STORY of it!" exclaimed Condy as he and Travis regained
the wharf--"the story of it! Isn't it a ripper. Isn't it a corker! His
leaving her that way, and never caring for any other girl afterward."

"And so original," she commented, quite as enthusiastic as he.

"Original?--why, it's new as paint! It's--it's--Travis, I'll make a
story out of this that will be copied in every paper between the two
oceans."

They were so interested in the mate's story that they forgot to take a
car, and walked up Clay Street talking it over, suggesting,