recognising his voice, "and come no
earlier than you want him, I'll wager. There's more than one of you has
got his gruel, I'm thinking."

He came into the light. "Are you armed, doctor?" said he.

"You can feel," said I, and he clapped his hands down my pockets.

"Well, I don't know," he said, in a hesitating way. "It's true enough.
Davenport's dead as mutton, and Stephenson and Coyne are down in their
bunks. But it's Mr. Holgate commands here. I'll call him." He went
forward and whistled, and presently two other men approached, one of
whom I saw was Holgate by his rolling form.

"Glad to see you, doctor," he said cheerfully. "I was hoping to be
honoured by a visit, but, hang me! if I expected it. Come along now,
and let's get some light on the case."

He led the way into the forecastle quarters, and emerged into the room
in which the hands had their meals, which was lit by electricity, as
were all the cabins and saloons of the _Sea Queen_.

"These digs are not what I'm accustomed to, doctor," he said, taking a
seat. "I'm frank, you see; but of course I retire only to jump better.
Isn't that how it goes? We jumped too soon, you see; and that was you.
If it had not been for that fool Pierce! Twice the essential ass played
into your hands. You were pretty smart, though I gave you a lead. There
I was the fool."

"Well, Mr. Holgate, as between man and man, you were," I said.

He laughed. "Oh, it will work out all right, but it makes it bloody.
Now, there was no need of blood in this little job, not if it had been
rightly managed, and I'll take blame for that. No, you were my
mistake."

He looked at me in his tense unblinking way, as if he would have torn
out of me on that instant what I thought and what I really was.

"I shall not be your last," I said indifferently.

"Have a drink," he said. "We've got some good champagne, all under lock
and key, you bet, my son. That's not going to be my mistake, at any
rate. I've not lived forty years for nothing. I'm going to pull this
off."

"Thank you," said I. "But it's business I've come on."

"Business and 'the boy' go together in the city, I've heard," he
answered. "Well, is it terms you want?"

"Oh, dear, no," I replied. "Only an affair of mercy. You've got two
wounded men, and there's McCrae."

He looked down for a moment. "McCrae was another mistake, but not
mine," he said. "You can't do any good to McCrae. But you can see the
others, if you will. Not that