pose
it's all right. Yes, I promise. Now, fire away. Wait a minute. Perhaps
I'd better lead off with how I got there. You've been pretty loose up
here, you know," he touched his forehead by way of illustration.
"Perhaps I may save you the worry of framing up questions--my account
may cover everything."

"Did I talk much--rot?" asked Carter.

"Yes, rather. Calling all the time for Trusia--said Carrick was a
King--and lots more of the same kind. Who was Trusia?"

"The Duchess of Schallberg." Carter's reply was unnaturally grave and
his face solemn and tense. "Tell me, Billy," he requested quietly,
"when I sank--was there any one with me?"

"It might have been a bundle of rags--it might have been a man or a
woman, I rather thought it was a woman. What did you do, Cal, run off
with some Cossack's wife?"

"It was Her Grace."

"The deuce it was!" exclaimed Saunderson.

Carter bent forward until their faces were close. "Oh, Billy," he begged
piteously, "don't tell me you let her drown! Don't tell me she is dead!
Don't----"

"I didn't. She isn't," said Saunderson with more care for denial than
lucidity. He laid a restraining, friendly hand on Carter's shoulder.

"You saved her too, then?" The thin talon-like hand clutched Billy's
like a vise.

"No," answered Saunderson reluctantly, beginning to see how matters
stood.

"Where is she then?" was the eager question.

"See here, Cal, you haven't given me a chance to tell you how I came to
be there. I'm just aching for the opportunity too. You don't know it,
but I had a bet with Jackson that you'd go over there when the matter
became known to you. Naturally I took more than a casual interest in
Krovitch after that. Reports got disturbing, so I ran the _Bronx_ over
to sort of hang around until needed. To be perfectly frank, I was
looking for you. When the skipper called me that morning and said some
one was swimming for the boat I took a long guess that it was you. The
first time you sank the launch was almost on top of you. We pulled you
out of the very claws of a Cossack."

"But the girl?--But Her Grace of Schallberg?" It was pitiable how abject
a strong man could become.

"If that was the Duchess of Schallberg, Cal, a second Russian picked her
up, apparently unconscious, and made off with her--toward the Austrian
shore. Just why he went that way no one seemed to know. His comrades
fired after them. No, don't start; no one hit. Bum shots, those
Asiatics."

Seei