wning and cracking
his long fingers--his habit when perplexed. He was a short, thick-set
man, with a round, red face, keen blue eyes, and strong, square jaws: a
typical specimen of the old-time British sailor. Hugh Maclean, on the
other hand, was a lean and lank Australian, of evident Scottish
ancestry. His long, aquiline nose and high cheek-bones were tightly
covered with a parchment-like skin, bronzed almost to the hue of
leather. He wore a close-cropped, pointed beard, and the deep-set gray
eyes that looked out from under the peak of his seaman's cap twinkled
with good health and humor.

"We might alter our course, too, sir," he suggested.

"Ay!" snapped the other, "and get pushed for our pains on to the
Teraghlind Reef. We are skirting those rocks more closely than I like
already."

"You know best, sir, of course. But I meant that we might slip back
toward Manila, and try the other channel after we have given that fellow
the go-by."

"What!" snorted the captain, his blue eyes flashing fire, "run from the
Russian! I'll be ---- first. We haven't a stitch of contraband aboard,"
he added more calmly a moment later. "He daren't do more than stop and
search us."

But Maclean shook his head. "One of them took and sunk the _Acandaga_
last month, sir, and she carried no contraband either."

"Russia will have to foot the bill for that."

"May be, sir. But Captain Tollis--as fine a chap as ever breathed,
sir--has lost his ship, and the Lord knows if he'll ever get another."

"Are you trying to frighten me, Maclean?" asked Captain Brandon,
stormily.

The mate shrugged his shoulders. "No, sir; but I am interested in this
venture, and if the _Saigon_ gets back all right to Liverpool I'm due to
splice Mr. Keppel's niece, and the old gentleman, as you know, has
promised me a ship."

"And hasn't it entered your thick skull that to return as you suggest
would cost fifty pounds' worth of coal? How do you suppose old Kep would
like that?"

"Better burn a few tons of coal than risk losing the _Saigon_, sir, and
mark time till God knows when in a Russian prison."

Captain Brandon shut his mouth with a snap, and muttered something about
Scottish caution that was distinctly uncomplimentary to the Caledonian
race. Then, to signify the end of the argument, he strode to the ladder,
and prepared to descend. Maclean, however, was of an equally stubborn
character. "About the course, sir?" he demanded, touching his cap with
ironi