om," whispered my ubiquitous neighbor. "And the
Italian chap over there is Pietro Ricci. The steward told me so. And the
captain's name is Cecchi; get it? And I know your name, too, Mr. Bayne,"
he added with a grin. "The steward didn't know what was taking you over,
but I guess I've got your number all right. Say, ain't you a flying man
or else one of the American-Ambulance boys?"

I mustered the feeble parry that I had stopped being a boy of any sort
some time ago. Then lest he wring from me my age, birthplace, and the
amount of my income tax, I made an end of my meal.

On deck again I wondered at my irritation, my sense of restlessness.
The little salesman was not responsible, though he had fretted me like
a buzzing fly. It was rather that I had taken an intense dislike to the
man calling himself Van Blarcom; that the girl, despite her haughtiness,
had somehow given me an impression of uneasiness--of fear almost--as she
saw him approach and heard him speak; and above all, that I should
have liked to flay alive the person or persons who had let her sail
unaccompanied for a zone which at this moment was the danger point of
the seas.

My matter-of-fact, conservatively ordered life had been given a crazy
twist at the St. Ives. As an aftermath of that episode I was
probably scenting mysteries where there were none. Nevertheless, I
wondered--though I called myself a fool for it--if any more queer
things would happen before this ship on which we five bold voyagers were
confined should reach the other side.

They did.

CHAPTER IV

"EXTRA"

Toward nine o'clock to my relief it became obvious that the _Re
d'Italia_ was really going to sail at last. The first and second
whistles, sounding raucously, sent the company officials and the family
of the young officer of reserves ashore. The plank was lowered; between
the ship and the looming pier a thread of black water appeared and grew;
a flash and an explosion indicated that the possibly doomed liner had
been filmed according to schedule. "_Evviva l'Italia_!" yelled the
returning braves in the steerage--a very decent set of fellows, it
struck me, to leave so cheerfully their vocations of teamster, waiter,
fruit vender, and the like, and go, unforced, to wear the gray-green
coats of Italy, the short feathers of the mountain climbers, the
bersagliere's bunch of plumes, and to stand against their hereditary
foes the Austrians, up in the snowy Alps.

The details of depart