s before."

"The sooner, the better."

"Are you sure, monsieur? But one thought it was the tortoise who won
the famous race."

"Take all the time you need," Captain Monk conceded generously, "to
come to a sensible decision."

"But how good you are to me, monsieur!"

XXV

THE MALCONTENT

Singular though the statement may seem, when one remembers the
conditions that circumscribed his freedom of action on board the
Sybarite, that he stood utterly alone in that company of conspirators
and their creatures, alone and unarmed, with never a friend to guard
his back or even to whisper him one word of counsel, warning or
encouragement, with only his naked wits and hands to fortify and
sustain his heart: it is still no exaggeration to say that Lanyard got
an extraordinary amount of private diversion out of those last few
days.

From the hour when Liane Delorme, Phinuit and Captain Monk, in conclave
solemnly assembled at the instance of the one last-named, communicated
their collective mind in respect of his interesting self, the man was
conscious of implicit confidence in a happy outcome of the business,
with a conscientiousness less rational than simply felt, a sort of
bubbling exhilaration in his mood that found its most intelligible
expression in the phrase, which he was wont often to iterate to
himself: Ca va bien--that goes well!

That--the progressive involution of this insane imbroglio--went very
well indeed, in Lanyard's reckoning; he could hardy wish, he could not
reasonably demand that it should go better.

He knew now with what design Liane Delorme had made him a party to this
sea adventure and intimate with every detail of the conspiracy; and he
knew to boot why she had offered him the free gift of her love; doubt
as to the one, scruples inspired by the other--that reluctance which
man cannot but feel to do a hurt to a heart that holds him dear,
however scanty his response to its passion--could no longer influence
him to palter in dealing with the woman. The revelation had in effect
stricken shackles from Lanyard's wrists, now when he struck it would be
with neither hesitation nor compunction.

As to that stroke alone, its hour and place and fashion, he remained
without decision. He had made a hundred plans for its delivery, and one
of them, that seemed the wildest, he thought of seriously, as something
really feasible. But single-handed! That made it difficult. If only one
could devise some way