bruptly to Nott. "You say it was the same Lascar you saw
before."

"It was."

"Then all I can say is he is no agent of de Ferrieres's," said Renshaw,
turning away with a disappointed air. Mr. Nott would have asked
another question, but with an abrupt "Good-night" the young man entered
his room, locked the door, and threw himself on his bed to reflect
without interruption.

But if he was in no mood to stand Nott's fatuous conjectures, he was
less inclined to be satisfied with his own. Had he been again carried
away through his impulses evoked by the caprices of a pretty coquette
and the absurd theories of her half imbecile father? Had he broken
faith with Sleight and remained in the ship for nothing, and would not
his change of resolution appear to be the result of Sleight's note?
But why had the Lascar been haunting the ship before? In the midst of
these conjectures he fell asleep.

VII

Between three and four in the morning the clouds broke over the
Pontiac, and the moon, riding high, picked out in black and silver the
long hulk that lay cradled between the iron shells of warehouses and
the wooden frames of tenements on either side. The galley and covered
gangway presented a mass of undefined shadow, against which the white
deck shone brightly, stretching to the forecastle and bows, where the
tiny glass roof of the photographer glistened like a gem in the
Pontiac's crest. So peaceful and motionless she lay that she might
have been some petrifaction of a past age now first exhumed and laid
bare to the cold light of the stars.

Nevertheless this calm security was presently invaded by a sense of
stealthy life and motion. What had seemed a fixed shadow suddenly
detached itself from the deck, and began to slip stanchion by stanchion
along the bulwarks toward the companion way. At the cabin door it
halted and crouched motionless. Then rising, it glided forward with
the same staccato movement until opposite the slight elevation of the
forehatch. Suddenly it darted to the hatch, unfastened and lifted it
with a swift, familiar dexterity, and disappeared in the opening. But
as the moon shone upon its vanishing face, it revealed the whitening
eyes and teeth of the Lascar seaman.

Dropping to the lower deck lightly, he felt his way through the dark
passage between the partitions, evidently less familiar to him, halting
before each door to listen. Returning forward he reached the second
hatchway that had