ut some jail doors, and otherwise effected the usual
sullen and deceitful compromise, and his flag was now flying, on a final
visit, from the stern sheets of a smart boat alongside. It was with a
feeling of relief at the end of the interview that he at last lifted his
head above an atmosphere of perjury and bilge-water and came on deck.
The sun and wind were ruffling and glinting on the broadening river
beyond the "measured mile"; a few gulls were wavering and dipping near
the lee scuppers, and the sound of Sabbath bells, mellowed by a distance
that secured immunity of conscience, came peacefully to his ear.

"Now that job's over ye'll be takin' a partin' dhrink," suggested the
captain.

The consul thought not. Certain incidents of "the job" were fresh in his
memory, and he proposed to limit himself to his strict duty.

"You have some passengers, I see," he said, pointing to a group of two
men and a young girl, who had apparently just come aboard.

"Only wan; an engineer going out to Rio. Them's just his friends seein'
him off, I'm thinkin'," returned the captain, surveying them somewhat
contemptuously.

The consul was a little disturbed. He wondered if the passenger knew
anything of the quality and reputation of the ship to which he was
entrusting his fortunes. But he was only a PASSENGER, and the consul's
functions--like those of the aloft-sitting cherub of nautical song--were
restricted exclusively to looking after "Poor Jack." However, he asked a
few further questions, eliciting the fact that the stranger had already
visited the ship with letters from the eminently respectable consignees
at St. Kentigern, and contented himself with lingering near them. The
young girl was accompanied by her father, a respectably rigid-looking
middle-class tradesman, who, however, seemed to be more interested in
the novelty of his surroundings than in the movements of his daughter
and their departing friend. So it chanced that the consul re-entered
the cabin--ostensibly in search of a missing glove, but really with the
intention of seeing how the passenger was bestowed--just behind them.
But to his great embarrassment he at once perceived that, owing to the
obscurity of the apartment, they had not noticed him, and before he
could withdraw, the man had passed his arm around the young girl's half
stiffened, yet half yielding figure.

"Only one, Ailsa," he pleaded in a slow, serious voice, pathetic from
the very absence of any yout