f man were only
something more than man, if devil's luck and devil's power would come to
his whistle, if the seed of his nature could defy the iron stricture of
the flesh, reaching its height, shooting up into a terrible
upas-tree--so for the moment Baldry saw himself. Into his voice came a
deep and sonorous note, his black eyes glowed; he began to gesture with
his hand, stately as a Spaniard. And then, chancing to glance towards
the head of the board, he met the eyes of the man who sat there, his
Captain now, whom he must follow! What might he read in their depths?
Half-scornful amusement, perhaps, and the contempt of the man who has
done what man may do for the yoke-fellow who habitually made claim to
supernatural prowess; in addition to the scholar's condemnation of
blatant ignorance, the courtier's dislike of unmannerliness, the
soldier's scorn of unproved deeds, athwart all the philosophic smile!
Baldry, flushing darkly, hated with all his wild might, for that he
chose to hate, the man who sat so quietly there, who held with so much
ease the knowledge that by right of much beside his commission he was
leader of every man within those floating walls. The Captain of the
_Star_ struck the table with his hand.

"Ah, I had good help that time! My brother sailed with me--Thomas
Baldry, that was master of the _Speedwell_ that went down at Fayal in
the Azores.... Didst ever see a ghost, Sir Mortimer Ferne?"

"No," answered Ferne, curtly.

"Then the dead come not to haunt us," said Baldry. "I would have sworn a
many had passed before your eyes. Now had I been Thomas Baldry I would
have won back."

"That also?" demanded Sir Mortimer. His tone was of simple wonder, and
there went round the board a laugh for Baldry's boasting. That
adventurer started to his feet, his eyes, that were black, deep-set, and
very bright, fixed upon Ferne.

"That also," he answered. "An I should die before our swords cross, that
also!"

He turned and left the cabin.

"Now," said Arden, as his heavy footsteps died away, "I had rather
gather snow for the Grand Turk than rubies with some I wot of!"

Henry Sedley, a hot red in his cheek, and his dark hair thrown back,
turned from staring after the retreating figure. "If I send him my
cartel, Sir Mortimer, wilt put me in irons?"

"Ay, that will I," said Ferne, calmly. "Word and deed he but doth after
his kind. Well, let him go. For his words, that a man's deeds do haunt
him, rising like shado