me girlish freak on her part. The
portmanteau, with its change of raiment, brought convincing testimony,
and Iris's own words when discovered in the lazaretto supplied further
proof, if that were needed. Her name figured in the ship's papers, and
the time of her appearance on board was recorded in the log. Coke
might be a man of one idea, but he held to it as though it were written
in the Admiralty Sailing Directions; not his would be the fault if
David Verity failed to appreciate the logic of his reasoning long
before an official investigation became inevitable.

A keen, invigorating breeze swept the last mirage of sleep from the
girl's brain as she flitted silently along the deck. A wondrous galaxy
of stars blazed in the heavens. In that pellucid air the sky was a
vivid ultramarine. The ship's track was marked by a trail of
phosphorescent fire. Each revolution of the propeller drew from the
ocean treasure-house opulent globes of golden light that danced and
sparkled in the tumbling waters. It was a night that pulsated with the
romance and abandon of the south, a night when the heart might throb
with unutterable longings, and the blood tingle in the veins under the
stress of an emotion at once passionate and mystic.

Iris, spurred on by no stronger impulse than that of the sight-seer,
though not wholly unaware of an element of adventurous shyness in her
expectation of a _tete-a-tete_ with a good-looking young man of her own
status, climbed to the bridge so speedily and noiselessly that Hozier
did not know of her presence until he heard her dismayed cry:

"Is _that_ the Southern Cross?"

[Illustration: "Is that the Southern Cross?"]

He turned quickly.

"You, Miss Yorke?" he exclaimed, and not even her wonder at the
insignificance of the stellar display of which she had heard so much
could cloak the fact that Hozier was unprepared for her appearance.

"Of course, it is I--who else?" she asked. "Did not Captain Coke tell
you to expect me?"

"No."

"How odd! That is what he arranged. A man came and rapped at my door."

"Pardon me one moment."

He leaned over the bridge and hailed the watch. The same hoarse voice
that had roused Iris answered his questions, and, in the faint light
that came from the binnacle, she caught a flicker of amusement on his
face.

"Our excellent skipper's intentions have been defeated," he said. "He
told one of the men to call him at seven bells, but not to wake you
un