"It would give me great pleasure, Craig, to take you by the scruff of
your neck and drop you overboard. But as you say, what's been done
can't be remedied by bashing in a man's head. Well, here you are,
since you ask. If you speak to me, if I catch you playing cards or
auctioneering a pool, if you make yourself obnoxious to any of the
passengers, I promise to give you the finest thrashing you ever had,
the moment we reach Penang. If you don't go ashore there, I'll do it
in Singapore. Have I made myself clear?"

"That's square enough, Paul," said the gambler resignedly. There
wasn't much money on board these two-by-four boats, anyhow, so he
wasn't losing much.

Warrington leaned forward. "Paul? You said Paul?"

"Why, yes," wonderingly.

"Better go."

"All right." Craig returned to his mattress. "Now, what made him curl
up like that because I called him Paul? Bah!" He dug a hole in his
pillow and tried to sleep.

"Paul!" murmured Warrington.

He stared down at the flashes of phosphorescence, blindly. The man had
called him Paul. After ten years to learn the damnable treachery of
it! Suddenly he clenched his hand and struck the rail. He would go
back. All his loyalty, all his chivalry, had gone for naught. This
low rascal had called him Paul.

IX

TWO SHORT WEEKS

When Elsa stepped out of the companionway the next morning she winced
and shut her eyes. The whole arc of heaven seemed hung with
fire-opals; east, west, north and south, whichever way she looked,
there was dazzling iridescence. The long flowing swells ran into the
very sky, for there was visible no horizon. Gold-leaf and opals,
thought Elsa. What a wonderful world! What a versatile mistress was
nature! Never two days alike, never two human beings; animate and
inanimate, all things were singular. She paused at the rail and
glanced down the rusty black side of the ship and watched the thread of
frothing water that clutched futilely at the red water-line. Never two
living things alike, in all the millions and millions swarming the
globe. What a marvel! Even though this man Warrington and Arthur
looked alike, they were not so. In heart and mind they were as
different as two days.

She began her usual walk, and in passing the smoke-room door on the
port side she met Warrington coming out. How deep-set his eyes were!
He was about to go on, but she looked straight into his eyes, and he
stopped. She laughed, and held