ter we see--whatever we are to see," Chris ended, "I'll be absent
for a while. What can be said during that time, sir?" Chris thought to
ask. Captain Blizzard pondered for some minutes, and Chris was
grateful that he asked no questions. At last he answered.

[Illustration]

"I shall say you have a tropical fever, Christopher," he said. "I am
somewhat skilled in medicaments--I have to be, as captain of a ship,
and the crew know it. I shall say that you are in my own cabin so that
I can care for you. I shall allow no one to enter it but myself. It
will be a most contagious fever for a time," he added with his eyes
twinkling. "I shall bring you food with my own hands. Nothing
much--broth and gruel, and I daresay I can eat it myself if I cannot
throw it out the porthole!" He winked at Chris. "Have no fear on that
score, Christopher." He looked steadily at the boy in front of him.
"You have your part to carry out, I have mine."

Not since he had left Mr. Wicker had Chris felt such confidence as he
did in the words and actions of Captain Blizzard. He knew now that his
absence, for as long as he had to be away, would be covered up and
satisfactorily accounted for.

Their conversation had taken some little while. As they went over for
the last time all the details of what lay ahead of them in the next
few hours, Chris, glancing out the windows of the Captain's cabin, saw
the splendors of a tropical sunset streaking the sky.

"Oh sir!" he cried, "Mr. Wicker said we'd know the reason why we must
take shelter tomorrow at sundown today. And now it _is_ sundown!"

With quite surprising silence and agility for so large a man, Captain
Blizzard was out of his chair and half-way to the door of his cabin
before Chris had much more than finished speaking. Over his shoulder,
continuing with rapid quiet steps to the bridge of the _Mirabelle_, he
said: "Run down to your cabin and fetch up that good spyglass of
yours, my boy. We shall have a good look, for as you know, night falls
in a few moments after sundown in these waters."

Racing to his cabin and back, even in those few seconds Chris could
see a change in the sky. The brilliance of the colors, their
extravagant and awe-inspiring cloud effects, had taken on an intensity
of light which meant they were at their peak.

Standing beside Captain Blizzard on the bridge, Mr. Finney and Amos
just beyond, Chris and the Captain looked through Chris's powerful
spyglass at the wide stretch