d my
own. I am so sorry."

"Do you think this will be large enough, Hugh?" she asked, holding up a
piece of black court plaster. The stranger laughed.

"If the cut is as big as that I'd better consult a surgeon," he said.
"About one-tenth of that, I should say."

"All right," she said cheerfully. "It is your wound."

"But you are the doctor," he protested.

"I dare say it is too big to look well. People might think you were
dynamited. Does it pain you?" she asked solicitously. For an instant
their eyes looked steadily, unwaveringly, into each other,--one of those
odd, involuntary searches which no one can explain and which never
happen but once to the same people.

"Not at all," he replied, glancing out over the tumbling waves with a
look which proved they were strange to him. Hugh dashed away and soon
returned with a glass of brandy, which the stranger swallowed meekly and
not very gracefully. Then he sat very still while Grace applied the
court-plaster to the little gash at the apex of a rapidly rising lump.

"Thank you," he said. "You are awfully good to a clumsy wretch who
might have crushed you. I shall endeavor to repay you both for your
kindness." He started to arise from Hugh's chair, but that gentleman
pushed him back.

"Keep the chair until you get straightened out a bit. I'll show you how
to walk deck in a rough sea. But pardon me, you are an American like
ourselves, are you not? I am Hugh Ridge, and this is my sister--Miss
Ridge."

"My name is Veath--Henry Veath," the other said as he bowed. "I am so
glad to meet my own countrymen among all these foreigners. Again, let me
thank you."

"Hardly a good sailor?" observed Hugh.

"As you may readily guess."

"It's pretty rough to-day. Are you going to Gibraltar and Spain?"

"Only as a bird of passage. I am going out for our government. It's a
long and roundabout way they've sent me, but poor men must go where
opportunity points the way. I assure you this voyage was not designed
for my pleasure. However, I enjoyed a couple of days in London."

"An important mission, I should say," ventured Mr. Ridge.

"I'm in the revenue service. It is all new to me, so it doesn't matter
much where I begin."

"Where are you to be stationed?" asked Hugh, and something told him what
the answer would be before it fell from the other's lips.

"Manila."

CHAPTER VI

HENRY VEATH

Mr. Veath's abrupt announcement that he was bound for Manila was a
decided sh