little to us now.

"Mr. Trenholm," he began with fervor, "if I had known there were any
dangers I could have met them. I've faced death enough in my day not to
fear it, and I'm no weakling if I am an old man. But a master should know
what's in his ship and what's before him, and not be caught in a mess of
lies and sneaking. But perhaps the owners didn't know--the ship's in
charter for the voyage, and Mr. Trego took charge at the last minute.

"Looking back now, I'm minded to think they were afraid I'd turn pirate
at the sight of a few chests of gold. They thought they were slick; but
there were others just as slick, laying lines to beat 'em; and here I am,
without officers or crew or ship, and jailed in my own fo'c'sle. Doggone
it! I guess all hands knew about that gold but me!

"What do they do? Kill my bos'n ashore, take the lampman for it, and make
me so short-handed that I ship a gang of pirates as passengers. It was
understood that there were to be no passengers this trip; but the owners
saw a chance to make a few dollars extra, and the charter party says all
right. I heard that much, and then the banker, who acted for the charter
party, says to another: 'It will make it look more ordinary to carry
passengers if there is some care exercised.'

"Some care! They give me a parson that's a pirate, and he makes me
suspect you of a murder; and you bring one of his very men aboard--and
me, like a fool, ship him--and the other two he brings with his organ."

"But the gold--why should they ship so much gold in this manner?"

"For the Russians," he said. "I went through Trego's papers, and the
best I can make out of a lot of foreign writing is that it is going to
Hong-Kong to buy coal for the Baltic fleet. At first they were going to
make their headquarters in Manila and do the business there; but the most
of the tramps--colliers--are British, and they found it easier to do
business out of Hong-Kong, I suppose, because the Japanese could keep
close watch of suspicious vessels making Manila a port of call.

"Ye see, all the banks out here are full of spies---Chinese clerks and
all hands--and they are watching day and night. The masters of the
colliers and the blockade-runners into Port Arthur won't take checks or
other money--they want it slap down in solid gold before they will sail,
and this gold had to be landed in Hong-Kong.

"The Japs might send a couple of cruisers for it if they shipped it
openly, so they try t