d they do? He held her close. She must
be interpreter for him, he said. Oh, of course. She would tell them what
a hero he was, how he had brought them safely through innumerable
dangers for her sake. They would live, see! Up there. He had no idea how
happy they would be!

The little sailing boat was coming out, her sail like a fleck of cambric
on the dark water.

He said there was no need to tell them he was a hero.

"They will know it," she said, "when they see the poor ship. Oh, yes, I
will tell them everything. I will tell them you did this because you
love me."

"Will they believe it?" he asked in a low tone, watching the city as
they drew nearer.

"Believe?" she questioned without glancing at him. "It is nothing to
them. What matter? I tell them something, that is all."

He did not reply to this, merely turning to give an order to the
helmsman. The other seaman was coming along the deck, and he called him
to take in the log and run up the ensign. It was nothing to them, he
thought, repeating her words to himself. Nothing. They would make no
fine distinctions between himself and the captain. Yes, she was right in
that. He went into the chart room and got out the flags of the ship's
name. She, the ship, was not to blame, he muttered. She had been
faithful. "And so have I!" he cried out within himself. He could not
make it clear even to himself, but as he bent the grimy little flags to
the signal halyards and hoisted them to the crosstrees, and saw them
straighten out like sheets of tin in the breeze, he had an uplifting of
the heart. He rang "Stop" to the engine room, and went over to Evanthia.

"Go down," he said gently, "and tell the captain he must come up. We are
going to drop the anchor. There is a boat coming alongside."

He stood watching the boat bearing down upon them. He tried to think
clearly. Yes, the captain must come up. The complex animosities of the
night must be put away. And though he was a little afraid of what lay
before him in that great fair city rising from the sea, he had no
regrets for the past. He felt, in spite of everything, he had been
faithful.

CHAPTER XV

"You can have no idea," said the flat and unemotional voice by Mr.
Spokesly's shoulder, "simply no idea how miraculous the whole business
seems to us. Astonished? No word for it. We were flabbergasted. For you
saved the situation. You arrived in the nick, positively the nick, of
time. I don't go beyond the facts w