was wondering if I had not fallen into a trap. She
had promised not to tell, but under what circumstances? I saw the
scene again; the misty flats, the spruce little sail-boat and its
sweet young mistress, fresh as a dewy flower, but blanched and
demoralized by a horrid fear, appealing to my honour so to act that
we three should never meet again, promising to be silent, but as much
in her own interest as ours, and under that implied condition which I
had only equivocally refused. The condition was violated, not by her
fault or ours, but violated. She was free to help her father against
us, and was she helping him? What troubled me was the change in her;
that she--how can I express it without offence?--was less in discord
with her surroundings than she should have been; that in dress, pose
and manner (as we exchanged some trivialities) she was too near
reflecting the style of the other woman; that, in fact, she in some
sort realized my original conception of her, so brutally avowed to
Davies, so signally, as I had thought, falsified. In the sick
perplexity that this discovery caused me I dare say I looked as
foolish as Davies had done, and more so, for the close heat of the
room and its tainted atmosphere, succeeding so abruptly to the
wholesome nip of the outside air, were giving me a faintness which
this moral check lessened my power to combat. Von Bruening's face wore
a sneering smile that I winced under; and, turning, I found another
pair of eyes fixed on me, those of Herr Boehme, whose squat figure had
appeared at a pair of folding doors leading to an adjoining room.
Napkin in hand, he was taking in the scene before him with fat
benevolence, but exceeding shrewdness. I instantly noticed a faint
red weal relieving the ivory of his bald head; and I had suffered too
often in the same quarter myself to mistake its origin, namely, our
cabin doorway.

'This is the other young explorer, Boehme,' said von Bruening. 'Herr
Davies kidnapped him a month ago, and bullied and starved him into
submission; they'll drown together yet. I believe his sufferings have
been terrible.'

'His sufferings are over,' I retorted. 'I've
mutinied--deserted--haven't I, Davies?' I caught Davies gazing with
solemn _gaucherie_ at Miss Dollmann.

'Oh, what?' he stammered. I explained in English. 'Oh, yes,
Carruthers has to go home,' he said, in his vile lingo.

No one spoke for a moment, and even von Bruening had no persiflage
ready.

'Well,