tters of conversation, and the red
lights of cigarettes and the glint of white gowns enlivened the
darkness.

As he stood there, Virginia Howland and Oddington came out of one of
the windows. The girl was talking vivaciously, familiarly, and
Oddington was laughing. She was in what she would have termed one of
her "Oddington moods," when his personality appealed to her most, when
the congenial bond seemed closest. To-night the lights, the music, the
soft air rustling the lampshades, after all the long days on shipboard,
exalted her. She looked at her companion with kindling eyes.

It seemed hardly the moment to run full upon the Captain of the
_Tampico_, who had just thrown his cigar away with the intention of
returning to the dining-hall.

Dan realized this instinctively. He smiled at the two in an abstracted
manner, as though his mind were occupied with thoughts which he did not
care to interrupt, and turned toward the window, when Virginia, who had
greeted him simultaneously with a smile obviously designed to convey a
similar impression, and, piqued to perversity by the fact that Dan had
so readily interpreted her wishes, paused in the middle of a sentence
and looked back over her shoulder.

"Captain," she said, "is it possible you prefer speeches in Spanish to
our company?"

Dan paused. Oddington was smiling in an exceedingly perfunctory
manner, and the young Captain was about to make some laughing
acknowledgment when the girl, still looking at him, said:

"Mr. Oddington and I were just arguing about the night air of San
Blanco. He says it is filled with malaria. Is it?"

Dan walked slowly toward them.

"Not any more than the day air," he replied, declining Oddington's
proffered cigarette case and drawing his pipe and pouch from his
pocket. "I should say that San Blancan air is filled with malaria at
all times--and with other bad things."

Oddington laughed.

"It is like most of these cities," he said; "things get pretty messy
here, I imagine. I could not exactly commend its sanitary--"

A voice calling him from the window broke the sentence. It was Reggie
Wotherspoon.

"Yes," said Oddington.

"That you, Ralph? Oh, I see you. Say, come in here like a good chap,
will you? I've run across a sort of an anarchist circular about
Rodriguez. I want you to come up with me while I put it up to him."

"All right," replied Oddington. "Will you go in, Virginia?"

"Thank you, I'll wait here for