She looked up quickly, while her deft fingers fluttered about the dry
tobacco and the paper. "You find him, Jock?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yes, I've found it," he answered. "She's in a creek, about
six miles down the bay. A big boat, too, with a pretty little cabin
for you to twiddle your thumbs in, 'Carnacion. She's pretty clean,
too; I reckon the old chap must have been getting ready to clear out
in her when he dropped. It's a wonder nobody found her before."

Incarnacion sealed the cigarette carefully, pinched the loose ends
away, kissed it, and put it in his mouth. "Then," she said
thoughtfully, "you take me away to-morrow, Jock?"

He frowned; he was shielding the lighted match in both hands, and it
showed up his drawn brows as he bent to light the cigarette. "I don't
know," he said. "You see, 'Carnacion, there's a good many things I
can't do, and sail a boat is one of 'em. I haven't got a notion how to
set about it, even. I don't know the top end of a sail from the
bottom."

"You make a Kafir do it?" suggested Incarnacion.

He smiled, a brief smile of friendship. "That would do first-rate," he
explained; "only, you see, there's no Kafirs, kiddy. Every nigger that
had ever seen a boat was snapped up a week ago, when the big flit was
happening. That dead-scared crowd that cleared out then took every
single sailorman to ferry 'em down the coast--white, black, and
piebald. And the plain truth of it is, 'Carnacion, I've been up and
down this old rabbit-warren of a city since sun-down, looking for a
sailor, an' the only one I could hear of I found--in the dead-house."

He spat at the parapet upon the memory of that face, where the plague
had done its worst.

"So," remarked Incarnacion gaily. "Then we stop, Jock; we stop here,
eh?"

"There'll be something broken first," retorted Scott. "It's all
bloomin' rot, Incarnacion; you can't have a town this size without a
man in it that can handle a boat--a seaport, too. It isn't sense. It
don't stand to reason."

"There was the Capitan Smeeth," suggested Incarnacion helpfully.

"Just so," said Scott; "there was. He's dead."

Incarnacion crossed herself in silence, and they sat for a while
without speaking. From the Praca the music was still to be heard; some
procession to the great church was in progress, to pray for a
remission of the scourge. Over the line of roofs there was a dull glow
of the watch-fires in the streets; where they sat, Scott and the girl
could sm