's plenty of
room and you can stay here along with your wife just as well as not. I'd
like to have you. Maybe--" with a suggestive wink, "maybe you can kind
of--well, kind of keep things runnin' smooth--in the galley. You know
what I mean."

Laban grinned. "Cal'late you won't have no more trouble that way,
Cap'n," he observed. "I guess that's over. Zuby and I understand each
other better'n we did. I THOUGHT she was mighty--"

"Mighty what?" Mr. Ginn had broken off his sentence in the middle.

"Oh, nothin'. It's all right, Cap'n Dott. Don't you worry about Zuby and
me. We'll boss this end of the craft; you 'tend to the rest of it. Say,
that Hungerford swab ain't come back, has he?"

"No. No, he hasn't. He's gone for good, it looks like. Sent for his
trunk and gone. That's queer, too. No, he hasn't come back."

Laban seemed disappointed. "Well, all right," he said. "If he should
come, just send for me. I'd just as soon talk to him as not--rather, if
anything."

The captain shook his head in a puzzled way.

"That business of--of him and Zuba was the strangest thing," he
declared. "I can't make head nor tail of it, and Gertie won't talk about
it at all. He said 'twas a mistake, and of course it must have been.
Either that or he'd gone crazy. No sane man would--"

"What's that?" It was Mr. Ginn's turn to question, and Daniel's to look
foolish. "What's that no sane man would do?" demanded Laban sharply.

"Why--why, go away and leave us without sayin' good-by," explained the
captain, with surprising presence of mind. "Er--well, so long, Laban.
Make yourself at home. I've got to see how Serena is."

He hurried up the back stairs. Mr. Ginn, who seemed a trifle suspicious,
called after him, but the call was unheeded.

At the door of his wife's room--his room no longer--Captain Dan rapped
softly. The nurse opened the door.

"How is she?" he whispered.

"She is asleep now," whispered the nurse in reply. "You must not come
in."

"I wasn't goin' to. But--but--has she been askin' for me?"

"Yes. I told her you were out. If she wakes and asks for you I will
call. You may see her then for a minute or two. She is easier when you
are with her--or near by."

This was true. The one person Serena wished to see most of all was her
husband. She asked for Gertrude, of course, but it was Daniel for whom
she asked continually. If he were near her she seemed almost happy and
contented. It was when he sat beside the bed that she