s the saying is--to go Home and live
luxurious ever after!"

"Ow!" cried Nesbit, "lucky beggar!"--"Sincerely glad," said Mr.
Forrester. And a volley of compliments went round the board. The captain
plainly took heart, and flushing still redder at so much praise and good
will, stood now at ease, chuckling.

"Most men," he began, when there came a lull, "most men makes a will
after they're dead. That's a shore way o' doing things! Now _I_ want to
see the effects, living. So be 'anged, here goes, right and proper. To
Miss Drake, for her hospital and kiddies, two thousand rupees."

In the laughter and friendly uproar, the girl sat dazed.

"What shall I say?" she whispered, wavering between amusement and
distress. "I can't accept it--"

"Nonsense!" grumbled Heywood, with an angry glance. "Don't spoil the
happiest evening of an old man's life."

"You're right," she answered quickly; and when the plaudits ended, she
thanked the captain in a very simple, pretty speech, which made him
duck and grin,--a proud little benefactor.

"That ain't all," he cried gayly; then leveled a threatening finger,
like a pistol, at her neighbor. "Who poked fun at me, first and last?
Who always came out aboard to tell me what an old ass I was? Fixed
ideas, eh? No go?--Look you here. What did I come so many hundred miles
for? To say what I always said: half-shares." The light-blue eyes, keen
with sea-cunning and the lonely sight of many far horizons, suffered an
indescribable change. "My boy, the half's yours. There's two rich men
here to-night. I've come to take you Home."

It was Heywood's turn to be struck dumb. He grew very pale.

"Oh, I say," he stammered at last, "it's not fair--"

"Don't spoil the happiest evening--" whispered the girl beside him.

He eyed her ruefully, groaned, then springing up, went swiftly to the
head of the table and wrung the captain's brown paw, without a word
to say.

"Can do, can do," said Captain Kneebone, curtly. "I was afraid ye might
not want to come."

Then followed a whirlwind; and Teppich rose with his moustache
bristling, and the ready Nesbit jerked him down again in the opening
sentence; and everybody laughed at Heywood, who sat there so white,
with such large eyes; and the dinner going by on the wings of night, the
melancholy "boy" circled the table, all too soon, with a new silver
casket full of noble cigars from Paiacombo, Manila, and Dindigul.

As the three ladies passed the foot of the