nking
of anything but poetry.

His face darkened as he gazed. "A hundred estates and plantations were
nothing to me against--" he burst out passionately, but no further than
that. He checked himself and went inside, and with no good-night going.

In the morning he was gone. I waited--one, two, three days, and then I
went also--to Savannah, where I saw the _Bess_, but so altered that it
needed a lifetime's intimacy to hail her in the stream. Her spars had
been sent down and her name was now the _Triton_, and to her bow and
stern was clamped the false work which left her with no more outward
grace than any clumsy coaster; and by these signs I knew that Mr.
Villard of Villard Manor would once more disappear and that Captain
Blaise would soon again be sailing the _Dancing Bess_ overseas.

Captain Blaise had not yet come aboard; but whatever ship he sailed the
full run of that ship was mine, and I went into his cabin to wait for
him.

It was after dark when he came over the side. It was always after dark
when he boarded the _Bess_ in home ports. His words were colder than his
expression when he addressed me. "And where are you bound?"

"I don't know yet, sir."

"And why not?"

"You have not yet told me, sir, where you are going."

"Suppose it should be the West Coast and the old trade?"

"I'm sorry, sir, but even so I go."

"And leave all that good life you love so at the Manor?"

On his face was still the stern look. I could not stand it longer and I
stepped closer to him. "You have not turned against me, sir?"

He softened at once. "Guy, Guy, don't mind me. I meant well. I thought
you might prefer the shore to living on the sea."

"I do, sir, but when you are at sea it's at sea I'd rather be too, sir."

"Ah-h--" and when he looked at me like that it mattered not about his
law-breaking--he was the bravest, finest man that ever sailed the
trades. "Guy, my boy, if you'll have it so, why come along. And once
more we'll cruise together; but you won't judge your commander too
harshly, will you, Guy?"

We took the ebb down the river. Our papers read for a West India trading
voyage, but we lingered not among the West Indies. Four weeks later we
raised the Cape Verdes, and an islet rose like a castle from out of the
mists. Abreast of a pebbled beach we came to anchor and waited.

II

A boat scraped alongside, and the agent Rimmle came aboard. He came out
to have a chat for old time's sake; and yet not so old