to
keep quiet."

"If you ask me," said Kettle, "it was sheer nobility of character. I had
a good deal of talk with that young gentleman, sir. He was a splendid
fellow. He had a true poetical soul."

Mr. Lupton winked sceptically. "He managed to play the part of a
thorough-paced young blackguard at home pretty successfully. He was
warned off the turf. He was kicked out of his club for card-sharping. He
was--well, he's dead now, anyway, and we won't say any more about him,
except that he's been stone-broke these last three years, and has been
living on his wits and helping to fleece other flats. But he was only
the tool, anyway. There is a bigger and more capable scoundrel at the
back of it all, and, thanks to the scare you seem to have rubbed into
that spotty-faced young mug you've got locked up down below, I think we
can get the principal by the heels very nicely this journey. If you
don't mind, I'll go and see this latest victim now, before he's had time
to get rid of his fright."

Captain Kettle showed his visitor courteously down to the temporary
jail, and then returned to the chart-house and sipped his tea.

"His name may really have been Cranze, but he was a poet, poor lad," he
mused, thinking of the dead. "That's why he couldn't do the dirty work.
But I sha'n't tell Lupton that reason. He'd only laugh--and--that poetry
ought to be a bit of a secret between the lad and me. Poor, poor fellow!
I think I'll be able to write a few lines about him myself after I've
been ashore to see the agent, just as a bit of an epitaph. As to this
spotty-faced waster who swapped names with him, I almost have it in me
to wish we'd left him to be chopped by those sharks. He'd his money to
his credit anyway--and what's money compared with poetry?"

CHAPTER XII

THE FIRE AND THE FARM

The quartermaster knocked smartly, and came into the chart-house, and
Captain Kettle's eyes snapped open from deep sleep to complete
wakefulness.

"There's some sort of vessel on fire, sir, to loo'ard, about five miles
off."

The shipmaster glanced up at the tell-tale compass above his head.
"Officer of the watch has changed the course, I see. We're heading
for it, eh?"

"Yes, sir. The second mate told me to say so."

"Quite right. Pass the word for the carpenter, and tell him to get port
and starboard lifeboats ready for lowering in case they're wanted. I'll
be on the bridge in a minute."

"Aye, aye, sir," said the quartermaster, a