made you so sure that you
would win that second race seven months ago?"

Nat looked at her steadily. His nervousness had gone, apparently, and
he was his old crafty self once more.

"That is none of your business, Mrs. Mallaby," he said insolently.
"And now if you'll let me pass I'll keep an engagement."

"Mr. Durkee," she said, "please keep Mr. Burns here until we have
entirely finished."

"Yes, ma'am, I will," said the hypnotized man, and Nat, after a glare
around upon the unsympathetic audience slumped down into a chair and
smoked sullenly.

"Steady as she goes my friend," broke in Squire Hardy, looking at Nat.
"Answer the lady's question. What made you think you would win?"

"I refuse to answer."

"He really doesn't need to answer," said Elsa. "I will answer for him.
Code kindly let me have the log of the _M. C. Burns_."

Schofield drew the old book from his pocket and handed it through the
bars. Then Elsa, opening it to the last pages, read aloud the few
entries that Code had discovered that day when he was a prisoner
aboard the _Nettie B._ As she read the silence was intense, but all
eyes were upon Nat, who, startled at the sudden appearance of this
document he had so long forgotten, chewed savagely upon his dead
cigar. His face had grown pale and his rough hands were clasped
tightly together.

"You see," said Elsa, when she had finished, "that Burns had
determined upon the winning of his next race. It is perfectly clear,
is it not?"

The breathless circle nodded.

It was a strange setting for the working out of the drama. Overhead a
suspended oil-lamp flamed and smelled. Outside the crash of surf
against the rocks came to them, and the wind whistled about the eaves
of the little stone building.

"Now the mirror," she said to Code, and, still wondering, he handed
the trinket to her. "Tell about this," she directed him with a smile
and a long look from her deep dark eyes.

And Code told them. He told of the time his father first gave it to
him, of his experiments in astronomy, and of Nat's coveting the
mirror. He told of that night after the first race when he had looked
for the log-book of the _May_ and had seen the mirror in its drawer.
He told of its final discovery in the secret box of the storeroom on
the _Nettie_.

As he talked the memory of the wrongs against him flamed in his
breast, and he directed his story at Nat, who sat silent and immovable
in the corner.

"If I found this aboard