"If you choose to take this note to my man, he may give it another
show. Mind, I don't say that he _will_. He's going to Sacramento
to-night, but you could go down there and find him before he starts.
He's got a room there, I believe. While you're waiting for him you
might keep your eyes open to satisfy yourself."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the sailor, eagerly endeavoring to catch the eye of
his employer. But Mr. Sleight looked straight before him, and he turned
to go.

"The Sacramento boat goes at nine," said Mr. Sleight quietly.

This time their glances met, and the Lascar's eye glistened with subtle
intelligence. The next moment he was gone, and Mr. Sleight again became
absorbed in his papers.

Meanwhile Renshaw was making his way back to the Pontiac with that
light-hearted optimism that had characterized his parting with Sleight.
It was this quality of his nature, fostered perhaps by the easy
civilization in which he moved, that had originally drawn him into
relations with the man he just quitted; a quality that had been
troubled and darkened by those relations, yet, when they were broken,
at once returned. It consequently did not occur to him that he had only
selfishly compromised with the difficulty; it seemed to him enough that
he had withdrawn from a compact he thought dishonorable; he was not
called upon to betray his partner in that compact merely to benefit
others. He had been willing to incur suspicion and loss to reinstate
himself in his self-respect, more he could not do without justifying
that suspicion. The view taken by Sleight was, after all, that which
most business men would take--which even the unbusinesslike Nott would
take--which the girl herself might be tempted to listen to. Clearly he
could do nothing but abandon the Pontiac and her owner to the fate he
could not in honor avert. And even that fate was problematical. It did
not follow that the treasure was still concealed in the Pontiac, nor
that Nott would be willing to sell her. He would make some excuse to
Nott--he smiled to think he would probably be classed in the long line
of absconding tenants--he would say good-by to Rosey, and leave for
Sacramento that night. He ascended the stairs to the gangway with a
freer breast than when he first entered the ship.

Mr. Nott was evidently absent, and after a quick glance at the
half-open cabin-door, Renshaw turned towards the galley. But Miss Rosey
was not in her accustomed haunt, and with a feelin