ards he was shaking my hand, clapping me on the shoulder,
and saying:

"Splendid! Magnificent! Glorious achievement! Proved your point up to
the hilt, my boy!"

And when I said something about not having gone all the way he cried:

"Never mind! You'll do it next time," which made some of my shipmates
who were standing round with shining eyes say, "Aye, aye, sir," and then
one of them (it was good old O'Sullivan) shouted:

"By the stars of heaven, that's thrue, my lord! And if anybody's after
saying that the Commanther was turned back this time by anything less
than the almighty power of Nature in her wrath, you may say there's
forty-eight of us here to tell him he lies."

"I believe it," said the chairman, and then there were further
congratulations, with messages from members of my committee, but never a
word from my dear one.

Thinking the chairman might hesitate to speak of a private matter until
we were alone, I took him down to my state-room. But he had nothing to
say there, either, except about articles to be written, reports to be
compiled, and invitations to be accepted.

Several hours passed like this. We were again out at sea, and my longing
to know what had happened was consuming me, but I dared not ask from
fear of a bad answer.

Before the night was out, however, I had gone to work in a roundabout
way. Taking O'Sullivan into my confidence, I told him it had not been my
parents that I had been anxious about (God forgive me!), but somebody
else whom he had seen and spoken to.

"Do you mean Mal . . . I should say Lady . . ."

"Yes."

"By the holy saints, the way I was thinking that when I brought you the
letter at Port Said, and saw the clouds of heaven still hanging on you."

I found that the good fellow had a similar trouble of his own (not yet
having heard from his mother), so he fell readily into my plan, which
was that of cross-questioning the chairman about my dear one, and I
about his, and then meeting secretly and imparting what we had learned.

Anybody may laugh who likes at the thought of two big lumbering fellows
afraid to face the truth (scouting round and round it), but it grips me
by the throat to this day to see myself taking our chairman into a quiet
corner of the smoke-room and saying:

"Poor old O'Sullivan! He hasn't heard from his old mother yet. She was
sick when he sailed, and wouldn't have parted with him to go with
anybody except myself. You haven't heard of her, have yo