k Bart now. And desperate, indeed, must be the man would
dispute his right to tread these decks."

"I hope you are enjoying yourself," said Helena scornfully. "Don't be
silly."

"Will you have tea, Helena?" I asked.

"Poor, dear Mr. Davidson!" sniffed Aunt Lucinda, taking a glance out
the port into the black night. "I wonder where he is, and what he will
say."

"I can tell you what he will say, my dear Mrs. Daniver," said I; "but
I would rather not."

"Well, I'll tell you what _I_ say," snorted Aunt Lucinda. "I think
this joke has gone far enough."

"It is no joke, madam. I was never so desperately in earnest in all my
life."

"Then put us ashore at Baton Rouge."

"I can not. I shall not."

"What do you mean? Do you know what this looks like, the way you are
acting, running off with Mr. Davidson's yacht, and this----"

"Yes, madam?"

"Why, it's robbery, and it's, it's, why it's abduction, too. You ought
to know the law."

"I do know the law. It is piracy. Have we not told you that resistance
would be worse than useless? Haven't I told you I've captured this
ship? Little do you know the fate that lies before you, madam, at the
hands of my ruthless men if I should prove unable to restrain them!
And have a care not to offend Black Bart the Avenger, himself! If you
do, Aunt Lucinda, he may cut off your evening champagne."

I heard a sudden suppressed sound, wondrous like a giggle; but when I
turned, Helena was sitting there as sober as Portia, albeit I thought
her eyes suspiciously bright.

"Well," said she, at length, "we can't sit here all night and talk
about it, and I've used up all my note-paper and bottles. I'll tell
you what I suggest, since you have seen fit to intrude on two women in
this way. We will hold a parley."

"When?"

"To-morrow."

"At what hour?"

"After breakfast."

"Why not at breakfast?"

"Because we shall eat alone, here,--auntie and I--in our cabin."

"Very well then, if it seems you are so bitter against the new
commander of the ship that you will not sit at the captain's table--as
we did the second time we went to Europe together, we three--don't you
remember, Helena?"

"Never--at your table, sir!" said Helena Emory, her voice like a stab.
And when I bethought me what that had meant before now, what it would
mean all my life, if this woman might never sit at board of mine,
never eat the fruit of my bow and spear, never share with me the bread
of life, for one instan