' to die. Look here,
steward, how much you want to bet?"

"Five dollar, ten dollar, twenty dollar," the steward answered, with a
shoulder-shrug that meant that the sum was immaterial.

"Very well then, steward. Mr. Pathurst covers your money, say for
twenty. Is it a go, sir?"

"Why don't you bet with him yourself?" I demanded.

"Sure I will, sir. Here, you steward, I bet you twenty even I don't
die."

The steward shook his head.

"I bet you twenty to ten," the sick man insisted. "What's eatin' you,
anyway?"

"You live, me lose, me pay you," the steward explained. "You die, I win,
you dead; no pay me."

Still grinning and shaking his head, he went his way.

"Just the same, sir, it'll be rich testimony," David chuckled. "An'
can't you see the reporters eatin' it up?"

The Asiatic clique in the cook's room has its suspicions about the death
of Marinkovich, but will not voice them. Beyond shakings of heads and
dark mutterings, I can get nothing out of Wada or the steward. When I
talked with the sail-maker, he complained that his injured hand was
hurting him and that he would be glad when he could get to the surgeons
in Seattle. As for the murder, when pressed by me, he gave me to
understand that it was no affair of the Japanese or Chinese on board, and
that he was a Japanese.

But Louis, the Chinese half-caste with the Oxford accent, was more frank.
I caught him aft from the galley on a trip to the lazarette for
provisions.

"We are of a different race, sir, from these men," he said; "and our
safest policy is to leave them alone. We have talked it over, and we
have nothing to say, sir, nothing whatever to say. Consider my position.
I work for'ard in the galley; I am in constant contact with the sailors;
I even sleep in their section of the ship; and I am one man against many.
The only other countryman I have on board is the steward, and he sleeps
aft. Your servant and the two sail-makers are Japanese. They are only
remotely kin to us, though we've agreed to stand together and apart from
whatever happens."

"There is Shorty," I said, remembering Mr. Pike's diagnosis of his mixed
nationality.

"But we do not recognize him, sir," Louis answered suavely. "He is
Portuguese; he is Malay; he is Japanese, true; but he is a mongrel, sir,
a mongrel and a bastard. Also, he is a fool. And please, sir, remember
that we are very few, and that our position compels us to neutrality."

"But your outlook