he begged me to
stand by you if he failed to get the better of the men in the launch."

Violet's eyes were moist with unshed tears. "You have been frank with
me, and I will be frank with you," she said. "Mr. Chermside is my lover,
and the people who are employing Brant in this cruel business induced
him by a series of lying tricks to fly on the steamer from a charge of
murder. They hoped, as has happened, that I should follow to dissuade
him."

"The charge is trumped up, of course?" said Nettle, and it was rather an
assertion than a question.

"He might have some difficulty in disproving it, the train was laid with
such fiendish ingenuity," answered Violet gravely.

"That is rough luck. Then if he escaped from the ship to land he would
be arrested and have to stand his trial?" And there was that in Miss
Jimpson's voice that suggested that she was weighing chances with some
definite idea at the back of her active brain.

"I am afraid so, but his arrest would be infinitely preferable to the
fate destined for him if he does not escape," replied Violet. There was
a little eager note of inquiry in her voice, for she had been quick to
grasp the hesitation in her new friend's tone.

But, ignoring the challenge, Miss Jimpson refused to be drawn at
present. "Tell me," she said--"that is if you care to--why Brant has
been bribed to do this dirty work, and where the ship is bound for."

Wisely abstaining from forcing her ally's hand, Violet disclosed in such
halting sentences as her pride would permit the object of the cunning
intrigue that had centred round her. Nettle Jimpson's fearless eyes grew
rounder and rounder as she listened to the crop of mischief sown by the
Maharajah of Sindkhote 5,000 miles away to ripen in a quiet English
village. And not being the direct object of the villainous outrage, she
appreciated more fully than Violet was yet able to the ghastly tragedy
looming ahead at the end of the _Cobra's_ voyage.

"There's one chance," she said when the story of the Eastern Prince's
passion, aided by a western rascal's guile, came to an end. "Only a
little one, but still a chance. On condition that I didn't play the
giddy goat over being kidnapped Brant promised to put into Plymouth on
the way down channel, so that I could send a letter ashore for my young
man. He's a petty officer on the destroyer _Snipe_."

"The _Snipe_!" repeated Violet. The name struck her at once as familiar,
and a moment later she reme