foundation
for the "something awful," or she would not have been able to get
through to him on the telephone.

And when at last he took up his own parable and spoke his answer into
the transmitter he knew that there had been no exaggeration at all, and
that had she been so minded his saucy sweetheart might have used more
lurid language without going astray. So impressed was he by what he had
heard that he condensed his reply into the crisp sentences----

"What infernal scoundrels! All right, girlie; I'll do it if they break
me. Off at once. Good night!"

Hanging up the receiver, and thanking the janitor of the gate, he
threaded his way along the deserted quays to the stairs, where his boat
was waiting for him.

"By George, but it's a tall order!" he repeated several times as his
bluejackets bent to their oars. "Just as I'd settled it, too, that she
should never interfere in professional duties. But, damme, it's a good
cause to go down in, and perhaps old Maynard will buy me a penny
steamboat if I get the sack over the job."

It was, indeed, a "tall order," coming from a minx in her teens to a
naval officer enjoying his first independent command, being no less
than to employ one of his Majesty's ships on a private enterprise. An
enterprise, too, which an ingenious counsel, before a judge of less than
average intelligence, might very easily contort and twist into an act of
piracy. None knew better than Reggie Beauchamp that for one ship to stop
another on the high seas, and do things to her by armed force unbacked
by supreme authority was a serious matter indeed.

And yet that was the task which the sunny-haired maiden, with eager red
lips to the telephone at the other end of the county, had set him. So
graphically had Enid done her bit of descriptive 'phoning that he was
under no illusions as to what he had to do. Violet Maynard had been
"carried off" in a large steam yacht which had just started from
Ottermouth for India. In a few hours' time at most the yacht would be
off Plymouth. Enid was aware that the _Snipe_ was leaving port very
early every morning for gun practice, and she implored him and
threatened him in the same breath to intercept the yacht and rescue Miss
Maynard. The few words which Enid had added as to the fate in store for
the victim of the outrage had decided Reggie to make the attempt, even
at the hazard of his career.

But he was by no means assured that he would succeed. The whole vile
sche