t those rifles. When
the boys get to carrying them, old Francis Joseph's ghost'll weep. Pity,
ain't it, we didn't get on board by noon?" he digressed sociably. "I
could've found something to do ashore the four hours I've been twiddling
my thumbs here, and I guess you could too. Hardest, though, on our
friends the newspaper boys. Did you know they were out there waiting to
take a flashlight film? Fact. They do it nowadays every time a big liner
leaves. Then if we sink, all they have to do is run it, with 'Doomed
Ship Leaving New York Harbor' underneath."

To his shocked surprise I laughed at the information. My appetite
was unimpaired as I pursued my meal. Trains in which others ride may
telescope and steamers may take one's acquaintances to watery graves,
but to normal people the chance of any catastrophe overtaking them
personally must always seem gratifyingly far-fetched and vague.

"Think it's funny, do you?" my new friend reproached me. "Well, I don't;
and neither did the folks who had cabins taken and who threw them up
last week when they heard how the _San Pietro_ went down on this same
route. We're five plumb idiots--that's what we are--five crazy lunatics!
I'd never have come a step, not with wild horses dragging me if it
hadn't been for Jim Furman being pretty near popeyed, looking for a
chance to cut me out and sail. We've got fifteen hundred reservists
downstairs, and a cargo of contraband. What do you know about that as a
prize for a submarine?"

"Well," I said vaingloriously. "I can swim."

My eyes were wandering, for the girl in the fur coat had entered, with
the dark, watchful-eyed man--was it pure coincidence?--close behind. The
steward ushered her to a table; the man followed at her heels. I dare
say I glared. I know my muscles stiffened. The fellow was going to speak
to her. What in blazes did he mean by stalking her in this way?

"Excuse me," he was saying, "but haven't we met before?"

The girl straightened into rigidness, looking him over. Her manner was
haughty, her ruddy head poised stiffly, as she answered in a cold tone:

"No."

He was watching her keenly.

"My name's John Van Blarcom," he persisted.

Again she gave him that sweeping glance.

"You are mistaken," she said indifferently. "I have not seen you
before."

He nodded curtly.

"My mistake," he admitted. "I thought I knew you," and turning from her,
he sat down at the one table still unoccupied.

"So his name's Van Blarc