played I studied Van Blarcom, but without results. It was
ruffling; I should have absorbed in so much intercourse a fairly
definite impression of his personality, profession, and social grade.
But he was baffling; reticent, but self-assured, authoritative even,
and, in a quiet way, watchful. He smoked a good cigar, mixed a good
drink, seemed used to travel, but produced a coarse-grained effect,
made grammatical errors, and on the whole was a person from whom, once
ashore, I should flee.

At six o'clock on the seventh night out our voyage entered its second
lap; all the electric lights were simultaneously extinguished as we
entered the danger zone. We made a sketchy toilet by means of tapers,
groped like wandering ghosts down a dim corridor, and dined by the faint
rays of candles thrust into bottles and placed at intervals along
the festive board. I went on deck afterward to find the ship plunging
through blackness on forced draft, with port-holes shrouded and with
not even a riding-light. If not in Davy Jones's locker by that time, we
should reach Gibraltar the next evening; afterward we should head for
Naples, a two days' trip.

The following morning found our stormy weather over. The sea through
which we were speeding had a magic color, the dark, rich, Mediterranean
blue. Ascending late, I saw gulls flying round us and seaweed drifting
by, and Mr. McGuntrie in a state of nerves, with a life belt about him,
walking wildly to and fro.

"Well, Mr. Bayne," he greeted me, "never again for mine! If I ever
see the end of this trip,--if you call it a trip; I call it merry
hades,--believe me, I'll sell something hereafter that I can sell on
land. I'm a crackerjack of a salesman, if I do say it myself. Once I got
started talking I could get a man down below to buy a hot toddy and a
set of flannels--and I wish I'd gone down there and done it before I
ever saw this boat."

Unmoved, I leaned on the railing and watched the blue swells break.
McGuntrie took a turn or two. In the ship's library he had discovered a
manual entitled "How to Swim," and he was now attempting between laments
to memorize its salient points.

"The first essay is best made in water of not less than fifty degrees
Fahrenheit, and not more than four feet in depth," he gabbled, and
then broke off to gaze at the sea about us, chilly in temperature, and
countless fathoms deep. "Oh, what's the use? What the blue blazes does
it matter?" he cried hysterically. "