chant seaman. He seemed to recognize Desiree at once, though she
still stood without the door, in the darkness.

"You?" he said in surprise. "I did not expect you, madame. You want me?"

"Yes," answered Desiree, stepping over the combing. Louis's companion,
who was also a sailor, coarsely clad, rose and, awkwardly taking off his
cap, hurried to the door, murmuring some vague apology. It is not always
the roughest men who have the worst manners towards women.

He closed the door behind him, leaving Desiree and Louis looking at each
other by the light of an oil lamp that flickered and gave forth a greasy
smell. The little cabin was smoke-ridden, and smelt of ancient tar. It
was no bigger than the table in the drawing-room in the Frauengasse,
across which he had bowed to her in farewell a few days earlier, little
knowing when and where they were to meet again. For fate can always turn
a surprise better than the human fancy.

Behind the curtain, the window stood open, and the high, clear song of
the wind through the rigging filled the little cabin with a continuous
minor note of warning which must have been part of his life; for he must
have heard it, as all sailors do, sleeping or waking, night and day.

He was probably so accustomed to it that he never heeded it. But it
filled Desiree's ears, and whenever she heard it in after-life, in
memory this moment came again to her, and she looked back to it, as a
traveller may look back to a milestone at a cross-road, and wonder where
his journey might have ended had he taken another turning.

"My father," she said quickly, "is in danger. There is no one else in
Dantzig to whom we can turn, and--"

She paused. What was she going to add? She hesitated, and then was
silent. There was no reason why she should have elected to come to him.
At all events she gave none.

"I am glad I was in Dantzig when it happened," he said, turning to take
up his cap, which was of rough dark fur, such as seamen wear even in
summer at night in the Northern seas.

"Come," he added, "you can tell me as we go ashore."

But they did not speak while the sailor sculled the boat to the steps.
On the quay they would probably pass unnoticed, for there were many
strange sailors at this time in Dantzig, and Louis d'Arragon might
easily be mistaken for one of the French seamen who had brought stores
by sea from Bordeaux and Brest and Cherbourg.

"Now tell me," he said, as they walked side by side; and in