is stateroom--with the pilot
dropped and the Sybarite footing it featly over Channel waters to airs
piped by a freshening breeze--it was to sleep once round the clock and
something more; for it was nearly six in the afternoon when he came on
deck again.

The quarterdeck, a place of Epicurean ease for idle passengers, was
deserted but for a couple of deckhands engaged in furling the awning.
Lanyard lounged on the rail, revelling in a sense of perfect physical
refreshment intensified by the gracious motion of the vessel, the
friendly, rhythmic chant of her engines, the sweeping ocean air and the
song it sang in the rigging, the vision of blue seas snow-plumed and
mirroring in a myriad facets the red gold of the westering sun, and the
lift and dip of a far horizon whose banks of violet mist were the
fading shores of France.

In these circumstances of the sea he loved so well there was certain
anodyne for those twinges of chagrin which he must suffer when reminded
of the sorry figure he had cut overnight.

Still there were compensations--of a more material nature, too, than
this delight which he had of being once again at sea. To have cheapened
himself in the estimation of Liane Delorme and Phinuit and Monk was
really to his advantage; for to persuade an adversary to under-estimate
one is to make him almost an ally. Also, Lanyard now had no more need
to question the fate of the Montalais jewels, no more blank spaces
remained to be filled in his hypothetical explanation of the intrigues
which had enmeshed the Chateau de Montalais, its lady and his honour.

He knew now all he needed to know, he could put his hand on the jewels
when he would; and he had a fair fortnight (the probable duration of
their voyage, according to Monk) in which to revolve plans for making
away with them at minimum cost to himself in exertion and exposure to
reprisals.

Plans? He had none as yet, he would begin to formulate and ponder them
only when he had better acquaintance with the ship and her company and
had learned more about that ambiguous landfall which she was to make
(as Phinuit had put it) "in the dark of the moon."

Not that he made the mistake of despising those two social malcontents,
Phinuit and Jules, that rogue adventurer Monk, that grasping courtesan
Liane Delorme.

Individually and collectively Lanyard accounted that quartet uncommonly
clever, resourceful, audacious, unscrupulous, and potentially ruthless,
utterly callous to