last thing," stated the disappointed whisper, "I ever
thought a man like you would say."

"But it is obvious. We do not know each other."

"You mean, you can't trust me?"

"For that matter: how can you be sure you can trust me?"

"Oh, I guess I can size up a square guy when I see him."

"Many thanks. But why should I trust you, when you will not even be
quite frank with me?"

"How's that? Haven't I----"

"One moment: you refuse to name the source of your astonishingly
detailed information concerning this affair--myself included. You wish
me to believe you simply assume I am at odds with Captain Monk and his
friends. I admit it is true. But how should you know it? Ah, no, my
friend! either you will tell me how you learned this secret, or I must
beg you to let me get my sleep."

"That's easy. I heard Whit and Phinuit talking about you the other
night, on deck, when they didn't think anybody was listening."

Lanyard smiled into the darkness: no need to fret about fair play
toward this one! The truth was not in him, and by the same token the
traditional honour that obtains among thieves could not be.

He said, as if content, in the manner of a practical man dismissing all
immaterial considerations:

"As you say, the time is brief..."

"It'll have to be pulled off to-morrow night or not at all," the mutter
urged with an eager accent.

"My thought, precisely. For then we come to land, do we not?"

"Yes, and it'll have to be not long after dark. We ought to drop the
hook at midnight. Then"--the mutter was broken with hopeful
anxiety--"then you've decided you'll stand in with me, Mr. Lanyard?"

"But of course! What else can one do? As you have so fairly pointed
out: what is either of us without the other?"

"And it's understood: you're to lift the stuff, I'm to take care of it
till we can slip ashore, we're to make our getaway together--and the
split's to be fifty-fifty, fair and square?"

"I ask nothing better."

"Where's your hand?"

Two hands found each other blindly and exchanged a firm and inspiring
clasp--while Lanyard gave thanks for the night that saved his face from
betraying his mind.

Another deep sigh sounded a note of apprehensions at an end. A gruff
chuckle followed.

"Whit Monk! He'll learn something about the way to treat old friends."
And all at once the mutter merged into a vindictive hiss: "Him with his
airs and graces, his fine clothes and greasy manners, putting on the
lah-de-da