ack?"

"Once I thought I had at Singapore, but nothing came of it. No doubt
he changed his name. He never asked for, never got, the legacy my poor
father left him."

"What was it made you think you had come across him at Singapore?"

"Oh, certain significant things."

"What was he doing?"

Debney looked at his old friend for a moment debatingly, then said
quietly: "Slave-dealing, and doing it successfully, under the noses of
men-of-war of all nations."

"But you decided it was not he after all?"

"I doubted. If Ted came to that, he would do it in a very big way. It
would appeal to him on some grand scale, with real danger and, say, a
few scores of thousands of pounds at stake--not unless."

Mostyn lit a cigar, and, thrusting his hands into his pockets, regarded
the scene before him with genial meditation--the creamy wash of the
sea at their feet, the surface of the water like corrugated silver
stretching to the farther sky, with that long lane of golden light
crossing it to the sun, Alcatras, Angel Island, Saucilito, the rocky
fortresses, and the men-of-war in the harbour, on one of which flew the
British ensign--the Cormorant, commanded by Debney.

"Poor Ted!" said Mostyn at last; "he might have been anything."

"Let us get back to the Cormorant," responded Debney sadly. "And see,
old chap, when you get back to England, I wish you'd visit my mother
for me, for I shall not see her for another year, and she's always
anxious--always since Ted left."

Mostyn grasped the other's hand, and said: "It's the second thing I'll
do on landing, my boy."

Then they talked of other things, but as they turned at the Presidio for
a last look at the Golden Gate, Mostyn said musingly: "I wonder how many
millions' worth of smuggled opium have come in that open door?"

Debney shrugged a shoulder. "Try Nob Hill, Fifth Avenue, and the Champs
Elysees. What does a poor man-o'-war's-man know of such things?"

An hour later they were aboard the Cormorant dining with a number of men
asked to come and say good-bye to Mostyn, who was starting for England
the second day following, after a pleasant cruise with Debney.

Meanwhile, from far beyond that yellow lane of light running out from
Golden Gate, there came a vessel, sailing straight for harbour. She was
an old-fashioned cruiser, carrying guns, and when she passed another
vessel she hoisted the British flag. She looked like a half-obsolete
corvette, spruced up, made modern by ev