self."

It was evident that he adored his beautiful ward and would have done
anything to relieve her grief. Kennedy evidently thought it best to
leave the two together, as Aux Cayes continued to talk to her in
diminutives and familiar phrases from the French.

"Were there any other people on the boat who might be worth watching?"
he asked as we rejoined Burke, who was looking about at the gaping
crowd.

Burke indicated a group. "Well, there was an old man, Castine, and the
woman he calls his wife," he replied. "They were the ones who really
kept the rest from throwing the body overboard."

"Oh, yes," assented Kennedy. "She told me about them. Are they here
now?"

Burke moved over to the group and beckoned someone aside toward us.
Castine was an old man with gray hair, and a beard which gave him quite
an appearance of wisdom, besides being a matter of distinction among
those who were beardless. With him was Madame Castine, much younger and
not unattractive for a negress.

"You knew Monsieur Leon well?" asked Kennedy.

"We knew him in Port au Prince, like everybody," replied Castine,
without committing himself to undue familiarity.

"Do you know of any enemies of his on the boat?" cut in Burke. "You were
present when they were demanding that his body be thrown over, were you
not? Who was foremost in that?"

Castine shrugged his shoulders in a deprecatory manner. "I do not speak
English very well," he replied. "It was only those who fear the dead."

There was evidently nothing to be gained by trying on him any of Burke's
third degree methods. He had always that refuge that he did not
understand very well.

I turned and saw that Collette and Aux Cayes had come out of the cabin
to the deck together, he holding her arm while she dabbed the tears away
from her wonderful eyes.

At the sight of us talking to Castine and the other woman, she seemed
to catch her breath. She did not speak to us, but I saw the two women
exchange a glance of appraisal, and I determined that "Madame" Castine
was at least worth observing.

By the attitude of the group from which we had drawn them, Castine, it
seemed, exercised some kind of influence over all, rich and poor,
revolutionist and government supporter.

The appearance of Collette occasioned a buzz of conversation and
glances, and it was only a moment before she retreated into the cabin
again. Apparently she did not wish to lose anything, as long as Kennedy
and Burke were a