sport, by jove_! For some time after our capture
by the pirates Cuthbert's state had been one of settled
incredulity. Even when they tied his hands he had continued to
contemplate the invaders as illusions. It was, this remarkable
episode, altogether a thing without precedent--and what was that
but another name for the impossible? And then slowly, by painful
degrees--you saw them reflected in his candid face--it grew upon
him that it was precisely the impossible, the unprecedented, that
was happening.

A curious stiffening came over Cuthbert Vane. For the first time
in my knowledge of him he showed the consciousness--instead of only
the sub-consciousness--of the difference between Norman blood and
the ordinary sanguine fluid. His shoulders squared; he lost his
habitual easy lounge and sat erect and tall. Something stern and
aquiline showed through the smooth beauty of his face, so that you
thought of effigies of crusading knights stretched on their ancient
tombs in High Staunton church. He was their true descendant after
all, this slow, calm, gentle-mannered Cuthbert. It was a young
lion that I had been playing with, and the claws were there, strong
and terrible in their velvet sheath.

Captain Tony, having finished his pipe, knocked the ashes out
against the heel of his boot and put the pipe in his pocket.

"Well," he said, stretching, "I'd ruther have a nap, but business
is business, so let's get down to it. Which o' them guys has the
line on the stuff, Magnus?"

"Old Baldy, here," returned Magnus, with a nod at Mr. Tubbs. "Old
Washtubs I call him generally, ha, ha!"

"Then looky here, Washtubs," said Tony, addressing Mr. Tubbs with
sudden sternness, "maybe you could bluff these here soft guys, but
we're a different breed o' cats, we are. Whatever you know, you'll
come through with it and come quick, or it'll be the worse for your
hide, see?"

Mr. Tubbs rose from the log with promptness.

"Captain," he said earnestly, "from long experience in the
financial centers of the country, I have got to be a man what
understands human nature. The minute I looked at you, I seen it in
your eye that there wasn't no use in tryin' to bluff you. What's
more, I don't want to. Once he gets with a congenial crowd, there
ain't a feller anywheres that will do more in the cause o'
friendship than old Hamilton H. Tubbs. And you are a congenial
crowd, you boys--gosh, but you do look good to me after the bunch
o' s