In his slowly came shock,
amazement. She placed her fingers slowly over her heart; her hand
slipped down and fell again at her side.

"There!" she murmured.

"Is--is my end so close?" he whispered.

She nodded slowly. "You are in great danger. This may be your final
opportunity. See? I am offering no resistance. Why--why do you
hesitate?"

With the tiny blade lying like a flame of pure silver across the palm
of his hand, Peter experienced a moment troubled and exceedingly
awkward. That threat, perhaps, was hardly more than the spilling out
of bitterness which she had created in him.

In silence he handed the thing back to her almost furtively; and she
accepted it without removing her shining gaze from his. Somehow she
seemed to have come out victorious in a conflict that had had nothing
to do with knives, with broken promises. And with the restoration of
the dagger the spell seemed to be swept aside.

Turning abruptly, with a slight straightening of his shoulders, he
walked away from her.

Anthony was like a guardian angel, a statue gravely symbolic of
protection, standing over the golden heads, with the revolver dangling
from his hand and shooting out metallic gleams. Their eyes were
tightly closed; the twins were sleeping as if drugged.

They heard a low, hushed scream.

"Peter--_ni kan_!"

Peter turned quickly, searching both entrances. At first he was
conscious of no intrusion. Then a yellow face, long, narrow, with a
stub of purple-black hair protruding behind, and which for a moment he
took to be a part of the curtain, slowly withdrew, arising
upward--vanishing!

The phantom was not unlike the wisps of yellow smoke from a green-wood
fire, despatched by a lazy dawn wind. The face of Jen, the deck
steward!

CHAPTER VII

Apparently Anthony had not observed this specter.

Peter seized his arm, the left one. "We must start. Wake them up."

Anthony shook a nervous negative. "I've tried. That wine!"

"_Arracka_. Comes from Java. Tastes like May wine, and is stronger
than cognac." He was tilting Peggy's chin, shaking her head. No
response. He tried the same experiment with Helen, and begot identical
results.

Romola Borria had vanished.

Peter stepped out first, supporting his limp freight with his left arm,
and in his right brandishing a revolver. He hoped it wouldn't be
necessary and he was sure that underneath the splendid varnish of
Anthony's fine bravado larked t