Sallie sat down quickly in a cushioned chair, and lay back, trembling like a captured bird.

Slyne was not beyond feeling somewhat ashamed of himself, but found easy solace in the reflection that all he had said was for her good as well as his own. He could see that his last brutal argument had struck home. For Sallie could no longer doubt, now, in the lurid light of her recent experiences, that Captain Dove looked upon her as a mere chattel, to be turned into cash as soon as occasion should offer.

In a little she looked up at him again out of pleading, desperate eyes. Some most unusual impulse of pity stirred him. She was only a young girl yet, and her helplessness spoke its own appeal, even to him. He made up his mind again, quite apart from any question of policy, to deal with her as generously as might be practicable.

"Will Captain Dove let me go now if I promise to marry you, Jasper?" she asked. And he nodded solemnly.

"And not unless I do?" she insisted. "You know I didn\'t—before, although you say I did."

"I swear to God, Sallie," he declared, "that I can\'t raise the money the Old Man wants any other way. And—I won\'t say another word about what\'s past and done with.

"If you\'ll really promise to marry me," he said eagerly, "I\'ll prove to you that all I have told you is true before you need even leave Captain Dove; I won\'t ask you to go a step farther with me until you\'re perfectly satisfied; I\'ll take you safely to your own home as soon as you are satisfied that you can trust me. And I won\'t ask you to keep your promise till—"

An irrepressible light of longing had leaped up behind the despair in her eyes.

"You say that all I must do in the meantime is to sign some papers," she interrupted. "You say you won\'t ask me to marry you right away. Will you wait—a year?"

"A year! I couldn\'t, Sallie!" he cried, and her pale lips drooped piteously again.

"How long, then?" she asked in a whisper. "Six months?"

He had made up his mind to be generous, and he felt that he had not failed in his intention as he answered, "Three months, and not a day longer, Sallie."

She sat still and silent for a while, considering that, and then, "All right, Jasper," she agreed. "Take me safe home, and I\'ll marry you three months from the day we get there—if we\'re both alive when the time comes."

He turned away from her for a moment. He had won all he wanted in the meantime, and he could scarcely contain himself. When he presently held out a hand to her, she took it, to bind that bargain.

"And you won\'t have any cause to regret it, Sallie," he assured her, his voice somewhat hoarse in spite of his effort to speak quite naturally.

"So now, as soon as you\'re ready, we\'ll all go ashore together, and—"

"I\'ll be ready in twenty minutes," she told him, clasping her hands at her heart, her eyes very eager. "And, Jasper—you must let me take Ambrizette with me."

"You\'re free now to do as you like," he answered, and left her. He felt as if he were treading on air on his way back to the mid-ship saloon.

Captain Dove, in the same négligé costume, was busy at breakfast when Slyne walked in upon him again, but looked up from his plate for long enough to mumble a malicious question.

"Yes, I\'ve fixed it all up with her," Slyne answered with assumed nonchalance. "You can always trust me to know how to handle a woman, Dove."

Captain Dove shot a derisive glance in his direction. "Is she willing to marry you after all, then?" he demanded, feigning a surprise by no means complimentary.

"Not just at once, of course," returned his companion, and left the old man to infer whatever he pleased.

In response to a shouted order of Captain Dove\'s a slatternly cook-steward brought Slyne a steaming platter of beans with a bit of bacon-rind on top, and an enamelled mug containing a brew which might, by courtesy, have been called coffee. There was a tray of broken ship\'s biscuits, a tin containing some peculiarly rank substitute for butter, upon the table, with the other equally uninviting concomitants of a meagre meal.

"Tchk-tchk!" commented Slyne, and sat down to satisfy his hunger as best he might; while Captain Dove, having overheard that criticism, eyed him inimically, and proceeded to puff a peculiarly rank cigar in his face.

"You might as well be getting dressed now," said Slyne indifferently. "By the time I\'m through here, Sallie will be ready to go ashore."

Captain Dove looked very fiercely at him, but without effect.

"Sallie won\'t stir a step from the ship," the old man affirmed, "till you\'ve handed over the cash."

Slyne looked up, in mild surprise.

"But, dear me! Dove," he remarked, "you don\'t expect that the London lawyer\'s going to take my word for a girl he\'s never even seen? Until he\'s satisfied on that point, he won\'t endorse my note to you. So we\'ve got to take her along with us. I\'m doing my best to give you a square deal; and all I ask in return is a square deal from you."

"You\'d better not try any crooked games with me," growled Captain Dove, and sat for a time sunk in obviously aggravating reflections.

"If we get on his soft side," suggested Slyne insidiously, "there\'s no saying how much more we might both make."

Captain Dove rose and retired into his sleeping-cabin without further words; while Slyne, picking out with a two-pronged fork the cleanest of the beans on his plate, smiled sneeringly to himself.

"What\'s the latest long-shore fashion, Slyne?" the old man asked after an interval. Slyne knew by his tone that he had dismissed dull care from his mind and was prepared to be quarrelsome again.

"It wouldn\'t suit a figure like yours," he answered coolly, and was gratified to hear another hoarse growl. For, strange though it may seem, Captain Dove was not without vanity. "All you really need to worry about is how to keep sober. And I want it to be understood from the start—"

"Not so much of it now!" snarled Captain Dove from his cabin. "You attend to your own business—and I\'ll attend to mine. I know how to behave myself—among gentlemen. And, don\'t you forget, either, that I\'m going ashore to play my own hand. I\'ve a card or two up my sleeve, Mister Slyne, that will maybe euchre your game for you—if you try to bluff too high."

Slyne swore hotly, under his breath. He would have given a great deal to know exactly what the old man meant by that mysterious threat, and only knew that it would be useless to ask him. There was nothing for it but to put up with his capricious humours, as patiently as might be—although Slyne shivered in anticipation of the strain that might entail—till he could be dispensed with or got rid of altogether.

Nor, as it presently appeared, were his fears at all ill-founded. For Captain Dove emerged from his cabin got up for shore-going in a guise at sight of which Slyne could by no means suppress an involuntary groan.

"I\'m all ready now," Captain Dove announced. "Will you pay for a cab if I call one?"

"My car\'s waiting," Slyne returned, and, as the old man whistled amazedly over that further and unexpected proof that his former accomplice\'s fortunes had changed for the better, "You look like a fool in that outfit," said Slyne. "The right rig-out for motoring is a tweed suit and a soft cap."

Captain Dove was very visibly annoyed. He had been at particular pains to array himself properly. "You want to be the only swell in the party, of course!" he grunted. "You\'re jealous, that\'s what\'s the matter with you." And he fell to polishing his furry, old-fashioned top-hat with a tail of the scanty, ill-fitting frock-coat he had donned along with a noisome waistcoat in honour of the occasion.

Slyne shrugged his shoulders, despairingly, and, having made an end of his unappetising meal, prepared for the road. Then he lighted a cigar very much at his leisure, while Captain Dove regarded him grimly, and led the way on deck without further words.

Sallie was ready and waiting at the companion-hatch on the poop, as pretty as a picture in the sables Captain Dove had given her a year before—after a very lucrative season of poaching on the Siberian coast. As soon as she caught sight of them she came forward, followed by Ambrizette, whose appearance, in cloak and turban, was even a worse offence to Slyne\'s fastidious taste than Captain Dove\'s had been.

"What a calamitous circus!" he muttered between set teeth. "I must get rid of those two somehow—and soon. But till then—

"My car\'s at the back of those coal-wagons there," he told Captain Dove with great dignity, and Captain Dove turned to the engine-room hatch.

"Below there!" he called down. "Is that Mr. Brasse? I\'m off now, Brasse. You\'ll carry out all my instructions, eh? And—don\'t quarrel with Da Costa, d\'ye hear?"

"Ay, ay, sir," answered a dreary voice from the depths below, and Captain Dove faced about again to find Sallie, flushed and anxious, waiting with Ambrizette at the gangway.

"Come on," he ordered irascibly, and Sallie followed him down the plank. Ambrizette shuffled fearfully after her, and Slyne came last, his chin in the air, triumphant.

He led the way to his car, and was gratified to observe its salutary effect on Captain Dove\'s somewhat contemptuous demeanour. The little policeman in charge of it pending its opulent owner\'s return, came forward, touching his képi, which further impressed Captain Dove, uncomfortably. Slyne handed Sallie into the tonneau, and Ambrizette after her, tossed the policeman a further tip which secured his everlasting esteem, took his own seat at the wheel, and was hastily followed by Captain Dove.

"Where are we bound for?" asked Captain Dove, holding his top-hat on with both hands, as Slyne took the road toward Sampierdarena at a round pace............