Together the castaways went forward to the galley, passing out of the cabin through the starboard alleyway so that Emily might not see again what was in the mate's room. As Paul stepped out on deck he mentally marked the time by the sun's ascension. It was not later than 8:30 o'clock.  
Signs of hurried departure met the eye on every hand in the galley. Chief among them was a batch of bread which had been put to rising beside the range. But Paul did not pause to make any examination until he had rattled up a fire. He had picked up a box of matches in McGavock's room. There was a bin of kindling and plenty of coal in the scuttles, and it took only a few minutes to get a meal together. It was the warmest and best breakfast they had enjoyed since they had been cast away, albeit the mainstay was a porridge of canned corn which Paul had hit upon as the most promising thing in a quick search of the stores aft. For the rest there was hard tack and marmalade and coffee. This coffee, a strong brew, was really the crown of the breakfast. Its very odor was life-giving; strength-restoring.
 
Over the breakfast Paul related with all the gentleness at his command the facts which had been revealed by his search through the cabins. There was little to add to what Emily had seen herself.
 
"We are alone, Emily," he said, "except for those who will never wake again."
 
Fearful that similar heart-harrowing sights might be held by the forward part of the vessel as those which the sore-beset girl had discovered aft he induced her to remain in the warmth of the galley while he pressed his search in the forecastle.
 
"Don't—please don't stay long," she pleaded. "I feel—that—that I will never be able to bear it—to have you go out of my sight again." A shudder shook her. "When I saw you—a little while ago——Oh, the ship fell on you! The bows came down and—buried you in the water——"
 
"There, there, dear. Let us never think of it again. I have only a glimmer of an idea—of what happened. I don't know what happened; in fact, I don't want to know. All I do know and all I care about is—that somehow I had the sand—the brute strength to save you. Just you of all the world!"
 
He seized her passionately as he spoke and kissed her. The pressure of her firm, lithe body against his sent his blood clamoring. The natural perfume of her hair made his brain hammer drunkenly. Still above the tumult which beset his senses rang a mocking laugh—a devil's laugh. As he caught it a chill went over him. He put Emily away from him as fiercely as he had taken her and, crying, without a word, she sank on the bench in front of the fire and hid her face in her hands. As he turned away his brow was clouded with anger; his eyes filled with bitterness.
 
A second Lavelle stood motionless, his trembling breath an unuttered curse of himself. Then he turned to the door at his side and banged it open. It was the entrance to the cook's cubby-hole of a room. A piece of matting and a wooden pillow in the bunk told that its late occupant had been either a Chinese or Japanese. There was an odor, too, that bespoke the recent presence of an opium smoker. He had departed in a hurry.
 
There was another door leading aft from the galley. This was the entrance to the carpenter shop and donkey engine room. A cubby-hole with a bunk in it to port had been the carpenter's abode. Lavelle noted with satisfaction the equipment of glistening, well-kept tools on the engine room bulkheads.
 
Hurrying forward, Paul entered the forecastle. It was an exceptionally large one for a vessel of the Daphne's size. Echo answered his hail. Mattresses—the straw pallets which sailors call "donkeys' breakfasts"—clothes' bags, ditty bags, oilskins, sea boots, sou'westers, an assortment of greasy pots, pannikins, and spoons, and two filthy kids littered the black deck. Half a dozen chests gaped open, their contents falling over their sides. The hands that had gone through them had sought only the bottoms where money, trinkets, and supposed valuables had been hidden by their owners. So had he found the chests in the rooms of the second and third mates, the carpenter, and the cook. In their extremity they had all acted alike—thought only of useless baubles and left useful, necessary things behind.
 
A sailor before the mast, used and inured to hardship, living by the hour hand in hand with death, trained in the expectancy of sudden danger, ever aware of the constant attendance of peril, might be expected to act with more intelligence in an emergency which may cost him his life than the humdrum-going citizen ashore. Left to himself, he will go out of a ship in mid-ocean with a few shillings he has stored in the bottom of his bag or chest, a model upon which he has been spending most of his watches below, a derby hat or flash necktie for which he paid four times too much at his last port. Rarely has he a thought of necessary things—the countless useful articles of clothing such as Paul Lavelle saw on every hand—overcoats, jackets, underclothing—which a day or an hour in an open boat can make worth a king's ransom.
 
The forecastle had been emptied in a hurry, but it told no other tale than that. There is no lair of mankind, no habitation of man's devisement more cheerless than a ship's forecastle. There is no sight more depressing, more dismal than one deserted.
 
Paul, with a shudder, crossed from the starboard side, through which he had entered, to port. The breath of fresh air which he caught as he threw back the door and stepped out on deck was like a draught of wine. His spirits lifted as it dissipated the sea-sour stench which his nostrils were carrying. He turned forward immediately to at last come upon an explanation of the exodus from the Daphne.
 
The fore hatch was open. The covers were strewn about the deck. Up out of the glistening cargo of coals came an odor of fire. There was no smoke, but fire had been or was down there.
 
He recognized the dangerous quality of the coals at once. It was fear of it that had emptied the crew overside in panic. His mind, in the stress which had been upon it while he was aft, had not grasped the probable character of the cargo when he read in the log book with what the Daphne was laden.
 
Dropping down through the hatchway his bare feet felt no heat. None of the signs of "trouble" which he knew so well was present. He had fought cargoes like this one.
 
All was cool below; not the faintest indication of gas. But still there was an odor of fire. He crawled out into the wings, and as he did so his eyes became accustomed to the semi-darkness. Thus by sight he located the source of the baffling fire smell. It was under the deck just forward of the hatch—a heap of ashes burned from all sorts of old junk. Mattresses had made part of the fire.
 
Not two feet away from where the fire had burned most briskly lay a five-gallon tin of kerosene on its side. The arsonist who had carried it there either had lost his nerve at the end and been afraid to open its cock, or else he had depended upon it to explode.
 
Still this fire which had been set with the intention of destroying the Daphne had made much smoke and burned out impotently. The deck above it was only slightly charred.
 
Paul raked through the ashes feverishly. The coal underneath was as cool to the touch as it was elsewhere. Not more than a handful of it was blistered.
 
When he drew himself up on deck again he hauled a couple of buckets of water from over the side and threw it on the spot where the fire had burned as a matter of extraordinary precaution. Nor did he forget to bring the kerosene out of the hold.
 
Emily met him with a smile of gladness, which immediately turned into a laugh of humor as Paul stepped into the galley again.
 
"Where have you been—what have you been doing?" she asked.
 
"Why—what is the matter?"
 
"You should see yourself in a glass. You're as black as a moor."
 
He paused a second to survey himself. He indeed was a sorry sight. The thin tattered shirt and the trousers which he had slashed off at the knees when he struck out from the island still clung to him damply. His limbs were black with coal dust.
 
"I can imagine the color of my face," said he, and he rubbed the stubble of beard on his cheeks. "But never mind my appearance—only pour me a cup of that strong coffee."
 
While he drank the black brew he summed up for Emily their exact situation:
 
"We're all alone, partner—just us. A fire panic emptied the vessel—a fire which the murderers of the skipper and chief mate believed would destroy the ship and the evidence of their crimes. The ship's laden with Australian coals—a treacherous cargo. Knowing its dangerous character, it is easy for me to understand what the first flash of smoke meant to the minds of the sort of gang for'ard. They believed the cargo was afire. With those in authority plying them with fear and not a voice to steady them, they must have gone over the side like rats. The more haste that marked their going the better were the plans of the ringleaders suited. I cannot help believing that what happened aft was known to only a few—the second mate and perhaps the third. Yet how was it explained to those outside of the secret of the assassinations—the absence of the skipper and chief mate? The ringleaders could have reported them as dead without explaining what had killed them. They could have reported them to have killed each other. They could have reported them as having fallen overboard. They could have told the others even that the men had been murdered, without giving any proof against themselves. But I must have done with this conjecturing. It is idle."
 
Paul put down his empty cup with impatience.
 
"But where could they have gone?" Emily asked.
 
"Chi risponde presto, sa poco. That is as the Italians have it: Who answers suddenly knows little. The fact that they took provisions and the three boats which the empty chocks show to have been in the bark seems convincing that they did not flee to another ship. Perhaps they believed they were near some land."
 
"Maybe another island—a trap like ours? I looked for our island—out there——It is gone."
 
Paul nodded.
 
"But these things—these sandals. There was a woman——"
 
"I am thinking of a woman's presence in the mystery. The French say there is always a woman."
 
He spoke with an attempt at lightness which he was far from feeling. A wince of unpleasantness indicated his true thoughts.
 
"Do you agree with the French adage?" Emily asked. An enigmatical smile played across her face as she put the question.
 
"There is always one woman—one woman out of all the world," he answered. His tone thrilled her. He studied her for a second mysteriously. "You are very wonderful to me," he added, but his voice was so low that it seemed that the thought back of it forced itself to unconscious utterance. She met his gaze frankly; the unconcealed light of love was in her eyes.
 
Paul turned away from her abruptly and a chill came into her heart. She saw the old expression of pain in his face—the expression she had beheld there the day she had seen him first in the steamship agency in Yokohama. It always came so unexpectedly.
 
Looking out of the galley door to windward, Paul saw a clear sky. The breeze from the southwest held steady at about six or seven knots. All overhead signs promised fine weather, but the swell was ominous. Still all the indications were that it was the aftermath of a storm which had passed far to the westward.
 
"You're the chief mate of the Daphne now," he said, facing her again, "and it's your watch below. You slept but little last night, you know."
 ............