When the Goalong passed the Narrows and was making her way rapidly through the upper harbor, it was approaching the evening of the second day after her encounter with the pirate cruiser, Shadow.

Maxwell Kane was standing near the wheel-house as they passed inside the bay, and, after glancing at his watch, he turned and walked aft, where his wife and her mother were seated, silent, under the awning. Both were sad and care-worn, for the terrible uncertainty as to the fate of the beloved sister and daughter had almost prostrated them. And yet, they had borne up wonderfully well under the circumstances.

“I am always good at picking winners,” Kane had said to them on one occasion, “and I will take Bess against the field any time. That pirate will get left at the pole, you see if he doesn’t, and he’ll never come within a thousand yards of our filly. You see!”

Just now, when he walked aft, he had another idea on his mind.

“Mother,” he said, to the elder woman, “we will be at the foot of West Twenty-third Street in something more than an hour; that is to say, in exactly forty-eight hours since we parted with the Shadow.”

“Yes, Maxwell,” she replied. “Well?”

“I was about to suggest this: An hour more or less[156] now won’t cut much ice in this affair we’ve got on hand, will it?”

“I don’t know exactly what you mean, Maxwell; but go on.”

“I want you and Cora to remain on board when we land; see?”

“You don’t wish us to go ashore? Really, Maxwell, I feel as if I must——”

“I don’t want you to go ashore—either of you—until after we have seen and talked with Nick Carter. Just the very first moment when I can leave the yacht I will do so, and I will get him over the telephone and ask him to come to us; and we won’t any of us say a blessed word about anything that has happened on this cruise, until after we have seen and talked with him. Is that agreeable?”

“Why, yes, I suppose so.”

“I have given orders to Manning to that effect. And now, with that understanding, I’ll have myself put ashore the first moment possible. In the meantime, if anybody should happen to come out to the yacht, you will not receive them?”

“Certainly not.”

“It is not at all likely that anybody will do so, you know; but I wish to have it understood.”

“Very well, Maxwell.”

True to Kane’s prophecy, the Goalong arrived at the time he said she would, and in a very short time after that he was in communication with the detective. Their conversation was short, but very much to the point.

[157]

“Is that you, Nick?” Kane asked; and when he had received an affirmative reply he continued:

“Don’t ask me for particulars over the phone, but come down here as quickly as you can, will you? It is a matter of life and death, old man.”

“I’ll be there at once,” was the reply; and Kane heard the click of the receiver as the detective replaced it at the other end.

And he had not long to wait after that.

He did not return at once to the yacht, but lingered where he was until he saw the detective leap from a car and approach him; then he led the way directly to his launch, and the two were speedily set aboard the yacht. In as few words as possible, he then related the story of their adventure which had ended so disastrously—in the abduction of Bessie Harlan.

The very first question which Nick then asked was one which Kane had foreseen. It was:

“Who, besides yourselves, is aware of this affair?”

“Not a soul in the world, save the people aboard this yacht—and aboard the pirate, of course.”

“Then,” said Nick slowly and emphatically, “not a soul save yourselves must ever know about it.”

“Just my own idea,” said Kane.

“It is for her sake,” continued Nick Carter. “Ladies, when you go ashore, you must say not a thing about this sad occurrence. Give out—if you must make any explanation at all—that Miss Harlan has remained at Bermuda, or that you have dropped her somewhere on the[158] route homeward. For her own sake her present predicament must never be known.”

“We realize that fully,” said Mrs. Kane.

“Can you keep your crew from talking about the pirate?” asked Nick, of Max.

“You bet I can.”

“Then see that you do so.”

“But Mr. Carter,” asked the mother, “can you not give us some hope of her rescue?”

“Hope? Certainly I can. Hope? There is no occasion for anything else save hope.”

“But think—think of her awful predicament.”

“I have thought of it. I am thinking of it now. Madam, you have often heard the expression that you cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear; but has it ever occurred to you that it is quite as difficult an undertaking to make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse?”

“I do not understand you. Mr. Carter.”

“Then I will explain. We are agreed, are we not, that the captain of the Shadow is no other and no less a person than Count Cadillac?”

“Yes.”

“Very well. If Count Cadillac had been reared a pirate—if he had passed all his life before he appeared here in society among us, in the slums of the world, a scoundrel, a thief, an impostor, and a felon, his advent here would have been a parallel with making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Now, we all know that while he was among us, he at least appeared the gentleman, and, therefore,[159] we are satisfied that his antecedents were and are good.”

“That is certainly true, Nick,” said Kane. “I begin to see the point you are getting at.”

“Very well. Now, on the other hand, if he has always been a gentleman until he took up this calling of a pirate, he has undertaken the proposition of turning the saying the other way ’round; eh?”

“Changing himself into a sow’s ear, when he has, heretofore, been a sort of a silk purse; is that the idea?”

“Exactly.”

“How does it apply, Mr. Carter?”

“Why, his natural proclivities are those of a gentleman. His calling as a pirate is an avocation rather than a vocation. He can play the brute, but he cannot wholly become one.”

“He is certainly acting the part of one now,” said Mrs. Kane.

“Granted; but it is only outwardly. Inherently, he is still a man of genteel tendencies. He has held you up in the middle of the ocean and robbed you of the greatest treasure you possess, but he has not done it for ransom—he has done it because he is in love with Bessie, and because he realized the utter hopelessness of his love, since we sent his brother to prison, and proved to our own satisfaction that he was as deep in the mud as his brother was in the mire.

“Don’t you understand that the moment Bessie became a prisoner a............