The day after he returned from Formosa, Elliott received a reply to his cablegram, which said, simply:  
“Find it. Buck¹ up!
 
“Henninger.”
It was easy to give the order, Elliott thought. But during the next few days the heat was terrible, even for Hongkong. On the Peak, men sweltered; in the lower city, they died. It rained, without cease, a rain that seemed to steam up from the hot earth as fast as it fell, and, to add terror to discomfort², half a dozen cases of cholera³ were discovered in the Chinese city, and an epidemic⁴ was feared. Most of the offices employing white clerks closed daily at noon, and there was a great exodus⁵ of the foreign population to Yokohama.
 
On Sunday it cooled slightly, however, and the rain ceased. To gain what advantage they could of the respite⁶, Margaret and Elliott walked out to the edge of the mountain-top, a quarter of a mile away, and spent the forenoon there. The missionary⁷ dozed⁸ at home; he slept a great deal during the hot weather.
 
They were returning for lunch, which Margaret persistently⁹ refused to call “tiffin,” and had almost reached the bungalow¹⁰, when a man stepped down from the veranda¹¹ and came toward them along the deeply shaded street. At the first glance Elliott thought he recognized the graceful¹², alert figure, and he was right. It was Sevier, who had just left the house.
 
The Alabaman stopped short when he met them, and lifted his hat, without, however, betraying any particular surprise.
 
“Good mo’nin’, Elliott. So you’re in Hongkong?”
 
“As you see,” replied Elliott, a trifle stiffly. “Were you looking for me?”
 
“Not particularly. I was looking for another man.”
 
“How long have you been here?”
 
“Oh, about a couple of weeks.”
 
There was a pause, which Elliott felt to be a nervous one.
 
“How are the bereaved¹³ relatives of your wreck¹⁴’s crew?” Sevier went on.
 
“I don’t know. Have you found the man you were looking for?”
 
“Not exactly. Have you?”
 
“No.”
 
There was another pause. Margaret was looking puzzled and impatient.
 
“I beg your pardon, I’m delaying you,” said Sevier, with a slight bow toward the girl. “I wish you’d dine with me at the Club to-night at seven o’clock. Can you? I have an idea that I can tell you something that you’d be glad to know.”
 
Elliott reflected for a moment, with some suspicion. “Thank you, I shall be delighted,” he accepted, formally, at last.
 
“At seven o’clock,” repeated Sevier, bowing once more, and passing on.
 
“Who was that man? I never saw him before. What were you talking about?” demanded Margaret, when they were out of earshot.
 
“To tell you the truth, I don’t exactly know,” Elliott replied, in a sort of abstracted excitement.
 
Margaret went to her own room to take off her hat, and Elliott turned into the big, darkened sitting-room¹⁵, where he was confronted with the spectacle of the missionary seated beside the table with his head buried in his arms.
 
“What did that man want here?” Elliott demanded, hastily. “Why, what’s the matter with you?”
 
Laurie raised a face that was covered with perspiration¹⁶, and haggard with some emotion. His mouth trembled, and he looked half-dazed.
 
“That man!” he moaned, vaguely¹⁷. “Oh, that man!”
 
“Yes. What did he want?”
 
“What did he want?” repeated Laurie, clearly incapable¹⁸ of coherent thought. “Oh, heavens! what did he not want?”
 
Elliott mixed an iced glass of water and lime juice, for the missionary would never touch spirits.
 
“Here, drink this, and try to brace¹⁹ up,” he said.
 
Laurie drank it like a docile²⁰ child, and looked up with frightened eyes.
 
“I have done wrong,” he said, pathetically. “I have sinned often. I have fallen times past counting.”
 
“I know it,” said Elliott. “What have you been doing now?”
 
“The question is, what am I going to do?” replied the old man, with a flash of animation²¹. “It has all been for her—whatever errors I have made. No one can say that I have ever profited by a dollar that was not honestly my own.”
 
“Well—all right. But for goodness’ sake try to tell me what Sevier was asking about.”
 
Laurie hesitated for a long time.
 
“It was about the ship—the Clara McClay” he produced, at last.
 
Elliott stared, speechless for a moment, shocked into utter bewilderment.
 
“The Clara McClay?” he babbled²². “The—” he was going to say the “gold-ship.”
 
“What do you know about her? Where did you hear of her?”
 
“I was on her. I was wrecked²³ with her.”
 
“The devil you were!”
 
“Yes, wrecked, and saved only by the Lord’s wonderful mercy. I floated about for days in an open boat.”
 
“Look here,” said Elliott. “I rather fancy that you’re running more risk now than you were in that open boat. You don’t know what deep waters you’re sailing. Sevier’s a dangerous man. If you want me to help you, you’ll have to tell me the whole story.”
 
The missionary acquiesced²⁴ with the alacrity²⁵ which he always showed in casting his mundane²⁶ responsibilities upon stronger shoulders.
 
“I am ashamed to tell you the story,” he said. “And yet it was not my fault. At least, I had no intention of doing any wrong whatever. I was in the work at Durban under the British Mission Board. I had been there for two years, and I may say that my efforts had been abundantly blessed,” he added, with humble²⁷ pride.
 
“But I was tempted²⁸, and I was weak. I had a large sum of money in my hands—nearly five hundred dollars—which the Board had supplied for the building of a new chapel²⁹. I did not covet³⁰ it for myself, but my salary was long overdue³¹, and it was past my time to send a remittance³² to my daughter. The fund would not be needed for months, and I would have paid back every cent of it.”
 
“So you took it,” Elliott interrupted.
 
“I sent the remittance. About two weeks later an officer of the Mission Society came through South Africa, and I was called upon for an account of the fund. I was disgraced. I could have escaped, but I would not do that. I started to England in charge of the officer to be tried for embezzlement³³. There was an American steamer sailing from Durban, and we embarked³⁴ on her. The name of the steamer was the Clara McClay.
 
“I stayed in my cabin all the time, so I do not know anything of the voyage. I believe we called at Delagoa Bay for cargo³⁵ and passengers. We had been out over a week when the ship struck. It was very dark, with a high sea running, and she seemed to be breaking up. They launched several boats, but all were sunk before they left the ship’s side.
 
“The Society’s officer went in one of them and tried to induce me to go with him, but I have been many years at sea, and I knew the risk of trying to launch boats in that position. He was drowned, with most of the ship’s company. At daylight there were only five of us left,—the mate, three Boers who had been passengers, and myself. The sea was quieter then, and we managed to get the last of the boats overboard and to get clear.
 
“The mate had been severely³⁷ injured about the head by falling from the bridge when she struck, and I felt sure that he could not live unless we were picked up soon. There was no use in landing on the desert reef where we had struck, so we sailed north with a fair wind, for there was fortunately a sail in the boat. We hoped to get into the track of India-bound vessels,—or at least I hoped for it, for the Boers knew nothing of navigation, and the mate was growing to be either delirious³⁸ or unconscious most of the time.
 
“It was a week before we were picked up. I won’t tell you of its horrors. The water ran out, under the sun of the equator. The Boers drank sea-water, in spite of everything I could say, and all three went mad and threw themselves overboard. I just managed to keep alive and to keep the mate alive by dipping myself frequently in the sea and drenching³⁹ his clothes with the bailer⁴⁰. But he died about the fourth day. He was conscious for a few hours before he died, and I did what I could to prepare his mind.
 
“I had to throw his body overboard. I could not have kept it in the boat—in that heat. But I kept his oilskin clothes and his uniform cap, thinking they might be needful. He had nearly a hundred pounds in sovereigns in a belt, also, which he told me to take, as he had no relatives, and I took them.
 
“It rained the night after he died, and that saved me. Two days later I was picked up by an Italian steamer, called the Andrea Sforzia.”
 
Elliott emitted an ejaculation.
 
“Yes, it was providential,” went on the missionary, patiently. “And then I saw an opportunity of burying my past. I trust it was not dishonourable. The Italian officers of the steamer could speak very little English, and as I was wearing the mate’s uniform cap they took me to be an officer of the wrecked ship. I would not have told them a falsehood, but I did not undeceive them. They took me to Bombay, and they made me go to the American consul⁴¹, but I escaped as soon as I could, and concealed⁴³ myself in the city for a couple of weeks. Then I came on to Hongkong, where I hoped—”
 
“Do you know just where the Clara McClay was wrecked?” Elliott demanded, trying to keep cool in the face of this revelation.
 
“That is what that man asked me. It must have been off the northwest coast of Madagascar.”
 
“But don’t you know the exact spot?”
 
“How could I? I was never out of my cabin till the night she struck.”
 
Elliott burst into a bitter and uncontrollable roar of laughter. This, then, was the end of the trail he had followed from the centre of the United States at such expense and with such hopes. It ended in a man with whom he had unsuspectingly lived for a month, an aged³⁶ ex-missionary of infirm moral habits.
 
“That man who was here asked me the same thing,” repeated Laurie, plaintively⁴⁴. “Why did he want to know where she struck—or why do you want to know? My God! I had almost forgotten it!” he cried, shuddering⁴⁵. “What shall I do? How can I save myself?”
 
“What on earth do you mean?” cried Elliott.
 
“He threatened me with disgrace—and arrest, unless I would tell him where the ship went down. He said he would expose me to the British Mission Board—and he would put all the proofs of—of more than that, of other things, in the hands of my daughter. I deserve to be punished. I can face even disgrace for myself—but not for her—not for my little girl.”
 
“No, she mustn’t hear of anything of the sort,” said Elliott. He considered the situation for several minutes, walking to and fro. “Why did you tell everybody that the ship went down in deep water?” he asked.
 
The missionary started. “How did you know that I did? It was a sudden temptation. The consul in Bombay asked me if she foundered⁴⁶ at sea, and I said she did. It made no difference to any one, and it seemed safer. You must remember the state I was in, after a week in an open boat without water.”
 
“Well, don’t worry,” said Elliott. “I dare say you didn’t mean any harm, but that little remark of yours has cost a good deal of trouble and a good many thousand dollars. But I’ll see that Sevier doesn’t trouble you. I know him pretty well. I’m going to dine with him to-night, in fact, and I’ll explain things to him.”
 
Laurie brightened wonderfully at this assurance. During the past month he had come to have an almost childlike trust in Elliott’s powers of saving him from troubles, and at lunch he had almost recovered his customary serene⁴⁷ benignity⁴⁸. But Elliott was far from that placid⁴⁹ state of mind. The whole campaign would have to be altered. There was now no hope of learning the location of the wreck from any of her survivors⁵⁰. So far as he could see, there was only the chance of searching all that portion of the channel till her bones were discovered, and it was ten to one that the Arab coasters would have been before them. But at any rate he could now meet Sevier without fear; he had no longer any plan to conceal⁴².
 
He spent that afternoon in anxious thought, and finally wrote a long letter to Henninger, deta............