"It strikes me," said Jerrold Taberman, "that we are booked for everlasting fame, win or lose. We'll either sail down the ages as a brace of heroes, or as the most egregious pair of donkeys that ever botched a job."

"Well, Jerry," returned his companion, smiling, "you've as much to do with making the thing a success as I have. I hope you realize the responsibility."

The young men chuckled in concert at the thought of all that was involved in this remark, although they looked, not at each other, but out over the sea.

It was early twilight in the last week of the month of May. The two speakers were standing on a little jetty that ran out into a small and all but landlocked harbor of an island in East Penobscot Bay. Both were evidently in the earlier twenties, both were dressed in such canvas working-suits as are worn by the sailors in our navy, and both were, at half a glance, gentlemen.

The second speaker, John Castleport, was tall and dark. His face, with its prominent features and keen brown eyes, was rather striking than handsome. He stood looking southward to where, in the fading light, the Atlantic shouldered away to the west as if with a hidden purpose of its own. In his hand he held a pair of powerful binoculars, and despite his smile he had the air of being pretty seriously in earnest.

Taberman contrasted curiously with his host. He was short and thickset, with blue eyes and fair hair which showed a tendency to curl. As he stood with shoulders turned to the wind, the square collar of his canvas jumper was blown against his round pate, and made a background for his tanned face. He held a briar drop-pipe between his teeth, and his hands were thrust deep into his trousers pockets. Working his pipe into the corner of his mouth, he spoke again.

"Hope this breeze won't trouble the old gentleman," he remarked, casting a glance at the billowing double-headers that were driving by aloft.

The wind shrilled by the watchers on the jetty, clear, strong, and salt.

"Guess not," replied Castleport; "anything short of a hurricane's a sailing-wind for him. He's a mettlesome old chap."

"That's right enough. Can't have him spoiling our game by being late, you know. Let's go up; it's getting beastly chilly."

They turned and walked along the pier. At the point where it met the shore stood a small boathouse. Thence the ground, covered with a stunted growth of spruce and fir, and the inevitable New England boulders, rose abruptly. Directly in the line of the jetty the shingled roof of a small house showed above the trees. To the westward, in the dimming afterglow of the sunset, the Camden Hills stood out luminous, purple, yet rimmed with a thread of golden fire. Away to the east, clad in soberer colors, rose Mt. Desert, a mass of shadowy greens and blues. The steepness of the path they were ascending soon cut off from the view of the young men these beauties and grandeurs, which, however, they were probably not in a mood to dwell upon; and a minute's walking brought them to the door of the house, a small affair with high-pitched roof and broad veranda. Its shingles were almost the color of the dark evergreens that encircled the clearing in which it stood; its windows reflected with a vacant and glassy stare the fast-fading light. Castleport opened the door for his guest, and followed him into the living-room.

The darkness seemed the greater from its contrast with what light yet remained outside, and not until Taberman had put a match to the pile of old shingles and light driftwood in the wide fireplace could they see fairly. The crimson glow showed a room some twenty feet square, with windows on two sides,—the south and east. The joists and sheathing were of planed spruce, left unpainted. The big Mexican fireplace of brick occupied the northwestern corner; in the middle of the room stood conspicuously a round deal table, covered with a litter of pipes, tobacco, magazines, and nautical hardware; between the two eastern windows, below a box-like cabinet which was attached to the wall, was a smaller table with a square top, piled with books and charts. Beneath the southern windows was placed a heavy desk with a faded baize top, the cloth ink-stained and full of holes due to moths and carelessly handled cigars. Of the happy-go-lucky assortment of chairs which completed the furniture of the room, no large portion was in an entirely unbroken condition, but all evidently were meant for service and ease. The walls of the room were decorated with devices in scallop-shells and a few unframed water-colors of the impressionist type. A large chart of Penobscot Bay was tacked to the inside of the door, and a venerable flintlock musket hung below a battered quadrant over the chimneypiece. Everything was simple almost to rudeness, yet the place gave at once and most strongly the impression of comfort and good-fellowship.

Castleport laid his binoculars on the desk, and, stepping to a door on his right, opened it and called out:—

"Oh, Gonzague?"

"Sair?" promptly replied some one from beyond the short passage into which he looked.

"Dinner when you're ready, Gonzague."

"A' right, sair."

Taberman had seated himself by the fire, and here Castleport joined him. Each filled and lighted a pipe, and together they stared at the flames roaring up the wide chimney. The smaller sticks already began to fall apart, pitching outward or dropping between the dogs, and for some moments the young men watched them in silence. At length, as Taberman flung a fresh stick into the flames, Castleport spoke, half to himself.

"What a lesson it'll be to the old chap! My aunt! He'll grind his teeth to powder!"

"Tooth-powder, eh?" queried the other with a grin. "But we must be sure we have the laugh on the right side. It isn't merely the getting away with the Merle that's the joke; it's the hanging on to her and bringing her back safe."

"That's true enough," assented Castleport; "but with pluck and luck and an eye to the three L's, we ought to manage."

"You'd better go over the whole plan for me, Jack; you haven't given me half the details, and I'd like to know the latest version. It's certainly important to have everything perfectly understood beforehand."

"All right; I'll go over the whole business after dinner, old man. We will act the conspirators rehearsing their villainy; but let's wait for food. I hate discussions on an empty stomach."

"Correct; here's Gonzague now."

A tall, gray-haired man, with a much-bronzed face, came in and began to clear away the litter on the round table. He had a rugged, weather-beaten countenance, with prominent features and luminous black eyes. Beneath his big, hooked nose a large white mustache, stiff and curled like that of a walrus, half hid a firm, full-lipped mouth. A native of Provence,—soldier, sailor, cook, and deck-hand,—old Gonzague Mairecalde had led sixty-odd years of exciting and polyglot existence, the last three of which had been spent in Castleport's service. Dressed in blue flannel trousers and an immaculate white jacket, the old man moved noiselessly about, swiftly disposing of the things on the table. He seemed to have a place for everything, and the lightest tread and deftest hands imaginable. Having cleared away, he went out, and soon reappeared with linen and service. In a short time the table was ready for the bringing in of the food.

"A' ready, sair?" asked Gonzague, tugging at his mustache with his bony fingers.

"Two minutes," answered Jack. "Come on, Jerry; let's scrub up."

In ten minutes they were seated before a dinner plain but hearty, well cooked and appetizingly served. They were apparently not at all troubled by any incongruity between their rough and not over-fresh sailor clothes and the snowy napery and the silver on which the fire threw dancing and wavering lights. On the walls opposite the fireplace mute, shadowy grotesques helped each other to huge supplies from dishes of vague outline and uncertain size, plied dark forks and spoons with ogre-like gusto, or with heads thrown back and crooked elbows drank like trolls from enormous tankards.

After dinner the table was cleared, a jug of ale was placed upon it, with a plate of ship-biscuit and a supply of tobacco. It was the theory of Castleport that the climate of the Island was English enough to warrant this nightly attack upon the October, of which his uncle, who owned the Island, kept always a butt in the cellar. In truth, the fresh coolness of the air at night, the pleasant blaze of the fire, the agreeable scent of burning tobacco, made a tankard or two of ale seem hardly to need an excuse of any sort.

With the table pulled forward so that its edge came between them, their pipes lit, their feet stretched out comfortably toward the hearth, the pair of friends smoked for a time in silence, until at last Jack, after refilling and relighting his pipe with great deliberation, broke into speech.

"Before I go into the details of this job," he observed, "there's one thing I have to say. It's a waste of breath for me to talk until I know you're with me. I haven't done anything more than to ask you off-hand, old man; now I'd like you to say seriously whether you'll come on this cruise with me or not. I hate to be so horribly businesslike, Jerry, especially in the matter of a lark; but in—er—larking on this scale, things have got to be put on a definite basis,—be perfectly understood, as you said before dinner."

Taberman gave his companion a sidelong glance, and began to smile. The smile grew into an audible chuckle; and this in its turn developed into a laugh increasing to a jovial roar.

"You solemn old pirate," he cried, "what sort of a quitter do you take me for? I'll give you any kind of a promise you like, provided—semper more equitis, you know—Can't bind myself to cut throats, scuttle ships, fly the jolly roger, et cetera. What's your form of oath, eh? Do we drink each other's blood out of a skull, or what?"

There was a boyish exuberance about Jerrold Taberman, a debonair abandon, which he never could outgrow. It accorded well with his youthful face and careless mien, which made him so marked a contrast to his friend. Castleport, although impulsive and disposed to jollity as only a hale and hearty young man of twenty-two can be, was, on the whole, of a temperament the reverse of boisterous. He responded frankly to Jerry's outburst.

"Well, old man," said he, "there's nothing more needed than your word that you'll go, and stick it out to the end. I knew you would, Jerry. Confound it, give us your flipper!"

In his enthusiasm he caught Taberman's hand and wrung it heartily, being evidently moved more by some inner consciousness of the weighty nature of the scheme he was about to outline than by anything that had actually been said between them. Jerry laughed, and returned the grip with interest.

"And now," continued Castleport, "I'll let you have particulars galore. I'll tell you the beginning of it first: how the idea came to me. About three weeks ago I decided I'd go abroad,—I wrote you, you remember. Well, I went to Uncle Randolph, and asked him for a letter of credit. That's what comes of the pleasant arrangement by which all my property's in trust till I'm twenty-five! Beastly nuisance!"

"Of course it is," assented his companion. "It's queer your father made such a will. However," he added, as if with the feeling that he was perhaps touching upon delicate ground, "that's neither here nor there. Heave ahead."

"You know why I wanted to go," Jack went on, "and so"—

"Slow up a bit," interrupted the other, mischief shining in his eyes; "why should you want to go particularly?"

"Confound you!" retorted Castleport. "You know perfectly well! Do you think it's any fun to be here when—when"—

"When Miss Marchfield's on the other side," finished Jerry, with the air of enjoying a huge joke.

Jack shifted uncomfortably in his seat, leaned forward to rap the ashes out of his pipe on the firedog, and then looked at his friend seriously.

"I won't be roughed, Jerry," he said. "You know perfectly well I'm dead in earnest about her, and I'll thank you to let up."

"All right, Jack; I beg your pardon; but I would like to ask one thing. It's not exactly my business, of course, but really it's something I'd like to know in connection with this scheme."

"Fire away," Castleport said rather grimly.

"Well, then, what I want to know is why the President's so set against your marrying Katrine Marchfield?"

"It isn't time to talk of marrying," Jack returned somewhat stiffly. "She may have something to say to that."

"Of course, old fellow; but you know what I mean. What's his objection to your trying?"

"I don't see how that affects the cruise, exactly, but I don't mind telling you; only of course I shouldn't want it talked about. It's so unreasonable, and honestly I should hate to seem to be giving Uncle Randolph any sort of a black eye."

"I shouldn't repeat it, Jack; but you needn't say anything if you'd rather not."

"It's only that it looks as if Uncle Randolph was infernally obstinate and cranky, and he really isn't. He hadn't any reason to give me, that amounted to anything. He talked about Katrine's not having any money; but of course that's all poppy-cock. I've got a good bit myself when I come into it, and he's always told me I should have all his. Of course Katrine hasn't much, though she'll have something, I suppose, from her aunt."

"Aunt?"

"Why, Mrs. Fairhew. Katrine's traveling with her now. She's the only near relative Katrine has."

"But if it isn't money"—

"No, it isn't that. The truth is—I heard it from Mrs. Fairhew once; I wasn't sure then, and I'm not now, whether she knew quite how much she was telling me, and meant it for a warning, or not. I'm half inclined to think she did."

"But what was it?" inquired Jerry, as Jack paused to meditate, with his eyes fixed earnestly on the fire.

"Oh, Uncle Randolph had some sort of a row with Katrine's father when they were young men. I fancy it was about a girl, for I know there was one somewhere along about that time. I've heard father speak of it, and say it altered Uncle Randolph's whole life. Anyway, there was some sort of a scrap, and Uncle Randolph never forgave it."

"Humph!" was Taberman's comment. "It's rather crotchety of him to vent his spite on Miss Marchfield."

"Of course it is," Castleport answered, "but he's not so bad as it looks. He's been awfully good to me all my life."

A brief pause followed, in which both were probably reflecting upon the character of Randolph Drake, one of Boston's prominent men, president of one of the largest banks, and trustee of a dozen important corporations; a man whose chief aim in life was, apparently, making money, whose amusement was yachting. It was in connection with this sport that he had a few years before bought the island and put up the house in which his motives were now being discussed. The place served as a shooting-box or as a base of supplies, and was provided with a trig little harbor exactly adapted for the accommodation of the President's yacht, the Merle.

"After all," Jack said at length, "Uncle Randolph really cares more for me than he does for anything else in the world."

"And so when he suspected that you were going abroad to try to marry the daughter of his old enemy, he wouldn't supply the funds."

"He can't seem to get it into his head that I am grown up, anyhow," grumbled Jack. "I've made up my mind now that I'll convince him that I am."

"Why in the world didn't you borrow the money, Jack? That would have been easy enough."

"Well, when I came of age I made Uncle Randolph a sort of a promise that I wouldn't borrow. He put it that it would be evading the intent of my father's will; and of course it would. Anyway, Uncle Randolph himself put a bigger idea into my head. It took me one day and two nights, mostly without sleep, to think it out, and then I got hold of you."

"How did he suggest it?"

"He was really sorry for me; I could see that. Only he had the air of feeling I was so young that any other cake would do as well as the one I wanted. The very day that he refused to let me go abroad, he suggested that I come down here with Gonzague and some friend or other. He thought that if I fooled round the bay until he came to pick me up on the Merle, I should get over my wish to go abroad. He said I was run down, needed change, and so on. He's coming June 5, and plans to go on down to the Provinces. Then he said that after he had had his cruise on the Merle I might perhaps like to have her a week or two myself. It was a mighty great concession, let me tell you. When I think of taking the boat, I'm half ashamed of myself, the old gentleman's so rum fond of her."

"And that put the notion into your head?"

"Yes, only not at the moment. I said to myself that if I was going to cruise in the Merle I'd like to go across in her; but it wasn't till that night, just as I was turning in, that the idea of getting her now and running off came to me. It fairly bowled me over!"

"I should think it might!" laughed Taberman.

"At first it seemed the easiest thing in the world. Then I began to think of objections, and as fast as I got one out of the way another popped up. I've worked at it like a prize puzzle. I've got my crew picked out, I've planned how to get possession of the yacht and to get rid of her old crew; and then—Hurrah for the Mediterranean!"

"Oh, Jacko, you devil!" cried Taberman. "I wouldn't have believed you had it in you! Do you really think we can do it?"

"Do it! Of course we'll do it. Didn't I tell you I'd got my crew already? Ten strappers, not counting Gonzague."

"Did Gonzague kick?"

"Gonzague? Did you ever consider, Tab, those eyes of his, with that nose and mouth?"

"No," Jerry responded, "I've never given his features any especial critical overhauling."

"Saracen!" Jack said, lowering his voice. "When you see that combination in a Spaniard or a ProvenÇalese, it spells Moorish marauder every time. He doesn't know it, I fancy; but there's good old ripe Moorish pirate blood in him, and it came sizzling to the top the moment I broached the scheme. Besides, Gonzague would have his throat cut for me any time."

"That's so, but he's as honest an old soul as there is above ground."

"Of course I told him, and I told the crew, that it was a lark. You know I've knocked about Penobscot Bay ever since I got out of the nursery. Everybody knows me, and at Isle au Haut I've been so much that I'm almost like one of their own pals to the natives. I got hold of my men pretty easily. Of course they look on me as the same as the President's son; and they were willing enough to leave the fishing for better wages than they could earn anywhere else. They all like me, and so of course they all take advantage of me in the way of wages."

"I confess I don't see where your economy comes in, Jacky," observed Taberman, giving a poke to the wasting fire. "I don't know much about expenses, but I should think it would cost as much to hire a crew as to go without one."

Castleport grew grave and moved a little impatiently.

"There's a question for a casuist," he said. "I'm taking these men off on the trust that Uncle Randolph will let me pay them when I get home. It's a deuced sight more like borrowing than I wish it were, though of course my allowance comes in; but I'm bound that he shall get it into his head that I'm no longer in leading-strings, and"—

Taberman looked at him affectionately and comprehendingly.

"That'll be all right, old man," he said consolingly. "We'll get out of that somehow. I'd like to see the President's face when he finds he's left high and dry down here and the Merle has flitted across the Atlantic without him."

"Oh, he won't be here. We'll capture the yacht at North Haven. I'll show you the whole scheme to-morrow on the chart. I've brought down more than a thousand for this coast and the Mediterranean! Now let's get to bed. It's only a week or so that we have left to sleep with a clear conscience."

Taberman rose from his seat, then without warning suddenly slapped his knees with his hands and burst into a roar of laughter.

"Oh, by George," he cried, "what a jolt it'll be for Uncle Randolph!"

"That's the cream of the whole thing," responded Jack, joining in the laugh. "He'll be so surprised to find out that I'm grown up."