Under the benign stars, as we have said, Hugh hastened from Basile to his father.

Those were the same heavenly lights with which only two nights earlier he and that father had so tranquilly—and the dead boy's sister so airily—communed. With a hand yet on the door that he was leaving, and while his distress for what had befallen in this room brought a foreboding of what might impend in the other, he felt the chiding of that celestial benignity and was dimly made to see its illimitable span and the smallness of magnifying the things we call trouble.

All the more, then, a melting heart for the tearful mother and sister, to whom no word of this could be said; but a stout heart, stouter than he knew where to find, for whatever was yet in store. Also a preoccupied good-by to sweet companionship. Nay, a mind too preoccupied for any good-by to any companionship for the remainder of this voyage, if not forever. It was humiliating to have even so much thought of such a kind at such a time; yet suppress it as he might, he could not wholly stifle it, even at his father's door.

Three hours later the senator, coming up in search of him, gradually discovered the presence of more people than he was looking for or cared even to find awake—being who they were. At the top of the steps he told the watchman sleeplessness had driven him up here for fresh air. It is but human to explain to a watchman.

But how was the captain? And how was the commodore?

The commodore was doing well enough, but the captain—the watchman shook his head with the wisdom of a doctor.

The seeker after fresh air, eager to move on, yet loath to imply that the air about a watchman was stale, said, with a glance at the stars, that here was quiet.

But the watchman begged to differ. Never by starlight had he seen so busy a hurricane-deck. Just now there was a lull but it was the first in three hours. Preparations here, preparations there, for the dead, for the living, the sick, the well; such a going and coming of cabin-boys, of chambermaids, of the immigrant they called Marburg, the Hayles' old black woman, the texas tender, the mud clerk, the actor and his wife, her servant girl——

"And others," prompted the senator. "What doing?"

A hundred things. The actor's wife had got Miss Hayle into funeral black from her own stage "warrobe," and the young man Marburg had brought up, for Madame Hayle, one of his deceased mother's mourning gowns, "a prodigious fine one." It did not fit but the actor's wife and her maid were altering it while they kept watch where Basile lay and while Madame Hayle resumed her cares on the lower deck.

And who was caring for the commodore?

Second clerk and mud clerk answered his few needs.

But the captain——?

Ah, that was another matter. The actor was with him.

Mr. Gilmore; um-hmm. A step or so forward of the captain's room, as the senator moved toward the bell, two male figures seated on the edge of the skylight roof spoke his name in a mild greeting, and, looking closely, he found them to be Watson's cub and the Kentuckian whom the pair down on the boiler deck had just called "California."

The senator expressed surprise that these two were not abed, where he himself ought to be but—sleeplessness had driven him up here for fresh air.

"Well, here the fresh air is," said California. "Senator, we've just been wishing we could see you."

"Ah!" said the senator, grateful yet wary. "I'll just take a turn or two up forward and be right back."

"But—hold on, senator; just one question."

The three stood. "Now, this first question ain't it; this is just the cut and deal. Hayle's twins have offered to fight Hugh Courteney—any way open to gentlemen, as they say—haven't they?"

"Oh—night before last, I—believe so."

"Ancient history, yes; but it's a standing invitation and they've called him names: poltroon, coward——"

"Well, really, Mr. So-and-so, while we can't justify the names, nor the invitation, we can't wonder at the givers."

"Why—I can. I think they're pretty tol'able wonderful. But so's he—to let 'em do it. Now, this ain't the question, either, but—why does he allow it? It ain't for lack of pluck, senator. I know a coward's earmarks and he ain't got 'em. It ain't for religion; less'n two hours out of Orleans he'd offered them twins, I'm told, to take 'em down to the freight deck and dish up the brace of 'em at one fell scoop. And no more is it because his people won't let him alone to do his own way. He's about the let-alone-dest fellow I ever see, for his age, if he is any particular age. No, sir, I've studied out what it's for."

"Hmm. But what's your question? What's it about?"

"Why, it's about this—and your friend the general. For I'll tell you, senator, why Mr. Hugh don't fight. It's for—can I tell you in confidence, strict, air-tight?"

"Certainly, strict, air-tight."

"Well, then, it's for love. He's in love with their sister. Now, that's something I don't wonder at. I am, too. So are a lot of us." He smiled at the cub, who frowned away. "Now, by natural fitness, he's got ground for hope. I ain't got a square inch. She ain't on my claim. Next week my face'll be to the setting sun. So what do I do but go to him—this was before her young brother died—which I almost loved the brother too—and s'I, 'Mr. Courteney, I've saw the sun go down and moon come up on this thing three times running, and every time and all between I've stood it, seeing you stand it. And I've studied it. And I see your fix. But most of us don't; so somebody's got to indorse you. Now, being a Kentuckian, not blue-grass but next door, I feel like doing it. You've got to play two hands and you can't play but one. Well, I'll play the one you can't. I'll fight them twins.'"

"Well, of all—and he accepted?"

"Now, you know he didn't. He said it would be absolutely impossible. But he said it the funniest way—! It made me see the size of him for the first time. And, senator, he's life-size. But I reckon you knowed that before I did. He took me by the button-hole, just as I'm holding you now, and talked to me as majestic as a father sending his boy off to school, and at the very same time and in the very same words as sweet as a girl sending her soldier to war."

"And he convinced you?"

"No, we was interrupted and couldn't talk it out. Well, I can't go back to him and resume, no more'n a wildcat bank. For one thing, I wouldn't take him from her."

"You don't mean they're together now?"

"Now, no, but by spells, yes. Bound to happen—so many of us so willing. I'd try to talk the thing out with this young man and Mr. Watson, but they all feel alike. Reckon it does 'em credit, but—well—I'd like to talk it out with you and the general. I think we can dispense with the boat's consent. Don't you?"

"Oh, Lord, man, what have I got to do with that?"

"Hold your horses, senator. I look at it this way: If the twins hadn't been too busy pecking at Mr. Hugh I'm just the sort o' man they'd 'a' pecked at, and hence I have a good moral right to waive their not doing it and take the will for the deed."

"Nonsense, my good friend; good joke, nothing more."

"Hold on; there's this anyhow: If Mr. Hugh could accept their invitation maybe he'd take me for his second; and what does second mean if it don't mean that if, after all, something should force him to drop out I could drop in?"

"Oh," laughed the senator, freeing his buttonhole by gentle force and edging away, "very well; but the twins! They're out! Look at their fix; they can't fight now."

"Senator, just so. But the general, all along he's sort o' been their second; indorsed for 'em same's I'd like to for Mr. Hugh. He'd be their second now if they could fight—as we know they'd be glad to. So, why ain't he honor bound to take their place if I take Mr. Hugh's? This young gentleman'll act for me—won't you?—yes, and the senator can act for the general. Then, senator, the first time we can get ashore we can settle the whole thing without involving Mr. Hugh and without ever letting the ladies know—or the crowd either—that it ain't just our own affair. I can easily give the general cause, you know."

"My friend," said the cunning senator, who knew his ruling sin was tardiness and that he was tardy now, "I don't say anything could be fairer—in its right time. If you'll go to bed and to sleep——"

"Senator, delays are dangerous. I might get the cholera. The general might get it. Or some other trouble might crop up and sort o' separate us."

Ah! It flashed into the senator's mind that California, though meaning all he said, had in full view the Gilmore-Harriet affair and that this was a move in that, a move to checkmate. His countermove had to be prompt; some one was coming up the nearest steps. "My dear sir, there is another trouble; serious, imminent, and almost sure to involve our friend Hugh in a vital mistake—Why, general, I thought you, at least, was asleep."

"Sss-enator, I was. I mmm-erely had not und-ressed. Have you fff-ound that young man?"

"Not yet, general. Let's go see him together. I want to see you, too, for just a moment, if these gentlemen will excuse me that long."

"Mr. Hugh's with the first clerk, yonder by the bell," said the gold hunter. "We'll wait here, eh?"

The general wanted to reply, but "I wish you would," responded the senator and hurried him away.