Mr. Spokesly, looking down from the bridge at the up-turned and uncompromising face of Joseph Plouff, frowned.

"What does he say?" he repeated uneasily.

"He says keep the course."

"You gave him the note?"

"No, he didn't open the door. He just said, to keep the course. I said 'You mean, don't alter it, Captinne?' and he said, 'No.'"

Plouff handed up the note Mr. Spokesly had given him, and the puzzled chief officer took it and opened it, as though he had forgotten or was uncertain of its contents. But before he read it afresh, he took a look round. This told him nothing for he was entirely lost in a white fog that rolled and swirled in slow undulating billows athwart the ship's bows. For four hours he had been going through this and the captain had not made his appearance on the bridge. Each time had come up the same message, to keep the course. And at last Mr. Spokesly had written a little note. He had torn a page out of the scrap-log and written these words:

To Captain Rannie

Sir,

We have run our distance over this course. Please give bearer your orders. Weather very thick.

R. Spokesly. Mate.

And he hadn't even opened the door. It was this singular seclusion which caused Mr. Spokesly so much anxiety. Fog, and the captain not on deck! Plouff, whose presence was an undeniable comfort for some reason or other, pulled himself up the steep little ladder and stood staring lugubriously into the fog.

"Funny sort of old man, this," muttered the mate.

"He's always the same at sea," said Plouff, still staring.

"What? Leaves it to the mate?"

"Yes. Always."

"But...." Mr. Spokesly looked at the fog, at Plouff, at the binnacle, and then hastily fitted himself into the little wheel-house. He bent over the chart with a ruler and pair of dividers, spacing first a pencilled line drawn from Cape Kassandra to a point a few miles south of Cape Fripeti on the Island of Boze Baba, and then along the scale at the edge of the chart.

"See what's on the log, Bos', will you?" he called.

This was serious. Within a few minutes the course ought to be altered to due south. The usual four knots of the Kalkis had been exceeded owing to the smoothness of the sea, which accounted for their arrival at this position before six o'clock, when the captain would once more take charge. Another thing was that from now on they would be on the course of warships passing south from the great base at Mudros, the land-locked harbour of Lemnos. The bosun came up again and reported thirty miles from noon. Well, the log was about ten per cent. fast, so a note said in the night order book. It was five-thirty now, which gave them twenty-seven miles from noon or nearly five knots. That brought them due south of Fripeti.

Mr. Spokesly looked at Plouff, who was looking at the fog with an expression of extreme disillusion on his round face. And again at the chart. There was nothing more to be extracted from either Plouff or the chart. The pencilled line which indicated their course ended abruptly. Where, then, were they bound? Keep on the course, the captain said. Mr. Spokesly laid the parallel ruler against the line and produced it clear across the chart. He stood up with a sharp intake of breath and regarded the impassive Plouff, who looked down at the chart with respectful curiosity.

"Say, Bos'," he began. "This is a funny business."

"What's a funny business?" demanded Plouff, looking round, as though expecting to see something of an extremely comical nature being performed. The pause gave Mr. Spokesly time to reflect. He cleared his throat.

"The Old Man staying down there. He ought to ... but then he says keep...."

"'Hold her on the course,' were his words," said Plouff obstinately, adding, "Hasn't she got a clear road?"

"Yes ..." muttered the mate jerkily, "road's clear ... humph!" he stared at the chart. "Oh, well! By George, I wish this damn fog would clear away."

"What's the matter with the fog?" said Plouff. "We're safe in the fog, ain't we? You can bet them unterseeboats 'll keep in under the islands this weather. Too much chance o' gettin' stove in," he added sympathetically. The mate did not reply for a moment. He was very uneasy. He studied the chart. Indeed, he could not get away from that pencilled line running right into the Gulf of Smyrna. And Phyros was south of Khios. He was tired and sleepy. Eight hours was a long while to stay on the bridge. He would be glad when they got in. Got in where? He stared again at the chart. And the Old Man locked in his room. Always did that, eh?

"Go away, Bos'," he said, suddenly. "You got to be about to-night, you know. We'll be anchoring...."

He forgot what he was saying, staring hard at the chart. Plouff slipped down into the fog and clattered away forward.

But Mr. Spokesly was not unhappy. There was an unfamiliar yet desirable quality about this life. The sharp flavour of it made one forget both the ethical and economic aspects of one's existence. At the back of his mind was a boyish desire to show that girl what he was made of. And when they got to Athens he would——Athens! The word sent him back to the chart. Keep on the course. He was sailing across a wide ocean and the old familiar landmarks were hull down behind the fog. There was something symbolic in that fog. It was as though he had indeed left the world of his youth behind, the world of warm English hearts, of cantankerous affections and dislikes, of fine consciences and delicate social distinctions, and was passing through a confusing and impalpable region of vaporous uncertainty to an unknown country. He was not unhappy. The future might be anything, from silken dalliance behind green jalousies in some oriental villa with a fountain making soft music, which is the food of love, to a sudden detonation, red spurts of savage flame, and a grave in a cold sea. He went out and looked at the compass. And at the fog. Now that Plouff was gone down he felt lonely. He stamped on the deck to call the steward. The captain would have to be called. If he did not come, he, the mate, would go down and inform him that the course would be changed without him. That would be the only way. He had never had a commander like this, nor a voyage like this, for that matter. He paused suddenly in his thoughts and looked down, pinching his lower lip between finger and thumb. He had an idea. To achieve anything, one had to be eternally prepared for just such unexpected predicaments. Here he was, with an invisible commander and an invisible horizon. And down in a cabin below him was Evanthia Solaris, a distinct and formidable problem. He was going to marry her. He saw his destiny, almost for the first time in his life, as a ball which he could take in his hand and throw. And the direction and distance depended entirely upon his own strength, his own skill, his own fortitude. He was going to marry her. And he saw another thing for the first time—that marriage was of no significance in itself for a man. What he is, brain and sinew, character and desire, is all that counts. He saw this because he had left the old life behind beyond the fog. Back there, marriage was a contrivance for the hamstringing and debasing of men, a mere device for the legal comfort and security of women who were too lazy or incompetent or too undesirable to secure it for themselves. Ahead he had a strange premonition that he was going to have a novel experience.

He was.

He was aroused by the helmsman reaching out and striking four soft blows on the little bronze bell hanging by the awning-spar over the binnacle. Six o'clock. And the young Jew, in a huge apron and a high astrakhan cap he had picked up somewhere, came slowly up the bridge ladder.

"Captain," said Mr. Spokesly, making a number of motions to signify knocking at a door and calling somebody out. "Savvy?"

The frightened creature, who was quite unable to comprehend the extraordinary phenomenon of the fog on the sea, and who regarded Mr. Spokesly, moreover, as a species of demi-god, raised his remarkable face as though in supplication, and backed down again. It was evident to him that his employer had consigned him to some distant place of torment from which he could never return. Yet even in his timid heart there was hope. Already he had given his allegiance to that beautiful and haughty creature whose cabin it was his trembling joy and pride to put in order. His ears were alert at all times to catch the sharp clapping sound of her hands when she needed him, and then he flew below. She would speak to him in his native tongue, which was Spanish, and ravish his soul with words he could understand, instead of the terrifying gutturals of those powerful Franks who walked to and fro on the top of the tower above them and gave incomprehensible commands.

"Fear not," she assured him. "When the ship reaches the port, thou shalt go with me as my servant. The lieutenant shall give thee money as wages when he is my husband."

"Merciful Madama, what port? Whither do we go? Is it beyond the clouds?"

"Ah," she retorted, leaning back on the cushions of the settee, and blowing cigarette-smoke from her beautiful lips. "I would like to know that myself. Beyond the clouds? You mean this fog. Yes, far beyond the clouds. Did you not hear anything at all in the Rue VoulgarÓktono?"

"Nothing, Madama, except that once I heard SeÑor Dainopoulos tell SeÑor Malleotis that they, someone, had reached Aidin."

"Aiee?" ejaculated Evanthia, sitting up and fixing her burning amber eyes on the frightened and hypnotized creature. "And didst thou hear nothing else? Aidin! Tchk!"

"I do not know, Madama," he quavered. "Unless there is a port called Bairakli."

Evanthia showed her teeth in a brilliant smile and patted the youth's arm.

"My servant you shall be," she chuckled. "No, there is no port called Bairakli, but it is near to a city you and I will find good. Shalt live at Bairakli, Amos! Tck—tck! What a fool I was. Oh! Caro! Oh mein lieber Mann!" And she sang sweetly a few notes of a song.

The young man stared at her in stupefaction.

"Go," she said, pushing him with a characteristic gesture, at once brusque and charming. "You need have no fear. Your fortune is made."

A few minutes past six Captain Rannie climbed the bridge ladder and examined the compass without addressing his chief officer, bending over it with an exaggerated solicitude. Apparently satisfied, he went into the chart room and immediately pushed the ruler from its significant position, pointing into the interior of Asia Minor. There was an indefinable nervous bounce about him which indicated a highly exalted state of mind. He seemed, Mr. Spokesly imagined, to be assuming truculence to cover timidity. He probably knew that his insistence on keeping the course had aroused conjecture, and the ruler, lying as it did on the chart, confirmed the idea. Yet he did not speak. Funking, Mr. Spokesly decided, obstinately remaining close to the dodger and staring straight ahead—towards Asia Minor. If the Old Man thought he was going to get away with it ... he cleared his throat and remarked:

"About time to change the course for Phyros, sir?"

And to his surprise Mr. Spokesly, in the midst of his highly complex cogitations, found himself listening to a jaunty and characteristic monologue which touched upon—among other things—the one rule which Captain Rannie insisted was the sine qua non of a good officer, that he should accept the commander's orders without comments. Otherwise, how could discipline be maintained? As to the course, he, Captain Rannie, would attend to that immediately. And while he appreciated it, of course, there was no real need for Mr. Spokesly to remain on the bridge after he had been relieved.

Mr. Spokesly, still looking ahead, wanted to say sarcastically, "Is that so?" but he was tongue-tied, dumfounded. Here was a man, apparently of straw, who was jauntily inviting him to clear out and mind his own business. He pulled himself together.

"Unless we pick up a Mudros escort somewhere round here," he muttered, turning away.

Captain Rannie came out of the chart room from which his lean and cadaverous head had been projecting to deliver his homily on obeying orders, and looked all round at the white walls of fog. It was as though he were contemplating some novel but highly convenient dispensation of Providence which he was prepared to accept as one of the minor hardships of life. All consciousness of Mr. Spokesly's presence seemed to have vanished from his mind. He spoke to the helmsman, walked to port and looked down at the water, looked aft and aloft, and resumed his stroll.

And Mr. Spokesly, craftily placed at a disadvantage, turned suddenly and clattered down the ladder.

"Well," he thought to himself, pausing on the deck below and still holding to the hand-rail, "he can't keep it up for ever. And I can't do anything in this fog. He's going to pile her up."

But as he went into the saloon he could not help asking himself, "What for?" What gain had Captain Rannie or Mr. Dainopoulos in view when they ran a valuable cargo on the rocky shores of Lesbos or Anatolia? The word "ran" stuck in his mind. "Running a cargo" in war-time, eh? One didn't run cargoes on the rocks, in war-time. He stared so fixedly at Amos, who was laying the table, that in spite of Evanthia's assurance of future good fortune, the poor creature trembled and grew pale. Mr. Spokesly understood neither Greek nor Spanish, or he might have derived some enlightenment from a conversation with the young Jew. He frowned and went on down to his cabin. He wanted sympathy in his anxiety. And it was part of his Victorian and obsolete mental equipment to expect sympathy from a woman.

She was standing before the little mirror, setting the immense tortoise-shell comb into her hair at the desired angle, and she gave herself a final searching scrutiny, as she turned away, before flashing a dazzling smile at him.

"What is the matter?" she asked in her precise English, seeing the worried expression on his face. He sat down on the settee, and she seated herself close beside him, smiling with such ravishing abandon that he forgot the reason for his concern.

"If I can only get you ashore," he muttered, holding her to him and kissing her hair.

"Where?" she whispered, watching him with her bright amber eyes.

"That's just it," he said. "I don't know where."

She put her finger to her lips.

"I know," she said.

He put his hands on her shoulders and held her away a little, staring at her.

"You!" he breathed incredulously. "You?"

She nodded, her eyes kindling.

"Here," he said hoarsely. "You must be straight with me, dear. Tell me what you know. The captain, he's very funny to-day."

"Ismir!" she called into his ear in a ringing tone. "Beautiful, beautiful Ismir!"

"What's that you're talking about?" he demanded doubtfully. "I don't understand."

"No? Soon you will understand, when we reach Ismir."

"I've never heard of it," he declared. "But I can tell you, if the Old Man don't alter the course, we're going straight into Smyrna."

"Ah, yes," she sighed. "I remember now. You call it that. We call it Ismir, Turkish place. When I was little, little girl, we arrive there, my fazzer and my muzzer. Oh, beautiful! The grand hotels, the bains, the plage, the quais, the mountains, the cafÉs-chantant. Aiee! And Bairakli! I will show you. I was little, thirteen years old." She laughed, a soft throaty chuckle, on his shoulder, at some reminiscence. "Ismir! Oh mein lieber Mann!"

She intoxicated him with her bewildering moods, with her trick of recalling to his memory his early dreams of beautiful women, those bright shadows of unseen enchantresses which had tortured and stimulated his boyish thoughts. But he could not refrain from returning to the serious problem of how she knew so accurately the intentions of his commander.

"The captain tell you?" he asked expectantly. Her brow grew dark and a blankness like a film came over her eyes.

"I do not like your capitaine," she muttered. "He is like an old woman. Look at his face. And the silver ring on his wrist. Like an old vulture, his head between his shoulders. Look at him. He never lifts his eyes. Do not speak of him. But hear me now. When we reach Ismir, we will have a house, you and me, eh?"

He stared at her, entranced, yet preoccupied with the overwhelming difficulties of his situation.

"Oh, mon cher, you do not know how beautiful it is. The most beautiful city in the world."

"But how did you know? Why didn't you tell me? Did Mrs. Dainopoulos tell you?"

"Ssh! Madame Dainopoulos is an angel. She like you an' me very much. But Monsieur Dainopoulos, he say to me, if I want to see my friends in Pera, by and by there is a ship. You understand? An' then, here on the ship, I hear somesing. Oh, tell me, mon cher, what time we arrive at Ismir?"

He was hardly listening to her, so busy were his thoughts with the vista opening out before him. He was vaguely conscious that he was passing through a crisis, that Fate had suddenly laid all her cards on the table and was watching him, with bright amber eyes, waiting for him to make out what those cards portended. Here, she seemed to say, is everything you have ever dreamed of, adventure, romance, and the long-imagined pleasures of love.

"To-night?" she persisted, lying back in his arms. And watching him, sensing his uncertainty, her gaze hardened, she sat up away from him, waiting for him to speak, as though she were fate indeed. Always she gave him that impression of hair-trigger readiness to fight, to rip and tear and give no quarter. As he looked at her now, turning over his dire predicament the while, he noticed the truculent solidity of her jaw, the indomitable courage and steadiness of her gaze.

"Wait," he muttered, putting up his hand and then holding it to his brow. "I must think. I don't know when we arrive. To-morrow, perhaps."

"Why do you look so sad?" she demanded. "Mon Dieu! To-morrow at Ismir. What happiness!"

"For you," he added in a low voice.

"And for you," she twittered in his ear and patting his hand. "I see the plan of Monsieur Dainopoulos now. We shall have good fortune."

There was a faint tap at the door.

"Supper, Madama," said the young Jew, making a low bow, and they went up.

Mr. Spokesly, sitting on the engineer's settee an hour later and discussing the matter cautiously with that person, was not so sure of the good fortune.

"What can we do?" he asked, and the engineer, who was of a peaceful disposition and perfectly satisfied so long as he got his pay, said:

"You can't do nothing in this fog. He's the captain."

"We may hit something," said Mr. Spokesly, who was talking more for comfort than for enlightenment.

"Why, yes, we may do that. Do it anywhere, come to that. Where do you think we are now, Mister Mate?"

"I don't know, I tell you. He says to me, 'I'll attend to the course,' and he may have put her round. But I've got a notion he's carrying out his orders. I see now why I got six months' pay. Did you?"

"No, I got a note on the captain, same as usual," said Mr. Cassar.

"What do you think they will do with us?" pursued Mr. Spokesly.

"I don't know, Mister Mate. There's always plenty o' work everywhere," was the equable reply.

"Is that all you think of?"

"I got a big family in Cospicua," said the engineer, standing up. "I can't afford to be out of a job. I think I'll go and eat, Mister Mate. Perhaps the fog will lift a bit and we can see what the course is."

They went out and climbed the ladder to the bridge-deck, and stood staring into the damp, palpable darkness. The absence of all artificial light, the silence, the tangible vapour concealing the surface of the sea, and possibly, too, the over-hanging uncertainty of their destination, combined to fill them with a vague dull sense of impending peril. They were on the starboard side, abaft the lifeboat. They could not see the bridge clearly, and the forecastle was swallowed up in the blank opacity of the mist. It was a situation in which both care and recklessness were of equal futility. The imagination balked and turned back on itself before the contemplation of such limitless possibilities. And it was while they were standing there in taciturn apprehension that they suddenly sprang into an extraordinary animation of mind and body at the sound and vibration of a loud crash forward. The Kalkis heeled over to port from the pressure of some invisible weight and Mr. Spokesly started to run towards the bridge.

"They're shellin' her!" he bawled. "Stand by! Look out! What's that?"

He stood still for a moment, his hands raised to balance himself against the returning roll of the ship as she recovered. And in that moment, out of the fog, above him and over the rail, came an immense gray vertical wall of sharp steel rushing up to him and past into oblivion with a grinding splintering roar. There were cries, the dim glow of an opened door high up, the sough of pouring waters in the darkness, a shadowy phantom and a swirl of propellers, and she was gone.

And there was an absolute silence on the Kalkis more dreadful to Mr. Spokesly than the panic of the mob of Asiatics on the Tanganyika. He tried to think. Mr. Cassar had disappeared. They had been in collision with a man-of-war, he felt certain of that. There was no mistaking the high cleaving flare of those gray bows as they fled past. And she must have struck the Kalkis forward as well as amidships. A glancing blow. Yet there was silence. He strode forward and climbed the ladder to the bridge.

"Are you there, sir?" he called.

There was no answer. He went up to the man at the wheel, who was turning the spokes of the wheel rapidly.

"Where is the Captain?" he demanded harshly.

"He's over there," said the man confidentially, nodding towards the other side of the bridge. "What was that, sir? Explosions?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Spokesly angrily. "Ask the captain," and he went down again and descended the ladder to the fore-deck.

He fell over something here in the dark, something rough and with jagged edges. He felt it with his hands and discovered that it was one of the heavy cast-iron bollards which were mounted on either side of the forecastle head. Mr. Spokesly began to realize that he was confronting a problem which he would have to handle alone. He stepped over the mass of metal, which had been flung fifty feet, and immediately tripped upon a swaying, jagged surface that tore his clothes and cut his hands. He said to himself, "The deck is torn up. I must have a light." There was no sound from forward and he wondered miserably if any of them had been hurt. He climbed to the bridge again to get a hurricane lamp that he knew was in the chart room. While he was striking a match to light it he was once more aware of the fact that the engines were still going. So he hadn't stopped or anything. The captain's form was dimly discernible against the canvas dodger, extraordinarily huge and rotund. Mr. Spokesly's anger broke out in a harsh yell.

"Hi, Captain! Do you know your forecastle's carried away? Or perhaps you don't care."

"I won't be spoken to in that manner," came the lisping, toothless voice from the darkness. "Go forward and report on the damage. I should think it wouldn't be necessary to tell an experienced officer his duty...."

Mr. Spokesly, swinging the hurricane lamp in his hand, laid his other hand upon Captain Rannie's shoulder.

"Look you here, Captain. You won't be spoken to in that manner? You'll be spoken to as I want from now on. Do you get that? From now on. I'm going forward to report damage. And when I find out if the ship's sinking, I'll not trouble to tell you, you double-crossing old blatherskite you!" And he gave the captain a thrust that sent him flying into the pent-house at the end, where he remained invisible but audible, referring with vivacity to the fact that he had been "attacked."

"I'll attack you again when I come back," muttered his chief officer as he went down the ladder.

And the lamp showed him, in spite of the fog, what had happened. The fore-deck was a mass of ripped and twisted plates, splintered doors, and fragments of the interiors of cabins looked strangely small and tawdry out on the harsh deck. A settee-cushion, all burst and impaled upon a piece of angle iron, impeded him. "Won't be spoken to that fashion!" he muttered, holding up the lamp and peering into the murk. "Good Lord! The forecastle's carried away." He stumbled nearer. There was no ladder on this side any more. The high sharp prow had struck a glancing blow just abaft the anchor and sliced away the whole starboard side of the forecastle. Standing where the door of the bosun's room had been, Mr. Spokesly lowered his lamp and saw the black water rushing past between the torn deck-beams. And Mr. Spokesly had it borne in upon him that not only was Plouff vanished, but his cabin was gone. There was scarcely anything of it left save some splintered parts of the settee and the inner bulkhead, on which a gaudy calendar from a seaman's outfitter fluttered in the night breeze against the blue-white paint.

Mr. Spokesly's heart was daunted by the desolation of that brutally revealed interior. It daunted him because he could imagine, with painful particularity, the scene in that little cabin a few moments before. He had looked in at the door a day or two since, and seen Plouff, a large calabash pipe like a cornucopia in his mouth, propped up in his bed-place, reading a very large book with marbled covers which turned out to be the bound volume of a thirty-year-old magazine picked up for a few pence in some port. He could see him thus engaged a few moments ago. Mr. Spokesly gave a sort of half-sob, half-giggle. "My God, he isn't here at all! He's been carried away, cabin and bunk and everything. Smashed and drowned. Well!"

He felt he couldn't stop there any more. It was worse than finding Plouff's mangled body in the ruins. To have been wiped out like that without a chance to explain a single word to any one was tragic for Plouff. Mr. Spokesly gave a shout.

"Anybody down there?" There was no answer. He found himself wondering what the captain's comment would be upon Plouff's sudden departure for parts unknown. He tried to convince himself that there was no reason for supposing him to be dead. He saw him sitting up in his bunk in the sea, still clasping the large book and smoking the trumpet-shaped pipe, and indulging in a querulous explanation of his unusual behaviour. Which would not be his fault for once, Mr. Spokesly reflected. No doubt, however, Captain Rannie would log him for deserting the ship. Mr. Spokesly went aft and looked at the boat near which he had been standing when the collision happened. It was hanging by the after davit, a mere bunch of smashed sticks. Trailing in the water and making a soft swishing sound were the bow plates and bulwarks which had been peeled from the forepart of the Kalkis by the sharp prow of the stranger. And yet she seemed to have suffered nothing below the water-line. Mr. Spokesly, who knew Plouff kept the sounding rod in his cabin, wondered how he was going to sound the wells. He thought of the engineer, stepped over to the port side to reach the after ladder, and pulled himself up short to avoid falling over a huddled group gathered alongside the engine-room hatch.

"What's the matter?" he stammered, astonished. He saw the steward, a coat hastily put on over his apron, Amos, whose glittering and protuberant eyes were less certain than ever of his future fortune, and Evanthia. She was not afraid. She was angry. She darted at Mr. Spokesly and broke into a torrent of invective against the two wretched beings who wanted to get into the boat and couldn't untie the ropes.

"Pigs, dogs, carrion!" she shrilled at them in Greek, and then to Mr. Spokesly she said,

"The ship. Is it finished?"

"No. Ship's all right. Why don't you go down?"

"Mon Dieu! Why? He asks why! Did you hear the noise? The bed is broken. The window, the lamp, Brr-pp!" She clapped her hands together. "Why? Go and see," and she turned away from him to rage once more at the two terrified creatures who had been unable to carry out her imperious orders. These had been to set her afloat in the lifeboat instantly; and willingly would they have done it, and gone in with her themselves; but alas, they had been unable to let the villainous boat drop into the water.

Mr. Spokesly was genuinely alarmed at this news. He left them precipitately and ran down the cabin stairs to find out if the ship was making water.

There was no need. The Kalkis, on rebounding from the terrific impact on her forecastle, had heeled over to starboard, the side of the ship had been buckled and crushed along the line of the deck, and the concussion had knocked the lamp out of its gimbals and it was rolling on the floor. He picked it up and relit it. He hurried out again to find the engineer. His training was urging him to get the wells sounded. Moreover, the filling of the forepeak through the smashed chain-locker had put the ship down by the head a little. She might be all right, but on the other hand....

He found the engineer calmly hauling the line out of the forward sounding pipes.

"Is she making anything, Chief?" he asked anxiously.

"Just show a light please, Mister Mate. I got a flashlight here but it's gone out on me. Why, four inches. Nothing much here. We'll try the other side, eh?"

They scrambled over the hatch and hastily wiped the rod dry before lowering it into the pipe.

"Hm!" The engineer grunted as he brought the rod into view again. "Three feet! I reckon she's makin' some water here through that bulkhead, Mister Mate. What say if I try the pumps on her, eh?"

"You do that, will you? I was afraid o' that, Chief. You know the bosun's gone?"

"Is that so? Gee! That's a big smash! The bosun? Tk—tk! I'll get the pump on her."

"Now!" said Mr. Spokesly to himself, "I'm going to see the Old Man." And he sprang up the ladders once more.

Captain Rannie was not to be seen, however. Mr. Spokesly went upon the bridge charged with belligerence. But Captain Rannie was an old hand. He had had an extraordinarily varied experience of exasperated subordinates and Mr. Spokesly's conscientious tantrums worried him not at all. Especially did he fail to appreciate the significance of his chief officer's anxiety at this moment since from his own point of view this smash in the fog, supposing they did not meet any inquisitive craft for an hour or two, and this was not at all likely—this smash was a piece of singular good fortune. The cruiser would report ramming a small vessel in the fog, and the people in Saloniki, knowing the position of the Kalkis, would conclude she was lost with all hands, when she failed to appear at Phyros. It was so perfectly in accordance with his desires that he decided to run down and get one of his own special cigarettes. Now that he was actually in the middle of carrying out the plans of the owner of the Kalkis, Captain Rannie suffered from none of the timidity and truculent nervousness which had assailed him the day before. He had more courage than Mr. Spokesly would ever admit because that gentleman was not aware that his captain was a bad navigator. To the bad navigator every voyage is a miracle.

So he came up jauntily, behind Mr. Spokesly, smoking a special cigarette, and ignoring his chief officer completely until the latter chose to speak. This was another trick he had learned in the course of his career of oblique enthusiasms and carefully cultivated antagonisms. He had once been savagely "attacked," as he called it, by a sailor simply because he waited for the man to speak before saying a word! He had found that men might growl at being treated "like dogs" but to rowel the human soul it was far better to act as though they did not exist at all. There was a blind primeval ferocity to be engendered by adumbrating, even for a few moments, their non-existence. And now, with everything in his favour, for he had heard the engineer's remarks on the condition of the bilges forward, he was resolved to "maintain his authority," as he phrased it, by "a perfectly justifiable silence."

But it was no use trying to convince Mr. Spokesly that he did not exist. That gentleman, in the course of the last few minutes, since the collision in fact, had experienced a great accession of vitality. He felt as though not only his own existence but the integrity of the ship as a living whole, her frame, her life, her freight, and the souls clinging to her in the blind white void of the fog, was concentrated in himself. He looked over the side and tried to see if the engineer had succeeded in getting the pump on that bilge. She was down by the head—no doubt of that. And yet there couldn't be any real fracture of that bulkhead, or the fore-hold would have filled by now. Lucky all the caps were well lashed on the ventilators. He looked over the side again. The fog seemed clearing a little. And the ship was moving faster. The beat of the engines was certainly more rapid. He stared at the ostentatiously turned back of his commander with a sort of exasperated admiration. He was evidently a much more accomplished scoundrel than Mr. Spokesly had imagined. Here he had extra speed up his sleeve. Why, it might be anything up to thirteen knots. Not that the Kalkis had boilers for that speed. Wow! He was a card!

"I suppose you know the bosun was carried overboard when that ship hit us," Mr. Spokesly remarked in a conversational tone as the captain approached in his stroll.

"And I've no doubt," said Captain Rannie with extreme bitterness to the surrounding air, "that you blame me for not stopping and picking him up."

"You might have stopped, certainly," said his chief officer; "but the point is, if you'd been on your right course you wouldn't have hit anything."

"Oh, indeed! Oh, indeed!" said the captain.

"Yes, oh, indeed. You won't maintain you were on the right course, I suppose."

"I maintain nothing," snapped the captain. "I'll merely trouble you to ask the man at the wheel what course he was making when we were run into by one of those infernal, careless naval officers who think they know everything, like you. And after that I'll merely invite you to mind your own business."

"Mind my own business!" repeated Mr. Spokesly in a daze.

"And I'll mind mine," added the captain after a dramatic pause, and turning on his heel.

"You're like some bally old woman," began Mr. Spokesly, "with your nag, nag, nag. I don't wonder that Maltee mate used to go for you."

"Ask the man at the wheel what course he was steering," repeated the captain distinctly, coming back out of the gloom and wheeling away again.

"I'll be going for you myself before this trip is over," added the mate.

"And then kindly leave the bridge," concluded the captain, reappearing once more, as though emerging suddenly from the wings of a theatre and declaiming a speech in a play. Having declaimed it, however, he retreated with singular precipitancy.

"I must say, I've been with a few commanders in my time," Mr. Spokesly began in a general way. He heard his captain's voice out of the dark opining that he had no doubt every one of those commanders was glad enough to get rid of him. He could easily believe that.

"Perhaps they were," agreed Mr. Spokesly. "Perhaps they were. The point is, even supposing that was the case, they never made me want to throw them over the side."

The voice came out of the darkness again, commenting upon Mr. Spokesly's extreme forbearance.

"Don't drive me too far," he warned.

The voice said all Mr. Spokesly had to do was remove himself and come on the bridge when he was sent for. No driving was intended.

"Ah, you talk very well, captain. I'm only wondering whether you'll talk half so well at the Inquiry."

The voice asked, what inquiry? with a titter.

"There's always an inquiry, somewhere, sometime," said Mr. Spokesly, dully, wondering what he himself would have to say, for that matter. He heard the voice enunciate with a certain lisping exactitude, "Not yet."

"Oh, no, not yet. When the war's won, let's say," he replied. This seemed such a convenient substitute for "never," that he was not surprised to get no answer save a sound like "Tchah!"

"The fog's lifting," he remarked absently. It was. He could already see a number of stars above his head through the thinning vapour. "I'll leave you," he added, "must get some sleep. However," he went on, "we'll have another look at the bilges. I got a certificate to lose as well as you—if you've got one."

The captain remained in obscurity, and made no reply.

"I mean, if you haven't had it endorsed, or suspended, or any little thing like that."

There was no answer, and tiring of the sport, Mr. Spokesly picked up the hurricane lamp and went down again to sound the starboard bilge. He was getting very tired physically, now the reaction from the excitement of the collision had set in. He found the sounding-rod, neatly chalked, ready to lower. Very decent party, that engineer, he reflected. Rather disconcerting though in his almost perfect neutrality. The wife and the big family out at Cospicua, which is near Valletta, seemed to be a powerful resolvent of sentimental ideas. For such a man there was nothing of any permanence in the world to compare with a permanent billet. His loyalty was to his job rather than to abstract principles of nationality. Well! The rod showed two feet eight inches. Mr. Spokesly breathed more easily. He had got his pumps going, then. He decided to go aft. Yes, the fog was clearing.

In the stress of the crisis through which he was passing, the mysterious and exacerbating strife going on between himself and the captain, Mr. Spokesly seemed to himself to be separated from Evanthia as by a transparent yet impassable barrier. The insignificance of such a creature in the face of a material disaster as had been impending appalled him. He saw with abrupt clarity how, if the ship had been mortally hit, and if there had been any manner of struggle to save their lives, she would not have sustained the part of fainting heroine rescued by lion-hearted men, or that of heroic comrade taking her place in the peril beside them. Nothing of the sort. She would have got into the boat and commanded the crew to row away with her at once. She did not know that Plouff was gone, and if he went down and told her, she would not care a flip of her fingers. That, he was surprised to realize, was part of her charm. She was so entirely pagan in her attitude towards men. She was one of those women who were born to be possessed by men, but the men who possess them can possess nothing else. They are the destroyers, not of morals, but of ideals. They render the imagination futile because they possess the powerful arts of the enchantresses, the daughters of Helios. They demand the chastity of an anchorite and the devotion of a knight of the Grail. While the virtuous and generous bend under the weight of their self-appointed travails, these pass by in swift palanquins of silk and fine gold, and are adored by the valiant and the wise.

And he was going to marry her.

He slept heavily on the engineer's settee. He had told that obliging person to give him a call at midnight—he wanted to see what the Old Man was up to. The Old Man, however, later gave Mr. Cassar explicit orders to let the mate sleep—he would remain on duty himself. The chief felt it incumbent upon him to oblige the captain, and Mr. Spokesly slept on, much disturbed none the less by grotesque and laboured forebodings of his subconscious being, so that he moved restlessly at times, as though some occult power within was striving to rouse him. Indeed, it was the spirit of duty struggling with wearied tissues. It was past three when the former was so far successful as to wrench his eyes open. He started up, stretched, looked at the engineer's clock, and muttered that he must have fallen asleep again. He put on his coat and cap, and taking a hurried glance at the engineer, who was sprawling on his back in his bunk with his mouth open and his fingers clutching the matted growth of black hair on his chest, he hurried out on deck.

The fog was gone, and a high, level canopy of thin clouds gave the night the character of an enormous and perfectly dark chamber. The Kalkis was moving so slowly, Mr. Spokesly could with difficulty keep tally of the beat of the engines. Yet she was moving. He could hear the sough of water, and there was a faint phosphorescence along the ship's side. And a change in the air, an indefinable modification of temperature and possibly smell, led him to examine the near horizon for the deeper blackness of a high shore. He listened intently, trying to detect the sound of waves on the rocks. He tried to figure out what the position would be now, if they had made the course he suspected. They ought to be under the southern shores of Lesbos by now. But if that were the case the cool breeze coming off shore would be on the port side. He listened, sniffed, and resigned himself passively for a moment to the impact of influences so subtle that to one unaccustomed to the sea they might be suspected of supernatural sources. He climbed to the bridge-deck and went over to where the smashed boat hung like a skeleton from the crumpled davit. And he was aware at once of the correctness of his suspicions. But it would not be Lesbos. It was the high land which juts northward and forms the western promontory of the long curving Gulf of Smyrna. He could see it as an intenser and colder projection of the darkness. And then his curiosity centred about the more complex problem of speed. They could not be doing more than a couple of knots. What was the old fraud's game? Waiting for a signal, perhaps. He had evidently got himself and his old ship inside any mines that had been laid between Chios and Lesbos. If there were any. Perhaps he was waiting for daylight.

This was the correct solution. Captain Rannie had crept as close in under Lesbos as he had dared according to the scanty hints he had gotten from Mr. Dainopoulos, who had been informed by a Greek sailor from a captured Bulgarian schooner that there was a safe passage inshore to the east of Cape Vurkos. The result, however, of clearing the southern coast of Lesbos in safety was to engender a slight recklessness in the captain. For his dangers were practically over. Even if he got run ashore later, they could get the cargo out of her. And he had made too much distance east before turning south, so that, in trying to raise a certain point on the western side, he had grown confused. The chart was not large enough. When Mr. Spokesly appeared once more on the bridge, Captain Rannie had rung "Slow" on the telegraph, and was endeavouring to locate some sort of light upon the immense wall of blackness that rose to starboard.

And it could not be asserted that he was sorry to see his chief officer. That gentleman could not do much now. Captain Rannie, with his binoculars to his eyes, was trembling with excitement. According to the chart he ought to see a red light on his port bow within an hour or two. There was a good reason for supposing that light was still kept burning even during the war. It could not be seen from the northward and was of prime importance to coasting vessels in the Gulf when making the turn eastward into the great inland estuary at the head of which lay the city. He was creeping along under the high western shore until he felt he could make the turn. It was shallow water away to the eastward, by the salt-works. It was nearly over. He would get the money, in gold, and wait quietly until the war was over, and take a passage back to China. He knew a valley, the Valley of Blue Primroses, a mere fold in a range of enormous mountains, where men dwelt amid scenes of beauty and ineffable peace, where he would live, too, far away from the people of his own race, and far from the detestable rabble of ships. He had never got on with seamen. Sooner or later, they always attacked him either with violence or invective. He would be revenged on the whole pack of them!

He heard his chief officer behind him and maintained his attitude of close attention. He was trembling. One, two, or perhaps three or four hours and he would know that all was well. He wished he could see better, though. During the fog there had been a curious sense of satisfaction in his heart because he knew that, whatever happened, his defective vision would make no difference. Oh, he could see all right. But those damned red lights. He was sure there was nothing, yet. That chief officer of his had gone into the chart room. Captain Rannie forgot himself so far as to titter. Imagine a simple-minded creature like that trying to put him out of countenance! Inquiry! A fine show he would make at the inquiry, with a woman in his cabin, and six months' pay in his pocket! Ho-ho! These smart young men! He hated them. There was only one kind of human being he hated more and that was a young woman. He was perfectly sincere. The Caucasian had come to him to appear like a puffy white fungus, loathsome to come in contact with. Without ever expressing himself, for there was no need, he had conceived a strong predilection for the Oriental. He loved the permanence of the type, the skins like yellow silk, the hair like polished ebony, the eyes, long and narrow, like black satin. He liked to have them on the ship, silent, incurious, efficient, devoid of ambition. He put the glasses in the little locker by the bridge-rail. There was no light to be seen.

He started towards the chart-room door and found himself confronted by his chief officer. He would have brushed past with his almost feminine petulance had not Mr. Spokesly once again seized his shoulder.

"She hasn't got steerage way," said the mate.

"What do you mean by steerage way?" he inquired sarcastically.

"Do you know where you are?" demanded Mr. Spokesly, steadily, "or is it your intention to run her ashore? I'm only asking for information."

Captain Rannie forced himself into the chart room and putting on his glasses examined the chart afresh. Mr. Spokesly followed him in and shut the door.

"I won't have this," the captain began rapidly, laying his hand on the chart and staring down at it. "I won't have it, I tell you. You force yourself in upon me and I am obliged to speak plainly."

"I only want to tell you," said Mr. Spokesly, "that you are too far to the westward. The current is setting you this way," he tapped the chart where a large indentation bore away due south, "and by daylight you won't have sea room."

"I don't believe it!" exclaimed the captain, who meant that he did believe it. "I have taken the log every quarter of an hour."

"Well," said Mr. Spokesly, who was perfectly at ease in this sort of navigation, "the current won't show on the log, which is away out any way. I tell you again, she's going ashore. And it's deep water all round here, as you can see. It won't take a very heavy wallop to send her to the bottom with her bows opened out and the fore peak bulkhead leaking already. Put her about. If you don't," said the mate with his hand on the door and looking hard at his commander, "do you know what I'll do?"

He did not wait for an answer but went out and closed the door sharply. He picked up the telescope and examined the horizon on the port bow. He could discern without difficulty the lofty silhouette of a rocky promontory between the ship and the faint beginnings of the dawn. He turned to the helmsman.

"Hard over to port," he said quietly, and reaching out his hand he rang "Full ahead" on the telegraph. It answered with a brisk scratching jangle, and a rhythmic tremor passed through the vessel's frame, as though she, too, had suddenly realized her peril.

"You do what I say," he warned the man at the wheel, who did not reply. He only twirled the spokes energetically, and the little ship heeled over as she went round. Mr. Spokesly looked again at the approaching coast. There was plenty of room. He heard the door open and the captain come out.

"Easy now," Mr. Spokesly said. "Starboard. Easy does it. That's the style. Well, do you believe what I say now, Captain?"

"I'll report you—I'll have you arrested—I'll use my power——" he stuttered, stopping short by the binnacle and bending double in the impotence of his anger. "Remember, I can tell things about you," he added, pointing his finger at the mate, as though he were actually indicating a visible mark of guilt.

"Shut up," said Mr. Spokesly, staring hard through the telescope. "Hold her on that now, Quartermaster, till I give the word. There will be enough light soon."

Captain Rannie came up to his chief officer's shoulder and whispered:

"You're in this as deep as I am, remember."

"I'm not in it at all and don't you forget it," bawled Mr. Spokesly. The man at the wheel said suddenly in a querulous tone:

"I can't see to steer."

Captain Rannie had fallen back against the binnacle and the sleeve of his coat covered the round hole through which the compass could be seen.

"You threaten me?" he whimpered. "You threaten the master of the ship?"

"Threaten!" repeated Mr. Spokesly, looking eagerly through the binoculars. "Couple of points to starboard, you. I reckon she's all right now," he muttered to himself, "but we'll go half speed for a bit," and he pulled the handle. At the sound of the reply gong and the obsequious movement of the pointer on the dial Captain Rannie was galvanized into fresh life. It was as though the sound had reminded him of something.

"You've been against me ever since you came aboard," he announced. "I noticed it from the first. You had made up your mind to give me all the trouble you possibly could. I don't know how it is, I'm sure, but I always get the most insubordinate and useless officers on my ship. You go in these big lines and get exaggerated ideas of your own importance, and then come to me and try it on here. How can a commander get on with officers who defy him and incite the crew to mutiny? Don't deny it. What you're doing now is mutiny. It may take time, but I'll do it. I'll get you into all the trouble I possibly can for this. I—I—I'll log the whole thing. I'm sorry I ever shipped you. I might have known. I suspected something of the sort. A manner you had in the office. Impudent, insubordinate, self-sufficient. On the beach. Not a suit of clothes to your back. Had to borrow money—I heard all about it. And then bringing a woman on the ship. Told some sort of tale to the owner. All very fine. I might as well tell you now, since you've taken this attitude, that I knew we wouldn't get on. If it had been a regular voyage I wouldn't have had you. It's been nothing but trouble since you came. The other man was bad enough, but you...."

"Starboard, Quartermaster. Go ahead, Captain. That's one thing about you. Nothing matters so long as you can go on talking. Fire away if it eases your mind. But I'm taking this ship in. See the fairway? If you make anything out of this trip, and I dare say you'll make it all right, don't forget you owe it to me. You had me rattled a bit when you ran into that ship last night. I thought you knew what you were doing. And you were just scared. Sitting over there on that life-belt, blowing up that patent vest of yours. Thought I didn't notice it, eh? So busy blowing it up you couldn't answer me when I called you. Master of the ship! Yah!"

Captain Rannie was visible now, a high-shouldered figure with one hand in his pocket and the other resting on the corner of the chart house. During the night he had put on a thick woollen cap with a small knob, the size of a cherry, on the point of it, and it made him look like some fantastic creature out of an opera. It was as though he had materialized out of the darkness, an elderly imp foiled in his mischievous designs. He stood there, looking down at the deck, his mouth working over his toothless gums, silently yet frantically marshalling the routed forces of his personality.

"All right!" he exclaimed. "You take her, I hold you responsible, mind that. I wash my hands of you. You incited my crew to mutiny. Defied my orders."

Mr. Spokesly turned suddenly and Captain Rannie rushed to the ladder and descended halfway, holding by the hand-rail and looking up at Mr. Spokesly's knees.

"Don't you attack me!" he shrilled. "Don't you dare...." He paused, breathing heavily.

Mr. Spokesly walked to the ladder.

"You'd better go down and pull yourself together," he said in a low tone. "You're only making yourself conspicuous. I can manage without you. And if you come up here again until I've taken her in, by heavens I'll throw you over the side."

He walked back quickly to the bridge-rail, and stared with anxious eyes into the stretch of fairway. He could not help feeling that something tremendous was happening to him. To say that to the captain of the ship! But he had to keep his attention on the course. Looking ahead, it was as though he had made the same error of which he had accused the Captain, of running into the land. On the port side the low shore in the half-light ran up apparently into the immense wall of blue mountains in the distance. A few more miles and he would see. He looked down at the torn strakes draggling in the water alongside, at the smashed boat, and the tangled wreckage on the fore-deck. She was very much down by the head now, he noted. Yet they were making it. It would be any moment now when the land would open out away to the eastward and he would give the word to bear away.

And as the sun came up behind the great ranges of Asia and touched the dark blue above their summits with an electric radiance so that the sea and the shore, though dark, were yet strangely clear, he saw the white riffle of contending currents away to port, and got his sure bearings in the Gulf. And as he rang "Full speed ahead" he heard a step behind him and felt a quick pressure of his arm.

She was wearing the big blue overcoat, which was Plouff's last demonstration of his own peculiar and indefatigable usefulness, and her face glowed in the depths of the up-turned collar. The morning breeze blew her hair about as she peered eagerly towards the goal of her desire.

"See!" she cried happily, pointing, one finger showing at the end of the huge sleeve. "See the town?" She snatched the glasses and held them to her eyes. "Giaour Ismir!"

"You don't want to get into the boat after all," he said, putting his arm about her shoulders.

"Me? No! That fool said the ship would go down. Look! Oh, quelle jolie ville!"

"Where?" he said, taking the glasses.

"See!" She pointed into the dim gray stretch of the waters that lay like a lake in the bosom of immense mountains. He looked and saw what she meant, a spatter of white on the blue hillside, a tiny sparkle of lights and clusters of tall cypresses, black against the mists of the morning. And along the coast on their right lay a gray-green sea of foliage where the olive groves lined the shore. Range beyond range the mountains receded, barring the light of the sun and leaving the great city in a light as mysterious as the dawn of a new world. Far up the Gulf, beyond the last glitter of the long sea wall, he could see the valleys flooded with pale golden light from the hidden sun, with white houses looking down upon the waters from their green nests of cypresses and oaks.

"Why don't they come out?" he wondered half to himself. "Are they all asleep?"

"Oh, the poor ones, they must come out in a boat. They have no coal," she retorted. "Look! there is a little ship sailing out! Tck!"

He looked at it. Well, what could they do? He held her close. She must be interpreter for him, he said. Oh, of course. She would tell them what a hero he was, how he had brought them safely through innumerable dangers for her sake. They would live, see! Up there. He had no idea how happy they would be!

The little sailing boat was coming out, her sail like a fleck of cambric on the dark water.

He said there was no need to tell them he was a hero.

"They will know it," she said, "when they see the poor ship. Oh, yes, I will tell them everything. I will tell them you did this because you love me."

"Will they believe it?" he asked in a low tone, watching the city as they drew nearer.

"Believe?" she questioned without glancing at him. "It is nothing to them. What matter? I tell them something, that is all."

He did not reply to this, merely turning to give an order to the helmsman. The other seaman was coming along the deck, and he called him to take in the log and run up the ensign. It was nothing to them, he thought, repeating her words to himself. Nothing. They would make no fine distinctions between himself and the captain. Yes, she was right in that. He went into the chart room and got out the flags of the ship's name. She, the ship, was not to blame, he muttered. She had been faithful. "And so have I!" he cried out within himself. He could not make it clear even to himself, but as he bent the grimy little flags to the signal halyards and hoisted them to the crosstrees, and saw them straighten out like sheets of tin in the breeze, he had an uplifting of the heart. He rang "Stop" to the engine room, and went over to Evanthia.

"Go down," he said gently, "and tell the captain he must come up. We are going to drop the anchor. There is a boat coming alongside."

He stood watching the boat bearing down upon them. He tried to think clearly. Yes, the captain must come up. The complex animosities of the night must be put away. And though he was a little afraid of what lay before him in that great fair city rising from the sea, he had no regrets for the past. He felt, in spite of everything, he had been faithful.