Suddenly she looked up at him, glorious in her grief and surrender.

"Shall I—do you want me to—to—wait?"

For a few moments it seemed that he had not heard the low voice.

Then: "Don't wait, Deane-girl,—don't wait."

Then the arm was gone from about her shoulder.

"But I will, Dick, I will!" she sobbed, but as the words fell from her lips she heard the door close and felt the gust of cold air that chilled the hall.

She was still awake when the midnight accommodation whistled its impending arrival from the north. She listened, tense, as the train came to a stop in the town. A brief halt, then it sounded its underway, the pistons accelerated their chugging beat and it passed out of Crampville into the south.

She stood, still-breathed, dry-eyed, till the last grinding rumble died out of the frosty night, then as a full realization of her loss came home, she dropped to the side of the bed and buried her face in the coverlid.

The floor where she knelt seemed cold and hard.

[Pg 33]

[Pg 33]

CHAPTER III

MINDANAO

The old Francesca, directed by a nervous and none too competent Tagalog captain, maneuvered in the six-mile tidal current which swept west through the Straits making Zamboanga a nightmare to all the native skippers who called at that port. Crab-like, she crawled obliquely to within a few hundred feet of the low-lying town, then the screw churned up a furious wake as the anxious Tagalog on the bridge swung her back into the Straits to circle in a new attempt. Carried by the tidal rush the old tub circled in a great ellipse.

Alone at the rail on the dingy promenade Terry stood enjoying his 

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