advised. “You’ll be getting thirsty.”

“I’m already that.”

“You’re a brave man, captain,” she said, her tone altering from gayety to seriousness. “Don’t worry about me. I’ve always been able to take 110 care of myself, though I’ve never been confronted with this kind of a situation before. Frankly, I don’t like it. But I suspect that your father will have more respect for us if we laugh at him. Has he a sense of humour?”

110

“My word for it, he has! What could be more humorous than tying me up in this fashion and putting me in the cabin that used to be mine? Ten thousand for a string of glass beads! I say, Jane!”

“What?”

“When he comes back tell him you might consider twenty thousand, just to get an idea what the thing is worth.”

“I’ll promise that.”

“All right. Then I’ll try to snooze a bit. Getting stuffy lying on my back.”

“The brute! If I could only help you!”

“You have—you are—you will!”

He turned on his side, his face toward the door. His arms and legs began to sting with the sensation known as sleep. He was glad his father had overheard the initial conversation. A wave of terror ran over him at the thought of being set ashore while Jane went on. Still he could have sent a British water terrier in hot pursuit.

Jane sat down and took inventory. She knew but little about antiques—rugs and furniture—but 111 she was full of inherent love of the beautiful. The little secretary upon which she had written the order on the consulate was an exquisite lowboy of old mahogany of dull finish. On the floor were camel saddle-bays, Persian in pattern. On the panel over the lowboy was a small painting, a foot broad and a foot and a half long. It was old—she could tell that much. It was a portrait, tender and quaint. She would have gasped had she known that it was worth a cover of solid gold. It was a Holbein, The Younger, for which Cleigh some years gone had paid Cunningham sixteen thousand dollars. Where and how Cunningham had acquired it was not open history.

111

An hour 

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