He thought the question applied to the cargo, and answered “no.”

[Pg 56]

Then, after a wait that seemed interminable, the snorting and growling of a steam winch and the unwilling rasp of the anchor chain chanted a symphonic chorus in Maseden’s ears. Those harsh sounds sang of freedom and life, of golden years on a most excellent earth instead of an eternity in the grave. He came on deck to watch the Castle of San Juan dwindle and vanish in the deep, blue glamour of a perfect tropical night.

He was standing on the open part of the main deck, close to the fore hold, when he heard English voices from the promenade deck high above his head.

A man’s somewhat querulous accents reached him first.

“Well, at this time two days ago, I little thought I’d be on a steamer going south to-night,” said the speaker.

There was no answer, though it was evident that the petulant philosopher was not addressing the silent air.

“I suppose you girls are still mooning about that fellow getting away from the Castle?” [Pg 57]grumbled the same voice. “I tell you he has no earthly chance of winning clear. Steinbaum will see to that. His record is none too good, and a question in the American Senate would just about finish him, even in San Juan. So Mr. Philip Alexander Maseden might just as well have been shot yesterday morning as to-day or to-morrow. They’re hot on his track now, Steinbaum told me—

[Pg 57]

“Eh? Yes, I know he did me a good turn, but, damn it all, that was merely because he was going to die, not because he was a first-rate life for an insurance office. It was no business of mine that he and Suarez couldn’t agree.... Oh, let’s go to our cabins! Tears always put my nerves on a raw edge! Anyone would think you had lost a real husband on your wedding day!”

There was a movement of shadowy forms. Maseden thought he could distinguish a woman’s white hand rest for an instant on the ship’s rail. Was that the hand he thought he would remember until the Day of Judgment? He could not say.

The one fact that lifted itself out of the welter of incoherent fancies whirling in his mind was an almost incontrovertible one. If his ears had not deceived him, he and his unknown but lawful wife were fellow-passengers on board the Southern Cross!

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