Sturgess evidently asked for and obtained permission to smoke. He came to the rail. Both girls faced forward again, and Maseden was free to compare them. Madge, or Madeleine, as he preferred to style her, seemed to be a trifle paler than Nina. [Pg 73]Otherwise, her likeness to her sister was almost uncanny, if that ill-omened word might be applied to two remarkably pretty girls. Neither of the girls wore gloves, but Maseden looked in vain for the heavy gold wedding-ring which Steinbaum’s thoroughness had supplied when wanted. [Pg 73] At that moment an officer appeared on the main deck. The fore hold had to be opened, it seemed. A quartermaster, summoned from the forecastle, hoisted a block and tackle to a derrick. The noise effectually drowned the talk of the trio on the upper deck until the tackle was rigged, and a couple of hatches were removed. The half-caste sailor was about to descend into the hold just as Sturgess’s somewhat staccato accents reached Maseden clearly again. “Say, did you ladies hear of the American who was to be shot early yesterday morning? A most thrilling yarn was spun by a friend of mine who knows Cartagena from A to Z. He said—” Maseden was on the alert to detect the slightest variation of expression on Madeleine’s face. She bent forward, her hands tightly clutching the rail, and darted a piteous under look at her sister. Thus it happened that Maseden alone was gazing upward, and he saw, out of the tail of his eye, the heavy block detaching itself from the derrick and falling straight on top of the [Pg 74]sailor, who had a leg over the coaming of the hatch and a foot on the first rung of the iron ladder leading down into the hold. [Pg 74] With a quickness born of many a tussle with a bucking broncho, Maseden leaped, caught the rope held by the quartermaster, and jerked it violently. The block missed the half-caste by a few inches, and clanged in the hold far beneath. The tenth part of a second decided whether the sailor should be dashed headlong into the depths or left wholly unscathed. As it was, he and every onlooker realized that the rakish-looking vaquero had saved his life. In the impulsive way of his race, the man darted forward, threw his arms around Maseden’s neck, and kissed him. To his very great surprise, his rescuer thrust him off, and said angrily:
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