He was an Englishman of possibly forty to forty-two years of age, and the most arresting thing I have ever encountered in the way of noses decorated the central portion of his face. At first glance I thought he was inclined to be cross-eyed, but this phenomenon was caused, I realised, by the violent optical antics necessary in order to see round the thing. His face was purple, and the nose conformed to the prevailing colour scheme. It was colossal, without form and utterly void. Cyrano de Bergerac would have committed suicide with such an obstruction. "No relation to Lewis Waller!" he snapped caustic 66 viciously shaking Blatherton's smoke stack. A moment later arm. What did you say the lugubrious howl of the siren came drifting over the water to die away among the hills at our back. q " "I said the Ajax," murmured Blatherton in a hurt voice. "What the devil's the matter with you? he added crossly. "Sit down! Jan Naarden continued to gaze vacantly around the table, and then collapsed into his chair like a pricked bladder. His lower lip was trembling violently, and his fingers locking and unlocking spasmodically. He looked as though he were on the verge of a fit, and for a second I glanced apprehensively towards the other men. "What the devil's the matter?" breathed Blatherton again. "What's struck him? And as he spoke, the bloodshot eyes of Jan Naarden searched my face. 66 What do you mean, exactly?" I asked. What's the matter? Who's slipped you?" Jan Naarden opened his mouth to reply, but before ever he could speak, the thin wail of a steamer's siren came whining across the river. Everyone jumped to his feet and rushed outside, and there, over the tops of the ten-feet reeds, three miles away on the opposite side of the river, the yellow funnel of a steamer was plainly visible. "There she is!" exclaimed Blatherton, and as we looked a thin white feather of steam curled from the back of her "You swine! raved Jan Naarden, shaking his fist in the direction of the distant steamer. "Oh, you swine!" Turning swiftly, I studied the man with a growing concern. His face was convulsed with rage. He seemed utterly beyond himself, and his clothes, flapping and shivering against his gaunt body, added an eeriness to an appearance that was already little short of uncanny. 66 "Come inside," said I, taking him firmly by the arm. "You can't make an exhibition of yourself here in front of the boys," and half-leading, halfdragging the man, I at length got him inside the house. "He's got my ship," he kept shouting. "He's stolen my ship! I want my ship!" Shut up and drink this," said I tersely, thrusting a brandy-and-soda to his working mouth. I was getting rather tired of him. In two gulps the drink was finished, and if it had no other effect, it certainly served to calm him down considerably. For quite five minutes he sat silently staring at the table top. Then— " he an "I want my ship,' nounced quite quietly. "He's stolen it!" "Talk sense! 66 said I irri- ment, and he read it out to tably. Captains don't steal us in English. There were their steamers." "I tell-you-the Ajax-is -mine," he repeated, very slowly and distinctly. "And I want her. What d'you think I'm stuck here for, eh?" he asked suddenly. "I've been trying to get hold of her for the last three months, but every time he passes he ties up across the river. He won't come to this camp. He's a pirate, that's what he is! Taking all the freight and passage money and not sending me a single penny! How d'you think I can live?" And thumping the table, he sprang to his feet again. "He's quite right there," put in Blatherton, who had heard the tirade. “I was aboard the Ajax last time she went up, and Silitass laughed then about the way he was dishing Jan Naarden." 66 You mean to say that he does own the boat?" I asked. "Of course I own the boat," put in Jan Naarden. "Everybody knows that!" "I don't know," replied Blatherton, answering my question and taking no notice of the interruption. "It certainly looks like it, though, doesn't it? many stamps affixed to it, and at the end of the reading there was no doubt in my mind, or in any of the others, that Jan Naarden owned the river steamer Ajax. Once that fact was established we soon saw his side of the question, and before very long he had enlisted our sympathy in his hard luck. From that to helping him regain the boat was but a very short step, and before darkness fell we had sworn to capture the Ajax for him, or know the reason why. Looking back now it seems incredible that we should ever have embarked on such an enterprise, but I suppose it was the old concomitance of time, place, and opportunity, added to the fact that we were all wanderers, and all open to any excitement that happened along. By seven o'clock we were afloat, packed in a contraption which Jan Naarden termed a house-boat. It was an ordinary ship's life-boat with a rough cabin, built of match-boarding, erected amidships. A hurricane lamp swung suspended from the roof by a piece of string, and in these romantic surroundings we lay and listened to the regular splash of our eight paddles as they ferried us across the river to our unsuspecting prey. At ten minutes past nine we hove in "Produce 'em," said I shortly, sight of her. Fortunately for and produce them he did, then us there was no moon to give and there. the alarm, but we could see It was a Portuguese docu- the black hulk of her lying sil "God in heaven, fool! I can prove it. I've got the papers," thundered Jan Naarden, irritated beyond measure by our talking across him. houetted against against the starspangled sky. Several lights twinkled gaily along her length and were reflected in the turgid waters of the river. Silently the house-boat was brought alongside. I don't think I've ever been so excited in my life as I was during those few moments, crouched in the darkness of the cabin, waiting for the bump that would announce our arrival. As she touched the boys dropped their paddles and grappled the low side of the steamer. "Now!" I breathed, and in a moment we were swarming up and over the side. Nobody was on watch. And the well-deck was empty. Up the companion, across the deck, and round the narrow promenade we raced, and at the corner of the tiny dining - saloon crashed into Captain Silitass himself. It was the work of but a moment to gather him up, and in another moment we were all in the saloon. Silitass, a half-bred Dutchman, was positively scared out of his life while we were half-drunk with the excitement of the last dash. "Victory!" I gasped, as I fell back into one of the rickety plush chairs. And behind the blue mountain of his nose Blatherton smiled his agree cried "Let's go Come on, then," Blatherton to me. and see the fires." Nothing loth, I raced after him down the well-deck where the furnaces were situated, and the very first intimation that the crew received of any untoward happening coincided exactly with our volcanic entrance into the stokehold. "Fires! Fires!" we yelled, and before the stokers had time to grasp the situation, the place was a miniature inferno. "What about the pressure?" I asked suddenly. "We don't want to blow the thing up." But before he could answer the telephone bell rang. "Ay, ay, sir," asked Blatherton facetiously into the mouthpiece, but the next second his jaw fell. Clear out!" he yelled as he sprang away. Half the Portuguese army are aboard !" Up the steps we raced, and turning into the port alleyway stopped dead, as the vision of a long line of armed troops met out eyes. "Other side," whispered Blatherton, and we wheeled and dashed back along the starboard side into the little saloon. I Banging the door behind me, turned-to encounter the dapper little figure of a Portuguese commandant, standing hand on sword by the table, and evidently in supreme command of the situation. He took the wind completely out of our sails, and as I could think of nothing to say that seemed worth saying, I held down. my peace and sat Blatherton followed suit, and the silence that fell between us was one of the longest and most painful I have ever endured. It seemed to me that I had outlived my sphere of usefulness, and that whatever followed was the very private business of Jan Naarden, and very assuredly no concern of mine. Apparently, Blatherton thought the same and moreover had the courage of his convictions, for his was the first voice to break the tomb-like silence. "I won't," he roared. "This is my ship. I'm going to take it across to my camp. "Softly, señor," advised the little Commandant. "You must prove your words. Where are the ship's papers?" Silitass handed a bundle of official-looking papers across the table. There was a truculent light in his eye, which gave me the impression that he was bluffing. "Liar," put in Jan Naarden casually, as he helped himself to another drink of the ship's whisky. Swiftly the Commandant raced through the papers, and then threw them on the table. "Useless," said he tersely. |