"Are yousureof your facts?" he demanded, in the same acid, embittered voice.
"From first to last," affirmed Mr. Jobling, so peevishly that Slyne was satisfied. "Haven't I told you that I've spent five years of my life and every penny I could—er—every penny I possessed, in sifting them out, and that I'm a Chancery practitioner? I have most of the papers with me at the Métropole. There's only the one link lacking to complete the long chain I've forged. And—" He lowered his voice to a whisper after looking about him furtively, and, at last, under the decent screen of the darkness, completely demoralised by the events of the day, confided in the Heaven-sent stranger beside him his chief ambition in coming to Monte Carlo. "And even a good enough imitation might serve—"
"No imitation would stand the strain," Slyne interrupted him hoarsely. "And you'll very soon find yourself inside the four walls of a cell, my friend, if you try any forgery of that sort. You can take my word for that, because—I'mthe real rivet, and without me all the rest of your precious chain isn't worth a snap of my fingers."
Mr. Jobling subsided into a heap, and was staring at him, open-mouthed. But Slyne said no more for a moment or two. Outwardly quite calm and matter-of-fact, his mind was in a seething turmoil. If all the inept rogue beside him had said were true—He could scarcely restrain an impulse to get to his feet and shout for joy.
The lawyer seemed to have nothing more to say, either. And Slyne, having somewhat recovered command of himself, at length rose, tossing his cold cigar away with an angry oath. "It makes my blood boil," said he, "to think—But for the sheerest accident you'd be a dead man by now—and where wouldIhave been then! You don't deserve such stupendous luck, and, by the Lord Harry! if I find you playing the fool again—You're going to put yourself into my hands from now on, d'ye hear? And, in the first place, I must see those papers you spoke of; if they're in order, I'll see the thing through. We can't work without each other, unfortunately for me, or—"
"You're going too fast," intervened Mr. Jobling, still seated, and with some faint show of spirit. "You're taking too much for granted, sir. I don't even know who you are, and—we must come to terms of some sort before—"
He shrank aside as Slyne stepped forward with twitching fingers and eyes aflame.
"You'll take whatever terms you get—and be precious thankful," hissed Slyne, stooping over him. "You'll do exactly what you're told, no more, and no less. And—you won't forget again, will you, that you've met your master in me?"
Mr. Jobling, gazing, aghast, into the muzzle of the cheap revolver which had proved so ineffective in his own hands, at last regained voice enough to subscribe solemnly to these stipulations, and from that moment went uncomfortably, in fear for the life he himself had been trying to take not an hour before. That was probably the first time he had ever been threatened with personal violence, and a life spent chiefly in Chancery Lane does not always foster an excess of that calculating courage needed to deal with one of Slyne's dangerous sort.
"Come on, then," said Slyne, and Mr. Jobling got shakily up from the bench. "You needn't be afraid that I won't deal fair—generously with you, but this is no time to be haggling here. We haven't a moment to spare. I must see those papers at once. Step out!"
The hall-porter at the Métropole raised his eyebrows over Mr. Jobling's somewhat dishevelled appearance, but promptly lowered them again in response to a look from Slyne.
"Tell them to send up your bill," said Slyne to the lawyer. "If everything's all right, I'll settle it and put you up at the Paris."
And Mr. Jobling very meekly did as he was bidden. He could not well help himself, just then. But his expression was not at all properly grateful as he ushered Slyne into the room he himself had never expected to see again, and there proceeded to display to that masterful adventurer the mass of papers on which their further partnership was to depend.
Slyne picked out the more important of these with an acumen which would have done Mr. Jobling himself every credit; and for a busy hour they two sat poring over one dog's-eared document after another, Slyne's mask of indifference deserting him by degrees as he grasped point after point of the case, till he threw the last down with a smile of triumph, and, rising from the table, paced to and fro for a moment, rubbing his hands in an ecstasy of exultation.
"Everything's all right," he announced confidently. "My—our fortune's as good as made; and I'll tell you what, Jobling,—you shall have ten per cent. of the immediate cash for your share. How does that strike you, eh? I don't say that you deserve any such consideration from me, but—I'm ready to let bygones be bygones, and I want you to work for me with a will."
His self-assurance was contagious. Mr. Jobling, after the merest moment of hesitation, rose in his turn, holding out a hand, which Slyne grasped affectionately. And thus they came to an amicable understanding, without more words.
"Pack up now," commanded Slyne, pleasantly peremptory, "and we'll run across to the Paris. I've any amount to do yet, before I can snatch a sleep."
"I'll be very thankful to get intomybed," said Mr. Jobling, already busy among his belongings, and more than a little dazed by the march of events. "I've had amosttrying day."
It did not take long to have his baggage transferred to the other hotel, and there Slyne put him under confidential charge of the manager, with very strict orders that he was not, on any pretext whatever, to be allowed to decamp pending Slyne's return. Whereafter that active man of affairs sent to the garage for his car, with word that his chauffeur need not be disturbed and, having deposited his still uncounted winnings with the cashier, started eastward again in such haste that he would not even wait to change his thin evening clothes.
Slyne was, in fact, fiercely excited. His particular Providence seemed to be holding out to him such a chance in life as he could scarcely have conceived himself in his wildest dreams. And he was in such frantic haste to grasp that chance—which involved so much more than the mere money—that he had quite forgotten his recent fear of M. Dubois.
"I think I've got you this time, my girl!" said he to himself gleefully, as he once more slowed down to stop at the Italian frontier. And that was the burden of all his thoughts as he raced madly along the Corniche Road in his high-powered car. In the darkness before the dawn, his eyes intent on the long white ribbon of highway endlessly slipping toward his head-lights, he saw only roseate visions of what the future now held for him. As the sun rose to burnish the bare, brown mountains before him, he nodded happily to himself, and his lips moved again to the glad refrain, "I think I've got you quite safe this time, my girl!"
Slyne's nostrils curled as he observed the dirty and dishevelled aspect of theOlive Branch, lying idle in Genoa harbour alongside the coal-chutes where the day's work had not yet begun. He had grown extremely fastidious again within the very short space of time which had passed since he had last seen her.
There was no one visible about her littered decks except the watchman on duty, whose sole salute to him as he stepped carefully up the insecure gangplank was a sullen scowl.
But that might have been deemed quite a hearty welcome in contrast with his reception by Captain Dove.
Captain Dove was, in point of fact, furious when he opened his little, red-rimmed eyes and became aware of his former friend's intrusion upon his privacy. Sitting up in his frowsy bunk, with the blankets huddled about him, looking ludicrously like an incensed gorilla, he raged and swore at his gratuitous visitor until his voice gave out.
Slyne, forgetful, in his new enthusiasm, of the terms on which they had parted, was at first somewhat taken aback by that outburst; but only at first. And his sanguine anticipations enabled him to endure it unmoved. It also gave him time to collect his ideas. He could see that his errand was not going to prove quite so easy as he had expected, and that he must play his new cards with discrimination. As soon as the evil old man in the bunk had exhausted himself in invective, Slyne spoke, smooth and cuttingly.
"I came back to do you a good turn. But—if that's how you're going to take it, you foul-mouthed old rapparee! I'll save my breath and be off again. What th' deuce d'ye mean by shouting at me as if I were a drunken deck-hand! Speak to me above a whisper now—and you'll see what'll happen to you. That's the police-boat pulling past."
The opportune plash of oars had suggested to him that plausible threat. Captain Dove, listening intently, crouched back against the bulkhead, his blinking, hot, suspicious eyes on Slyne's. The boat passed on. But he had found time to observe that Slyne was in evening dress, with an expensive fur coat to keep the cold out. And Slyne's cool contempt for his ill-temper would seem to have impressed him no less than Slyne's air of solid prosperity.
He himself, it appeared, had had care and adversity for his companions ever since parting with his former friend. His chief aim in calling at Genoa had been cheap coal and cheaper repairs, and he thought that he was less likely to be recognised there than elsewhere in the Mediterranean. But coal, he had found, had risen to a ruinous price in consequence of a recent strike among the miners in England; and for even the most trifling repairs he would have to wait at least a week, because the dock-yard people were already working over-time to make way for a man-of-war. Credit of any sort was not to be had. His portage-bill bade fair to swamp his insufficient cash resources—even although three of his now scanty crew had already deserted. And who could foretell what might happen to him if they should get wagging their tongues too freely in some wine-shop ashore! While, as if for climax, the Customs' authorities had been displaying a most suspicious interest in him and his ship. Under such circumstances, even a saint might have been pardoned, as he pointed out, for showing a temper something short of seraphic.
"And you've been doing me good turns—by your way of it—for some time past," he continued, in a stifled, vehement whisper lest his voice should still reach the receding boat. "Though—" He waved a claw-like hand about him, words again failing him to describe adequately his sufferings in consequence, as who should say, "See the result for yourself."
Slyne sat down on the sofa opposite him, not even condescending to glance, in response to that invitation, round the squalid, poverty-stricken little cabin. "Never mind about some time past," he advised, more pacifically. "You'll never get rich quick yesterday. To-day's whenI'mgoing to make my pile. And I meant to let you in—"
"To another hole," Captain Dove concluded sceptically. "I only wish you'd show me some sure way out of the one I'm in."
Slyne looked his annoyance at that further interruption, and made as if to rise, but did no more than draw his gold cigarette-case from its pocket. He knew that Captain Dove was merely trying to aggravate him, and it would not have been politic to stray from the matter in hand. He lighted a cigarette at his leisure and waited for what should come next. He had changed his mind as to taking the old man fully into his confidence. He thought he could see his way to get all he wanted for a very great deal less than that might have cost him.
"Want a drink?" Captain Dove demanded, no doubt with the idea that a dose of spirit might serve to stir up his visitor's temper, and looked surprised at Slyne's curt head-shake, still more surprised over his response.
"I can't afford to drink at all hours of the day and night now," said Slyne austerely. "That sort of thing was all very well at sea, but—The business I have in hand isn't of the sort that can be carried out on raw brandy. And you'll have to taper off too, if you want to come in."
"Strike—me—sky-blue!" exclaimed the old man, and Slyne held up a reproving hand.
"I can do with a good deal less of your bad language into the bargain," he mentioned coldly, "if you don't mind. In short, I want you to understand from the start that you've got to behave as if you were a reasonable human being and not a dangerous lunatic, or—I'll leave you to rot, in the hole you've got yourself into."
Captain Dove, scarcely able to credit the evidence of his own ears but, none the less, apparently, thinking hard, darted a very ugly glance at him, and noticed the diamonds in his shirt-front. Under the strongest temptation to call in a couple of deck-hands and have him thrown off the ship, Captain Dove obviously paused to consider whether those could be of any intrinsic value. He was, of course, satisfied that he knew exactly how much—or, rather, how little money Slyne had had in his pockets when he went ashore. And, if Slyne had already, within four and twenty hours, been able to turn that over at a profit sufficient to provide himself with a fur coat and diamonds, it might perhaps pay Captain Dove to hear what he had to propose. Slyne, reading all the old man's thoughts, could see that he had decided to temporise.
"But, I can do with a damn sight less ofyourback-chat!" rumbled Captain Dove, not to be put down without protest. "If you've come back on board to offer me a founder's share in any new gold-brick factory, fire straight ahead—and be short about it. It'll save time, too, if you'll take it from me again that I'd rather have your room than your company."
And at that, Slyne made his next considered move.
"All right," he said in a tone of the most utter contempt. "That's enough. I'm off.
"I came back to do you a good turn—although few men, in my position, would ever have looked near you again," he paused in the doorway to remark acridly. "But I can see now what's the matter with you—and I only wish I had noticed it in time to save myself all it has cost me. It's senile decay you're suffering from. You're far too old to be of any more use—even to yourself. You're in your dotage, and you'll soon be in an asylum—for pauper lunatics!"
He had evidently lost his own temper at last. And Captain Dove was visibly pleased with that result of his tactics; as a rule he was better able to cope with Slyne on a basis of mutual abuse, heated on both sides; Slyne cool and collected had him at a disadvantage.
"Now you're talking!" he retorted approvingly. "Say what's in your mind, straightforwardly, and we'll soon come to an understanding. Sit down again, you strutting peacock! and tell me what it is you want."
Slyne did not sit down again, however; to do so would scarcely have been dignified. He stayed in the doorway, silent, a thin stream of cigarette-smoke slowly filtering from his nostrils. His cold, calculating eyes were once more on Captain Dove's. And it was Captain Dove's would-be mocking glance that at length gave way.
"You offered to give me Sallie, if I paid you a hundred thousand dollars," said Slyne, judicially.
"To see you safely married to her," Captain Dove corrected him.
Slyne nodded, in grave assent.
"Well, I'm going to hold you to your offer," said he. "The money's ready and waiting for you—just as soon as we can settle a few trifling formalities. I have Sallie's promise to marry me—"
"The devil you have!" said Captain Dove, not slow to seize opportunity either. "I thought I heard her say—"
Slyne's face darkened again. "And, if you'll come ashore with me now," he went on, controlling his temper, "I'll prove to you that your money is perfectly safe."
Captain Dove lay back in his bunk and laughed, most discordantly. He laughed till his red-rimmed eyes were adrip, while Slyne sat looking at him. He was still laughing when Slyne rose and, flicking the cigarette-end from between two nicotine-stained fingers, began to button his coat. He stopped laughing then, by calculated degrees.
"Sit down—sit down!" said he wheezily. "What's your hurry? You haven't told me yet what those few 'trifling formalities' are. And how am I to know whether—"
But Slyne was already beyond the doorway, fumbling with a last button.
"If you believe I've come here to talk simply for the sake of talking," said he with sombre magnificence, "I needn't waste any more breath on you. Good-bye."
Captain Dove jumped out of his bunk. He was clearly impressed, in spite of himself, by the other's indomitable assurance.
"Come back, you fool!" he called angrily. "Come back. I want to know—
"I'll go ashore with you," he shouted, raising his voice, since Slyne was already on his way to the gangway. But Slyne did not seem to hear.
"I'll take your offer—for Sallie," cried Captain Dove, in a slightly lower tone.
Slyne hesitated in his stride, stopped, and turned back into the alleyway which led to the saloon.
"What was that you said?" he demanded of Captain Dove.
"Come on inside," requested Captain Dove, more curtly.
"I don't believe I will," Slyne declared, inwardly elated over the winning of that somewhat risky move. "You don't deserve another chance. And, if I do give you another, you needn't suppose—"
"Come on inside," begged Captain Dove, shivering, in no case to listen to any lecture. "Come on, and we'll talk sense. Don't waste any more good time."
Slyne followed him in again, congratulating himself on his firmness. He felt that he had gained the whip-hand of the old man, and he meant to keep it. He curtly refused again Captain Dove's more hospitable offer of some refreshment, and, while his aggrieved host was clumsily getting into some warmer clothing, talked to him from the saloon through the open doorway of his cramped sleeping-quarters. It was easier to arrange matters so than under Captain Dove's direct observation.
"You'll pay me cash, of course," Captain Dove stipulated, as though he had been bargaining about a charter-party.
"I'll pay you cash," Slyne agreed, "the day Sallie marries me. And meantime I'll give you my note of hand at thirty days for the money." He listened intently, but Captain Dove, struggling fretfully with refractory buttons, maintained an ominous silence.
"I'll have it backed by a London lawyer, to keep you safe," said Slyne. "And listen! I'm not asking you to risk anything, or even to take my note at its face value. I want you to come ashore with me and find out for yourself from my lawyer that you can depend on the money. If you don't feel satisfied about that after you've seen him, you needn't go any farther, we'll call the bargain off; you can get back on board your ship at once and no harm done.
"And, even as regards Sallie, I'm going out of my way to keep you right. I'd give a great deal to get married at once, but—I'm willing to wait till the day I can hand you your hundred thousand in cash. Everything's fair, square, and above-board now. I'm not asking you to risk anything.
"And where in the wide world can you expect to do better for yourself!" he argued. "If you go East you'll get no more for the girl—and look at the expense! You'll be sorry all the rest of your life, too, for I know you'd far sooner see her decently settled than sell her to any dog-faced son-of-a-gun of a mandarin!
"You can say what you like," he concluded, although Captain Dove had said never a word. "Clean money's pleasanter to spend than dirty, any day. If I had been born wealthy, I'd never have needed to touch a marked card. And now's your chance, too, to pull out of a rotten rut that'll sooner or later land you among the chain-gang."
Captain Dove came forth from his cabin, indifferently clad, and eyed Slyne with a sarcastic interest which somewhat disconcerted that homilist.
"You don'tlookjust like a Band o' Hope!" said the old man, "but—"
Slyne rose again, and bit his lip, in simulated impatience. "Oh, all right," said he. "If you're not interested—"
Captain Dove scowled at him. "I'm interested," he said grudgingly. "I'll see this lawyer-fellow of yours whenever you like to bring him aboard, and—if the money's there, you can count me in."
"He isn't the sort of lawyer you've been accustomed to, Dove," said Slyne. "You've got to go to him."
Captain Dove did his best to out-stare him, but failed.
"And what's more," said Slyne, playing a trump card with great outward indifference, "you can make him pay you for your time instead of you paying him. I told you I came back here to do you a good turn. There's more than a hundred thousand dollars of easy money for you in this deal—if you go the right way about it.
"But—don't take my word for anything."
Captain Dove had palpable difficulty in suppressing the obvious repartee to that last bit of advice. But cupidity and cunning kept him quiet for a space.
"All right. I'll go with you," he agreed very gruffly at last. And Slyne heaved a silent sigh of relief; he had feared more than once that the contest of wills would after all go against him.
"You're wise," he commented carelessly. "It will pay you.
"You'd better see Sallie now, don't you think, and tell her—"
"I'm not going to interfere between you and her—till I get my money from you," declared the old man with a crafty grin. "You must tackle her yourself. She'll be up by now, but breakfast won't be ready for half an hour. If I were you I'd take that coat off and let her have a sight of those diamonds of yours."
Slyne did not wait to hear any more. He was already on his way aft, a somewhat incongruous figure on the decks of theOlive Branch. When he reached the companion-hatch on the poop he was smiling sardonically.
"I do believe it was my 'diamonds' that finally fetched that old ruffian," said he to himself. "If they have the same effect on Sallie, I won't grudge the few francs I paid for them!"
He tiptoed down the short stairway, and, having tapped very quietly at the door of the after-saloon, entered without more ado. He judged that he might have difficulty in gaining admission if he delayed to ask leave.
The saloon was empty. But from an adjoining cabin came the sound of splashing, and from its neighbour the shuffle of heavy feet, a faint suggestion of deft hands busy among crisp muslin and sibilant silk.
Slyne hesitated; he wanted to be very tactful and yet was unwilling to give up the advantage he had thus gained. He closed the door carefully behind him. It creaked a little.
From the room whence had come the rustle of feminine garments an uncanny-looking figure appeared, and darted an angry, apprehensive glance about the saloon. The sound of splashing had ceased.
"'Morning, Ambrizette," said Slyne briskly and standing his ground. "Is your mistress up yet? Tell her I have Captain Dove's leave to pay her a call."
The dumb black dwarf's scowl grew darker, but her hand fell away from her breast and she halted as Sallie's voice sounded from within.
"Is that you, Jasper!" it ejaculated. "What do you want? I thought—"
"I've come back—with good news for you, Sallie—wonderful news!" said Slyne. "And I'm in no end of a hurry to be off again. Call Ambrizette in and get dressed, as quick as you can. Captain Dove's waiting breakfast for me and I mustn't delay him. How long will you be?"
"What sort of news is it?" asked Sallie, no less dubious than her maid had been; and called her maid in, notwithstanding her well-founded doubts as to the nature of any news he could bring. For Slyne had held out to her the same lure that the serpent offered to Eve, and her womanly curiosity would not allow her to order him at once from her domain.
Slyne smiled slightly as he sat down in a basket-chair, to look about him while she was still busy within. The little after-saloon which had been her home for so long was finely furnished; more so, perhaps, than was apparent to Slyne, whose taste in that respect inclined to the florid. But he could not help noticing how dainty and neat and feminine was its entire effect, with its cushioned cosy corners, snow-white curtains and draperies. Its purely fragrant atmosphere stirred even Slyne's conscience a little.
He lay back in his seat, and, gazing about him, recalled to mind all he had been able to learn as to Sallie's strange past. It all fitted in so perfectly with the fabric of his wonderful new plans that he could find no possible flaw in them. And when Sallie herself at length came out to him from her cabin, he was optimistically disposed to be very generous in his dealings with her.
Fresh from her bath and doubly bewitching in her clinging, intimate draperies, she met Slyne's glad, eager glance with grave, doubtful eyes, and ignored entirely the hand he held out to her as he sprang from his chair. But he affected not to notice her attitude of distrust, and, greeting her gaily, saved his face by laying his outstretched hand on another chair, which he set a little nearer his own.
"Won't you sit down?" he suggested with debonair courtesy.
But she shook her head; she was evidently afraid to receive him on any such friendly footing. She did not even care to ask him what he was doing in evening dress at breakfast-time and on board theOlive Branch. But in her troubled eyes he could read that unspoken inquiry.
"I've been travelling all night to get back to you, Sallie," he told her, in a low, eager tone, "and I hadn't time to change—I was in such a hurry to tell you the news. I've come to take you away from theOlive Branch,—and Captain Dove. I've come to set you free."
She stared at him as though she had not heard aright, her lips parted, her eyebrows arched, a faint, puzzled, questioning frown on her forehead.
"I've come to set you free," he said again.
"At what price?" she asked suddenly, with disconcerting directness, and his would-be straightforward glance wavered.
"Don't put it that way!" he urged. "I ask no more than the fulfilment of the promise you made me. And—listen, Sallie. I've found out who you really are and where your home is. I'll take you there if only you—
"I'm not asking you to marry me right away, either, remember. All you must do in the meantime is to sign without question some papers that will be required. Then I'll make everything quite safe for you and take you to your own home."
The quick doubt in her eyes had given place to an expression of helpless amazement and growing dismay. But he did not wait to hear anything she might have to say.
"It's like this, you see," he went on hurriedly. "Captain Dove's absolutely at the end of his wits for money, and now—I can pay him his price for you if you'll keep your promise to me by and by. Otherwise I can't; no matter how willing I might be, I can't, I swear to you.
"He feels, too, that you owe it to him to make up in one way or another for some part at least of what he and I have lost through your—your interfering so much lately in his affairs. And, if you don't back me up now, he'll have to take theOlive BranchEast as best he can. He'll take you too, and—you'll never come back.
"You don't understand. I'm not really trying to force you to marry me, but to save you from a fate far worse than the worst you could imagine. You don't understand that it's really freedom I'm offering you, and that your only option is slavery.
"You'd rather have a white man—even me!—for your husband, wouldn't you? than a yellow one—or brown—or maybe black!"
Sallie sat down quickly in a cushioned chair, and lay back, trembling like a captured bird.
Slyne was not beyond feeling somewhat ashamed of himself, but found easy solace in the reflection that all he had said was for her good as well as his own. He could see that his last brutal argument had struck home. For Sallie could no longer doubt, now, in the lurid light of her recent experiences, that Captain Dove looked upon her as a mere chattel, to be turned into cash as soon as occasion should offer.
In a little she looked up at him again out of pleading, desperate eyes. Some most unusual impulse of pity stirred him. She was only a young girl yet, and her helplessness spoke its own appeal, even to him. He made up his mind again, quite apart from any question of policy, to deal with her as generously as might be practicable.
"Will Captain Dove let me go now if I promise to marry you, Jasper?" she asked. And he nodded solemnly.
"And not unless I do?" she insisted. "YouknowI didn't—before, although you say I did."
"I swear to God, Sallie," he declared, "that I can't raise the money the Old Man wants any other way. And—I won't say another word about what's past and done with.
"If you'll really promise to marry me," he said eagerly, "I'll prove to you that all I have told you is true before you need even leave Captain Dove; I won't ask you to go a step farther with me until you're perfectly satisfied; I'll take you safely to your own home as soon as youaresatisfied that you can trust me. And I won't ask you to keep your promise till—"
An irrepressible light of longing had leaped up behind the despair in her eyes.
"You say that all I must do in the meantime is to sign some papers," she interrupted. "You say you won't ask me to marry you right away. Will you wait—a year?"
"A year! I couldn't, Sallie!" he cried, and her pale lips drooped piteously again.
"How long, then?" she asked in a whisper. "Six months?"
He had made up his mind to be generous, and he felt that he had not failed in his intention as he answered, "Three months, and not a day longer, Sallie."
She sat still and silent for a while, considering that, and then, "All right, Jasper," she agreed. "Take me safe home, and I'll marry you three months from the day we get there—if we're both alive when the time comes."
He turned away from her for a moment. He had won all he wanted in the meantime, and he could scarcely contain himself. When he presently held out a hand to her, she took it, to bind that bargain.
"And you won't have any cause to regret it, Sallie," he assured her, his voice somewhat hoarse in spite of his effort to speak quite naturally.
"So now, as soon as you're ready, we'll all go ashore together, and—"
"I'll be ready in twenty minutes," she told him, clasping her hands at her heart, her eyes very eager. "And, Jasper—you must let me take Ambrizette with me."
"You're free now to do as you like," he answered, and left her. He felt as if he were treading on air on his way back to the mid-ship saloon.
Captain Dove, in the samenégligécostume, was busy at breakfast when Slyne walked in upon him again, but looked up from his plate for long enough to mumble a malicious question.
"Yes, I've fixed it all up with her," Slyne answered with assumed nonchalance. "You can always trust me to know how to handle a woman, Dove."
Captain Dove shot a derisive glance in his direction. "Is she willing to marry you after all, then?" he demanded, feigning a surprise by no means complimentary.
"Not just at once, of course," returned his companion, and left the old man to infer whatever he pleased.
In response to a shouted order of Captain Dove's a slatternly cook-steward brought Slyne a steaming platter of beans with a bit of bacon-rind on top, and an enamelled mug containing a brew which might, by courtesy, have been called coffee. There was a tray of broken ship's biscuits, a tin containing some peculiarly rank substitute for butter, upon the table, with the other equally uninviting concomitants of a meagre meal.
"Tchk-tchk!" commented Slyne, and sat down to satisfy his hunger as best he might; while Captain Dove, having overheard that criticism, eyed him inimically, and proceeded to puff a peculiarly rank cigar in his face.
"You might as well be getting dressed now," said Slyne indifferently. "By the time I'm through here, Sallie will be ready to go ashore."
Captain Dove looked very fiercely at him, but without effect.
"Sallie won't stir a step from the ship," the old man affirmed, "till you've handed over the cash."
Slyne looked up, in mild surprise.
"But, dear me! Dove," he remarked, "you don't expect that the London lawyer's going to take my word for a girl he's never even seen? Until he's satisfied on that point, he won't endorse my note to you. So we'vegotto take her along with us. I'm doing my best to give you a square deal; and all I ask in return is a square deal from you."
"You'd better not try any crooked games with me," growled Captain Dove, and sat for a time sunk in obviously aggravating reflections.
"If we get on his soft side," suggested Slyne insidiously, "there's no saying how much more we might both make."
Captain Dove rose and retired into his sleeping-cabin without further words; while Slyne, picking out with a two-pronged fork the cleanest of the beans on his plate, smiled sneeringly to himself.
"What's the latest long-shore fashion, Slyne?" the old man asked after an interval. Slyne knew by his tone that he had dismissed dull care from his mind and was prepared to be quarrelsome again.
"It wouldn't suit a figure like yours," he answered coolly, and was gratified to hear another hoarse growl. For, strange though it may seem, Captain Dove was not without vanity. "All you really need to worry about is how to keep sober. And I want it to be understood from the start—"
"Not so much of it now!" snarled Captain Dove from his cabin. "You attend to your own business—and I'll attend to mine. I know how to behave myself—among gentlemen. And, don't you forget, either, that I'm going ashore to play my own hand. I've a card or two up my sleeve, Mister Slyne, that will maybe euchre your game for you—if you try to bluff too high."
Slyne swore hotly, under his breath. He would have given a great deal to know exactly what the old man meant by that mysterious threat, and only knew that it would be useless to ask him. There was nothing for it but to put up with his capricious humours, as patiently as might be—although Slyne shivered in anticipation of the strain that might entail—till he could be dispensed with or got rid of altogether.
Nor, as it presently appeared, were his fears at all ill-founded. For Captain Dove emerged from his cabin got up for shore-going in a guise at sight of which Slyne could by no means suppress an involuntary groan.
"I'm all ready now," Captain Dove announced. "Will you pay for a cab if I call one?"
"My car's waiting," Slyne returned, and, as the old man whistled amazedly over that further and unexpected proof that his former accomplice's fortunes had changed for the better, "You look like a fool in that outfit," said Slyne. "The right rig-out for motoring is a tweed suit and a soft cap."
Captain Dove was very visibly annoyed. He had been at particular pains to array himself properly. "You want to be the only swell in the party, of course!" he grunted. "You're jealous, that's what's the matter with you." And he fell to polishing his furry, old-fashioned top-hat with a tail of the scanty, ill-fitting frock-coat he had donned along with a noisome waistcoat in honour of the occasion.
Slyne shrugged his shoulders, despairingly, and, having made an end of his unappetising meal, prepared for the road. Then he lighted a cigar very much at his leisure, while Captain Dove regarded him grimly, and led the way on deck without further words.
Sallie was ready and waiting at the companion-hatch on the poop, as pretty as a picture in the sables Captain Dove had given her a year before—after a very lucrative season of poaching on the Siberian coast. As soon as she caught sight of them she came forward, followed by Ambrizette, whose appearance, in cloak and turban, was even a worse offence to Slyne's fastidious taste than Captain Dove's had been.
"What a calamitous circus!" he muttered between set teeth. "I must get rid of those two somehow—and soon. But till then—
"My car's at the back of those coal-wagons there," he told Captain Dove with great dignity, and Captain Dove turned to the engine-room hatch.
"Below there!" he called down. "Is that Mr. Brasse? I'm off now, Brasse. You'll carry out all my instructions, eh? And—don't quarrel with Da Costa, d'ye hear?"
"Ay, ay, sir," answered a dreary voice from the depths below, and Captain Dove faced about again to find Sallie, flushed and anxious, waiting with Ambrizette at the gangway.
"Come on," he ordered irascibly, and Sallie followed him down the plank. Ambrizette shuffled fearfully after her, and Slyne came last, his chin in the air, triumphant.
He led the way to his car, and was gratified to observe its salutary effect on Captain Dove's somewhat contemptuous demeanour. The little policeman in charge of it pending its opulent owner's return, came forward, touching his képi, which further impressed Captain Dove, uncomfortably. Slyne handed Sallie into the tonneau, and Ambrizette after her, tossed the policeman a further tip which secured his everlasting esteem, took his own seat at the wheel, and was hastily followed by Captain Dove.
"Where are we bound for?" asked Captain Dove, holding his top-hat on with both hands, as Slyne took the road toward Sampierdarena at a round pace.
"Don't talk to the man at the wheel," answered Slyne, and laughed. "We've a hundred miles or so ahead of us. Better chuck that old tile of yours away and tie a handkerchief round your head; you'll find that less uncomfortable."
The old man, at a loss for any more effective retort, pulled his antiquated beaver down almost to his ears, folded his long arms across the chest of his flapping frock-coat, and sat silent, scowling at the baggy umbrella between his knees. Nor did he open his mouth again during the swift journey.
But when they at length reached their destination and Slyne stopped the car quietly before the imposing pile that forms the Hôtel de Paris, Captain Dove's jaw dropped and his mouth opened mechanically.
A resplendent porter came hurrying forward and bowed most humbly to the magnificent Slyne.
"Take this lady and her maid straight up to the suite next mine," ordered Slyne as Sallie alighted, while Captain Dove listened, all ears. "And ask Mr. Jobling to join me in my sitting-room. He's still here, I suppose?"
He gave vent to a heartfelt sigh of relief as the man, already preceding his charges indoors, paused to answer in the affirmative.
"I needn't book a room for you," he told Captain Dove, with calculated indifference. "But Sallie must have somewhere to leave Ambrizette.
"Hey! you. Call my chauffeur to take the car round to the garage."
Captain Dove followed him toward the bureau, attracting not a few glances of mingled surprise and amusement from the elaborate idlers in its neighbourhood. Slyne was furious.
"I can't have him tagging about after me in that ghastly get-up!" he told himself on the way to the elevator; and cuffed the elevator-boy's ears at the sound of a mirthful sneeze with which that unfortunate youth had become afflicted. "Though how the deuce I'm to help myself I don't know."
In the corridor at which they got out he caught sight of Mr. Jobling approaching, and hurried Captain Dove into the sitting-room of his suite.
"Give me five minutes to change my clothes," he requested of the old man. "And don't get straying about, or you'll lose yourself."
Mr. Jobling met him on the threshold as he shut the door. That gentleman had marvellously recovered from his over-night's nervous break-down. A sound sleep, a visit from the barber, a bath and a liberal breakfast had all helped to alter him outwardly and inwardly for the better. He was once more the respectably prosperous, self-confident solicitor.
"I believe you've been out all night," he observed in a jocular tone of reproof, a waggish forefinger uplifted.
"I've covered a couple of hundred miles in the car while you've been asleep," answered Slyne, turning into his dressing-room. "I've brought the girl back with me—and the old man, her guardian. We're going to have trouble with him unless we're very careful. So listen, and I'll tell you how things stand."
Mr. Jobling composed his features into their most professional aspect, but that gave place by degrees to a variety of other expressions, while Slyne, busy changing his clothes, related all he himself knew as to Sallie's past history.
"And now the old man thinks he is entitled to put a price on her," Slyne concluded. "She's promised to marry me, but he won't let her go till I hand him a hundred thousand dollars."
Mr. Jobling lay back limply in his chair. In all his career he had never, he asserted, heard a more scandalous suggestion.
"Never mind about that," Slyne cut him short. "The money's no object to me. But you can understand what a difficult fellow he is to deal with. And what I'm going to do, merely as a precaution against his playing us false in the end, is to give him my note of hand for the amount he demands, endorsed by you, and payable the day I marry his adopted daughter."
Mr. Jobling sank still lower in his seat.
"In return for that," Slyne went on, "he must sign a clear deliverance from any further claim on any of us, subject, of course, to due payment of the note.
"Then, I want a document drawn up to confirm my engagement to the girl and granting me the fullest possible power of attorney on her behalf both before and after our marriage. She's so simple and inexperienced that I must do everything for her.
"And, lastly, you'd better make out a brief private agreement between yourself and me—just as a matter of form, you know—to the effect that you are willing to act in my interests throughout, in return for a commission of ten per cent. on the accumulated revenues of the Jura estates at the date of my marriage."
Mr. Jobling looked at him for a time as a man suddenly bereft of his spine might.
"There's no time to spare," Slyne mentioned. "I want all that sort of thing settled right off the reel—before lunch.
"If the old man makes any kick about anything, you must back me up in all I say. Although if he tries to raise his price by a few thousand dollars, we needn't stick at that. The great thing is to get him to sign the deliverance in return for our note. The girl has already agreed—"
"And what ifIrefuse?" croaked his companion with the courage of desperation. It was evident that Mr. Jobling saw through his daring scheme. "What if I insist on my fair share? What if I—"
Slyne silenced him with a contemptuous gesture.
"Whatever you do will make no difference to anyone in the wide world but yourself," said Slyne. "If you do what you're told you'll get a great deal more than you deserve out of it. If you don't—D'ye think I'd have taken you into the team if I didn't know how to drive you!" he asked, his eyes beginning to blaze. "Why, my good fellow, if you refuse, if you don't travel up to your collar, if you so much as shy at anything you see or hear—I won't even hurt you; I'll just hand you over to the police.
"So make up your mind now, quick!"
"You've nothing against me," quavered the lawyer.
"No, I've nothing—not very much, at least, yet," Slyne agreed, knotting his tie neatly before the glass. "But—that may be because you haven't embezzled any of my money—yet." He had most opportunely recalled what the detective Dubois had told him about his new friend.
Mr. Jobling's face was almost green. He got up with an evident effort.
"I was only joking," he declared with a most ghastly grin. "I'll be quite satisfied with ten per cent. of the accumulated income—in fact, we'll call it a couple of hundred thousand pounds, if you like."
"All right," Slyne agreed imperturbably. "Make it that amount if you'd rather. How long will it take you to get the papers drawn out? It's nearly one o'clock. And—you won't be safe till they're signed."
"An hour," said Mr. Jobling. "I'm a quick writer."
"All right," Slyne repeated. "We'll lunch at two—after they're all signed. So—off you go, and get busy."
The stout solicitor hurried away, cowed and obedient again, and Slyne, very smart in an almost new flannel suit, rejoined Captain Dove.
"I'mtoofashionable, that's what's the matter with me!" declared Captain Dove with sudden conviction at sight of him, and gazed very bitterly at his own image in an inconvenient mirror.
"Never mind about that," Slyne advised soothingly. "It's not as if you were staying here, you know. You'll be back on board your ship by supper-time. And now, I must tell you how we've got to handle this lawyer-fellow when he fetches in the raft of papers he'll want us all to sign."
Captain Dove listened gloomily while he went on to explain, at considerable length, and in his most convincing manner, that they must match their combined wits against the lawyer's for their own profit.
"It's not that I don't trust him," said Slyne, "but—I'll feel more secure after everything's settled in writing and signed. He can't go back on us then."
"He'd better not!" Captain Dove commented. "I'll wring his neck for him if he tries—"
"And, as for Sallie," Slyne cut him short, "I've made things quite—"
"Sallie will do whatever I tell her," growled Captain Dove. "And don't you attempt to interfere between me and her—till you've paid me my money, Slyne. Where is she? Fetch her in here."
Slyne had no farther to go to do that than to the next room, where he found Sallie at the window, gazing pensively out at the sea. But he delayed there for some time to make it still more clear to her that her only hope of helping herself lay in abetting him blindly.
When he at length returned to his own sitting-room with her, he found Captain Dove staring fixedly at another arrival there, an overwhelmingly up-to-date if rather imbecile-looking young man, whose general gorgeousness, combined with a very vacant, fish-like eye much magnified by a monocle, had evidently reduced the would-be fashionable seaman to a stricken silence.
Slyne, who had at first shot a most malevolent glance at the intruder, was stepping forward to greet him just as Mr. Jobling put in an appearance with a sheaf of papers in one hand.
"How d'ye do, Lord Ingoldsby?" said Slyne quite suavely to the young man with the eye-glass. He had caught sight of Mr. Jobling in the doorway, and turned to Sallie, his quick mind bent on a masterstroke.
"May I introduce to you the Marquis of Ingoldsby," he remarked to her in the monotone of convention; and, as she bowed slightly in response to that very modern young gentleman's ingratiating wriggle and grin, Slyne, one eye on Captain Dove's astonished countenance, completed the formality.
"This is Lady Josceline Justice," said he to his smirking lordship, and breathed delicately into a somewhat extensive ear the further information, "the late Earl of Jura's daughter, you know—and myfiancée."
Sallie's first startled impulse was to deny the new identity Slyne had so glibly bestowed on her. It seemed too preposterous to be believable; and she was very suspicious of him. A little flushed, more than a little afraid, and yet in some sense convinced in spite of herself by the outward and visible signs about her that all these strange happenings must have at least some foundation of fact, she sought to read the others' thoughts in their faces.
The Marquis of Ingoldsby was gaping at her, in open wonder and admiration. Slyne's features wore a subdued expression of triumph, and Captain Dove's a dazed, incredulous frown. Mr. Jobling was beaming about him, so apparently satisfied with her, so respectably prosperous-looking himself that her doubts as to Slyne's good faith began to give way. When the lawyer was in turn presented to her and also addressed her by that new name, she could scarcely disclaim it.
"You'll stay and have luncheon with us, Lord Ingoldsby?" Slyne remarked, touching the bell; and his lordship left off gaping at Sallie to look him over with all the solemn sagacity of a young owl in broad daylight.
"Er—all right," his lordship at length agreed. "Don't mind if I do.
"Though I have some—er—friends waitin' for me," he added as an afterthought, "that I promised to take for a run in your car, if—"
"You'll have time enough after lunch," Slyne suggested, and drew the noble marquis toward the window.
"The Marquis of Ingoldsby!" muttered Captain Dove. "A run in Slyne's car! And—Lady Josceline Justice!" He dug his knuckles forcibly into his blinking eyes, and, "I seem to be wide enough awake," said he in a stage aside as several waiters arrived on the scene.
While they were setting the table Sallie tried to collect her thoughts. Slyne had told her nothing till then, but that he had found out who her folk were. And she had come away from theOlive Branchblindly, only a little less distrustful of him than of Captain Dove's cruel intentions toward her if she had remained on board. Even now, she scarcely dared to believe—
In response to a sign from Slyne she took her place at the flower-decked table. The Marquis of Ingoldsby immediately settled himself at her side; he also was obviously a young man who knew what he wanted, and meant to have that at all hazards and, while the others were seating themselves, he ogled her killingly.
Slyne had sat down at her other hand, leaving Mr. Jobling and Captain Dove to keep one another company behind the great silver centre-piece which adorned the circular table. The marquis, leaning on one elbow, had turned his back on Mr. Jobling, and Slyne turned his on Captain Dove.
"This is a little bit of all right!" his lordship remarked to Sallie, with a confidential grin. "Only—I wish—How is it that we haven't met before, Lady Josephine? But never mind that. Let's be pals now. Shall we, eh?"
"I don't know," Sallie answered at random and since he seemed to expect some reply to that fatuity. She had met a good many men in her time, but never one quite like this Lord Ingoldsby—who actually seemed anxious to look and act like a cunning fool.
A waiter intervened between them. But his lordship waved that functionary away.
"Do let's," he implored with child-like insistence. "It would be so deevy to be pals with you. And I'm beastly dull here, all by myself, don't y'know. So—
"Eh?" He glared at Slyne, who had bluntly interrupted histête-à-tête. "No, Idon'twant any oysters—I told that waiter-chap so. And Idon'tknow any 'lady of the camellias.' I can't imagine what you're talkin' about at all, I'm sure."
"I saw her again last night, at the Casino," said Slyne, imperturbably, and went on to entertain Sallie with a long if not over-truthful account of his own over-night's doings there. So that, for all his lordship's lack of manners, it was some time before that spoiled youth again succeeded in monopolising her attention. At every turn Slyne was ready to balk him, and, but for his native self-conceit coupled with a certain blind obstinacy, he must very soon have understood what was perfectly plain to Sallie, that he was there merely on sufferance, to serve some purpose of Slyne's.
"Goin' to be here long, Lady Josephine?" he managed to break in at last. Slyne had turned to give a departing waiter some order.
"I don't know," Sallie answered again, since she could say nothing else.
"Hope to goodness you are," declared his lordship. "Stay for a week or two, anyhow: and,"—he lowered his voice to a husky whisper, leaning toward her—"letmetrot you about a bit, eh? You'll maybe see more than enough ofhimby and by!" He indicated Slyne with an eloquent elbow, and further expressed his sentiments by means of an ardent sigh.
Beyond the blossom-laden épergne, Mr. Jobling and Captain Dove, almost cut off from other intercourse by that barrier, were exchanging coldly critical glances. Neither seemed to be quite at his ease with the other, and both had, of course, a great many urgent questions to put to Slyne as soon as the Marquis of Ingoldsby should be gone. So that the luncheon-party must have proved a very dull affair to them, and they were no doubt glad when it was over.
Slyne signalled to Sallie as soon as coffee was served, and she rose to leave the room. She was quite accustomed to being promptly dispensed with whenever her company might have been inconvenient.
"Oh, I say!" protested Lord Ingoldsby. "You're not goin' yet, Lady J. Half a mo'. Won't you come for a spin with me now that the car's mine? Just say the word and I'll drop my other engagement. And then we could dine at—"
"Lady Josceline will be engaged with her lawyer all afternoon," Slyne cut him short with the utmost coolness, "and she's leaving Monte Carlo again to-night."
The Marquis of Ingoldsby glowered at him.
"I'll see you in Paris, then, Lady J.," he went on, pointedly ignoring Slyne, "or in London, at least, later on. Well, good-bye—if you must be goin'."
He bowed her out of the room, and then, snatching up his hat and cane with very visible annoyance, included the others in a curt nod of farewell and made off himself.
He passed her before she had closed her own door—and would gladly have paused there.
"You won't forget me, will you?" she heard him ask eagerly from behind her. But she did not delay to answer that question.
A few minutes later, Slyne knocked at her door and entered, followed by the other two men. He had brought with him the papers which Mr. Jobling had prepared. Mr. Jobling carried an inkstand, and Captain Dove a decanter of brandy. Slyne seated himself at the table and waved Sallie back to her chair by the window.
"We're going to talk business for a few minutes," he told her, "and then get everything settled in writing—to keep you safe.
"Fire ahead now, Dove. You want to know—"
"Is Sallie really—"
"Idon't know anyone of that name now. D'you mean Lady Josceline?"
Captain Dove glared at him, and then at the lawyer, and then at Sallie herself.
"Is that really who I am now, Jasper?" she asked, a most wistful inflection in her low voice.
"You needn't believeme," he answered her. "Ask Mr. Jobling. He'll tell you."
Mr. Jobling coughed importantly. "I'll tell you all I know myself, Lady Josceline," he promised her, and proceeded to repeat in part what he had told Slyne on the terrace the night before concerning the Jura family, but without a single word of the fortune awaiting the next of kin. Captain Dove's face expressed the extreme of astonishment as he too sat listening with the closest attention.
"That's as far as my present knowledge goes," the lawyer finished blandly. "And now—I understand that Captain Dove is prepared to supply the proof required in conclusion.
"How long have you known Lady Josceline, Captain Dove?"
Captain Dove frowned as if in deep thought, and Slyne looked very crossly at him.
"About three quarters of an hour," the old man answered, and, glancing at Slyne, chuckled hoarsely. "She's only been Lady Josceline for so long."
Mr. Jobling nodded understanding and the creases on his fleshy forehead disappeared again.
"And before that—?" he suggested, politely patient.
"Before that she was—what she still is so far's I'm concerned—Saleh Harez, my adopted daughter."
"Sallie—Harris!" Mr. Jobling ejaculated. "Dear me! Did you say Sallie—er—Harris?"
"I said Saleh Harez," affirmed Captain Dove, and filled the glass at his elbow again. "But all that concerns you, so far's I can see, is that I've known her ever since she was knee-high to me. I've been a father to her all those years, and she's my adopted daughter. So now, you can take it from me, Mr. Jobling, that I'm the joker, and both bowers too, in this merry little game."
"Which makes it all the more unfortunate for you that you haven't a single penny to stake on your hand," Slyne put in, while the lawyer looked somewhat blankly from one to the other of them. "So—don't waste any more time bluffing, but tell Jobling how you found Sal—Lady Josceline."
Captain Dove darted a very evil look at his friendly adviser. "And what if I refuse?" he asked.
Slyne almost smiled. "Why cut off your own nose to spite your face?" he returned. "You won't refuse, because it would cost you a hundred thousand dollars to do so."
Captain Dove stroked his chin contemplatively, and his face slowly cleared.
"A hundred and fifty thousand, you mean," he said in a most malevolent tone.
Slyne got up from the table as if in anger, and for some time the two wrangled over that point, the stout solicitor gazing at them with evident dismay, while Sallie awaited the upshot of it all with bated breath. She knew it was over the price to be paid for her that they were disputing, but that knowledge had ceased to be any novelty. The wrathful voices of the two disputants seemed to come from a great distance. She felt as if the whole affair were a dream from which she might at any moment awake on board theOlive Branchagain.
"There isn't money enough in it to pay you so much for a mere affidavit," she heard Slyne say, and Mr. Jobling, under his glance, confirmed that statement emphatically.
"A hundred and twenty-one thousand is the last limit—a thousand down, to bind the bargain, and the balance the day of my wedding with Sallie," Slyne declared. "If that doesn't satisfy you—there's nothing more to be said. And I'll maybe find other means—"
"Show me even the first thousand," requested Captain Dove, and Slyne counted out on to the table, at a safe distance from the old man's twitching fingers, five thousand francs of the amount Lord Ingoldsby had paid him for his car.
"All right," said Captain Dove gruffly, and snatched at the notes. But Slyne picked them up again.
"As soon as you've given Jobling your statement," he said, "and signed whatever other documents he may think necessary, I'll hand you these and my note of hand, endorsed by him, for the balance remaining due you."
Mr. Jobling picked up a pen and Slyne pushed a sheet of foolscap toward him. Captain Dove, with a grunt of disgust, sat back in his chair and, while the lawyer wrote rapidly, related how he had found Sallie.
When he had finished, Mr. Jobling read his statement over aloud, and chuckled ecstatically. His own eyes were shining.
"That settles it, Lady Josceline," said he triumphantly, turning to Sallie. "I'll stake my professional reputation on your identity now. You need have no further doubt—"
"And just to clinch the matter," growled Captain Dove, "you'd better add this to your affidavy:—The clothes the kid was wearing when I fetched her off that dhow were all marked with the moniker 'J. J.' and some sort of crest. But—they were all lost when the ship I commanded then was—went down at sea."
Mr. Jobling groaned. "Howveryunfortunate!" he remarked before he resumed his writing. And Slyne stared fixedly at the old man until the lawyer had finished.
"Now," said Mr. Jobling, adjusting his pince-nez and beaming about him again, "we can call in a couple of witnesses and—"
"We'll witness each other's signatures." Slyne disagreed. "Better not bring in any outsiders."
The stout solicitor frowned over that, but finally nodded concurrence. And Captain Dove took the pen from him, only to hand it to Slyne.
"Gimme my thousand dollars and your joint note for the balance first," he requested unamiably.
Slyne signed the new note Mr. Jobling pushed across the table, and Mr. Jobling endorsed it. Captain Dove read it over carefully before he pocketed it, and also counted with great caution the bills Slyne tossed to him. Then he in his turn signed, without reading it, the statement the lawyer had drawn up from his dictation, and the more lengthy agreement between Sallie and Jasper Slyne.
Slyne and Jobling added their names to that, and Slyne attached his careful signature to a promise to pay the solicitor the percentage agreed upon. Captain Dove witnessed it and then called Sallie from her seat in the window-alcove, and she came forward with anxious eyes, to fulfil the undertaking she had finally had to give Jasper Slyne as the price of his help in her most unhappy predicament.
She did not know—nor did she greatly care then—what was contained in the contract he laid before her without a word. She took from him without demur the pen he held out to her. She had promised to do all he told her and give him whatever he asked—except, for the present, herself.
"Sign 'Josceline Justice' at the foot of each page," he said gently, and she did so without a word. For she would not for all the world contained have broken any promise she had given. Then Mr. Jobling desired her to witness the two other men's signatures.
As she handed him back the pen she had a final question to ask him.
"You said my father and mother are both dead, and my step-brother too. Is there no one else—"
"No one you need worry about in the least," he assured her, misunderstanding. "There was a beggarly American who lodged a claim to the title and—to the title; his name was Carthew, I think—yes, Justin Carthew. But even if I—if he hadn't gone and got lost while looking for you, his claim would be quite ineffectual now. You're your father's daughter, Lady Josceline. Justin Carthew was a dozen or more degrees removed from the trunk of your family tree. He had only the faintest tinge of blue blood in his veins. He was an absolute outsider. We'll hear no more abouthimnow."
"You mean that it's an absolutely sure thing for her," Captain Dove suggested, and Mr. Jobling looked pained.
"I can't afford to risk anything on uncertainties, sir," he answered stiffly. "And I'll stake my professional reputation on—"
"Oh, never mind about all that," Slyne broke in, folding his share of the papers together and pocketing them. "The syndicate's safely floated. And now—as to our next move.
"You'd better get away back to Genoa by the five o'clock train, Dove. And you must take Ambrizette with you; I'll get Sal—Lady Josceline another maid in Paris—one who won't attract quite so much attention to us as that damned dwarf would.
"Jobling and I will go on there by the night-mail, on our way to London with—Lady Josceline. You can take theOlive Branchround to some safe English port and lay her up there in the meantime. As soon as you land, you can rejoin us—at Jobling's address. By that time we'll probably be ready to redeem our note to you."
"By that time," Captain Dove returned with concentrated bitterness, "you'll have found some way to give me the slip altogether. D'ye take me for a blind idiot, Slyne? D'ye think I'm going to let Sallie out of my sight, with you?"
Slyne was visibly disconcerted. "But—aren't you going to take your ship round to England?" he asked, in genuine surprise. "You can't very well leave her lying in Genoa!"
"I'll attend to my own end of the business," said Captain Dove with angry decision. "If you're going to London by train to-night, so am I. If you like to come back on board with me, I'll sail you round. But I'm not the only man on theOlive Branchwho can sail a ship. Why, I've half a dozen broken captains—and most of 'em with extra masters' certificates, too—among my crew.
"I've left Brasse and Da Costa in charge, and they'll work her across the Bay if I tell them to. I've only to send them a wire. And all you have to do now is to say which way you want to travel—with me; for I'm going to stick to you like a leech till the day you pay me off."
Slyne walked to the window, humming a tune. But it was obviously costing him all of his refreshed fortitude to refrain from expressing his real sentiments toward Captain Dove. His face, as he stood glaring blindly out at the beautiful scene before him, was like that of a wild beast balked of its fair prey. But from between his bared, set teeth the careless hum came unbroken.
"I think you're foolish," was all he said when he turned again, convinced that it would be a waste of time to argue the matter with the old man, "but—suit yourself. Jobling and Imustget to London with Sal—Lady Josceline at the earliest possible moment. If you insist on travelling with us to-night—so be it. All I want you to understand is that there's to be no more drinking, and that you must be advised by me in every other particular. This isn't really the sort of game you're liable to shine in. It would be far better for all of us if you'd stay on board your ship."
Captain Dove's weather-beaten countenance was turning slowly purple. He was striving after speech. Slyne, outwardly cool and contemptuous of his visible fury, stood gazing down at him, hands in pockets. Mr. Jobling was wriggling restlessly in his chair, glancing from one to the other, prepared to flee from the coming storm.
Still without a word, Captain Dove reached again for the brandy-decanter, directly defying Slyne. Slyne stepped forward and snatched it out of his hand.
Simultaneously, the old man and Mr. Jobling sprang from their seats, the former making for Slyne and the latter for the door, which opened just as he reached it, so that he all but fell over a boy in buttons who had knocked and entered carrying a telegram on a tray.
Slyne had not moved. Captain Dove, almost at his throat, spun round on one heel.
"For me?" Mr. Jobling exclaimed anxiously as he ripped the envelope open. And a slow pallor overspread his puffy pink features while he was perusing its contents.
"From Mullins, my managing clerk," he mumbled as he passed the message to Slyne, who looked it over indifferently, and then re-read it aloud in a low but very ominous voice: "'American claimant landed at Genoa yesterday. Now on way to London. Court granted decree in his favour.' Handed in at Chancery Lane, in London,"—he pulled out his watch—"fifty minutes ago."
The page-boy had disappeared. Slyne pushed suddenly past Mr. Jobling and set his back against the door. Captain Dove was approaching the terrified solicitor softly, on tiptoe, his fists clenched, all his tobacco-stained fangs displayed in a grin of fury. One of his long arms shot out just as the door opened behind Slyne's back and a voice announced:
"M. Dubois."