Part 37 (2/2)

”The rascal!” he repeated, as he finished the second reading of the letter and thrust it into his pocket. ”I knew there was somethin' i' the wind wi' that little girl! The memory o' my own young days when I boarded and captured the poetess is strong upon me yet. I saw it in the rascal's eye the very first time they met--an' he thinks I'm as blind as a bat, I'll be bound, with his poetical reef-point-pattering sharpness.

But it's a strange discovery he has made and must be looked into. The young dog! He gives me orders as if he were the owner.”

Jumping up, Captain Roy hurried out into the street. In pa.s.sing the outer office he left a message with one of the clerks for his friend the merchant.

”Tell him,” he said, ”that I'll attend to that little business about the bill when I come back. I'm going to sail for the Keeling Islands this afternoon.”

”The Keeling Islands?” exclaimed the clerk in surprise.

”Yes--I've got business to do there. I'll be back, all bein' well, in a week--more or less.”

The clerk's eyebrows remained in a raised position for a few moments, until he remembered that Captain Roy, being owner of his s.h.i.+p and cargo, was ent.i.tled to do what he pleased with his own and himself. Then they descended, and he went on with his work, amusing himself with the thought that the most curious beings in the world were seafaring men.

”Mr. Moor,” said the captain somewhat excitedly, as he reached the deck of his vessel, ”are all the men aboard?”

”All except Jim Sloper, sir.”

”Then send and hunt up Jim Sloper at once, for we sail this afternoon for the Keeling Islands.”

”Very well, sir.”

Mr. Moor was a phlegmatic man; a self-contained and a reticent man. If Captain Roy had told him to get ready to sail to the moon that afternoon, he would probably have said ”Very well, sir,” in the same tone and with the same expression.

”May I ask, sir, what sort of cargo you expect there?” said Mr. Moor; for to his practical mind some re-arrangement of the cargo already on board might be necessary for the reception of that to be picked up at Keeling.

”The cargo we'll take on board will be a girl,” said the captain.

”A what, sir?”.

”A girl.”

”Very well, sir.”

This ended the business part of the conversation. Thereafter they went into details so highly nautical that we shrink from recording them. An amateur detective, in the form of a s.h.i.+pmate, having captured Jim Sloper, the _Suns.h.i.+ne_ finally cleared out of the port of Batavia that evening, shortly before its namesake took his departure from that part of the southern hemisphere.

Favouring gales carried the brig swiftly through Sunda Straits and out into the Indian Ocean. Two days and a half brought her to the desired haven. On the way, Captain Roy took note of the condition of Krakatoa, which at that time was quietly working up its subterranean forces with a view to the final catastrophe; opening a safety-valve now and then to prevent, as it were, premature explosion.

”My son's friend, the hermit of Rakata,” said the captain to his second mate, ”will find his cave too hot to hold him, I think, when he returns.”

”Looks like it, sir,” said Mr. Moor, glancing up at the vast clouds which were at that time spreading like a black pall over the re-awakened volcano. ”Do you expect 'em back soon, sir?”

”Yes--time's about up now. I shouldn't wonder if they reach Batavia before us.”

Arrived at the Keeling Islands, Captain Roy was received, as usual, with acclamations of joy, but he found that he was by no means as well fitted to act the part of a diplomatist as he was to sail a s.h.i.+p. It was, in truth, a somewhat delicate mission on which his son had sent him, for he could not a.s.sert definitely that the hermit actually was Kathleen Holbein's father, and her self-const.i.tuted parents did not relish the idea of letting slip, on a mere chance, one whom they loved as a daughter.

”Why not bring this man who claims to be her father _here_?” asked the perplexed Holbein.

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