To the helpless horror of her mother, the genuine wonder of her many
friends, and the ill-veiled amusement and approval of her father, a
month after the doors of her _alma mater_ closed behind her, she took
passage on the _Cora Blair_, the oldest and most disreputable-looking
yellow stack of them all, and hied her for a year's sojourn among the
spicy lotus-ports of the dreamy Southern Ocean--there to hear at first
hand from the men who knew him, further deeds of Tiger Elliston.

To her, on board the battered tramp, came gladly the men of power--the
men whose spoken word in their polyglot domains was more feared and
heeded than decrees of emperors or edicts of kings. And there, in the
time-blackened cabin that had once been _his_ cabin, these men talked
and the girl listened while her eyes glowed with pride as they
recounted the exploits of Tiger Elliston. And, as they talked, the
hearts of these men warmed, and the years rolled backward, and they
swore weird oaths, and hammered the thick planks of the chart-table
with bangs of approving fists, and invoked the blessings of strange
gods upon the soul of the Tiger--and their curses upon the souls of his
enemies.

Nor were these men slow to return hospitality, and Chloe Elliston was
entertained royally in halls of lavish splendour, and plied with costly
gifts and rare. And honoured by the men, and the sons and daughters of
men who had fought side by side with the Tiger in the days when the
yellow sands ran red, and tall masts and white sails rose like clouds
from the blue fog of the cannon-crashing powder-smoke.

So, from the lips of governors and potentates, native princes and
rajahs, the girl learned of the deeds of her grandsire, and in their
eyes she read approval, and respect, and reverence even greater than