pull all night up this creek if necessary and it's the very devil if we
don't come upon Belarab's lair before daylight."

He shoved the tiller hard over and the boat, swerving sharply, vanished
from the coast.

And perhaps the ghosts of old adventurers nodded wisely their ghostly
heads and exchanged the ghost of a wistful smile.



V

"What's the matter with King Tom of late?" would ask someone when, all
the cards in a heap on the table, the traders lying back in their chairs
took a spell from a hard gamble.

"Tom has learned to hold his tongue, he must be up to some dam' good
thing," opined another; while a man with hooked features and of German
extraction who was supposed to be agent for a Dutch crockery house--the
famous "Sphinx" mark--broke in resentfully:

"Nefer mind him, shentlemens, he's matt, matt as a Marsh Hase. Dree
monats ago I call on board his prig to talk pizness. And he says like
dis--'Glear oudt.' 'Vat for?' I say. 'Glear oudt before I shuck you
oferboard.' Gott-for-dam! Iss dat the vay to talk pizness? I vant sell
him ein liddle case first chop grockery for trade and--"

"Ha, ha, ha! I don't blame Tom," interrupted the owner of a pearling
schooner, who had come into the Roads for stores. "Why, Mosey, there