but I guess I've got your number all right. Say, ain't you a flying man
or else one of the American-Ambulance boys?"

I mustered the feeble parry that I had stopped being a boy of any sort
some time ago. Then lest he wring from me my age, birthplace, and the
amount of my income tax, I made an end of my meal.

On deck again I wondered at my irritation, my sense of restlessness.
The little salesman was not responsible, though he had fretted me like
a buzzing fly. It was rather that I had taken an intense dislike to the
man calling himself Van Blarcom; that the girl, despite her haughtiness,
had somehow given me an impression of uneasiness--of fear almost--as she
saw him approach and heard him speak; and above all, that I should
have liked to flay alive the person or persons who had let her sail
unaccompanied for a zone which at this moment was the danger point of
the seas.

My matter-of-fact, conservatively ordered life had been given a crazy
twist at the St. Ives. As an aftermath of that episode I was
probably scenting mysteries where there were none. Nevertheless, I
wondered--though I called myself a fool for it--if any more queer
things would happen before this ship on which we five bold voyagers were
confined should reach the other side.

They did.



CHAPTER IV