He had his finger on the chart, but paused and looked up, fixing his
bright glance on the face of the white-haired gentleman.

"There's one thing--I'm a plain-spoken man myself--what is there for us
two--us seafaring men?"

"There is five hundred pounds for each of you," replied the white-haired
gentleman for himself, in slow and careful English.

Captain Cable nodded his grizzled head over the chart.

"I like to deal with a gentleman," he said, gruffly.

"And so do I," replied the white-haired foreigner, with a bow.

Captain Cable grunted audibly.




III

A SPECIALTY

A muddy sea and a dirty gray sky, a cold rain and a moaning wind.
Short-capped waves breaking to leeward in a little hiss of spray. The
water itself sandy and discolored. Far away to the east, where the
green-gray and the dirty gray merge into one, a windmill spinning in the
breeze--Holland. Near at hand, standing in the sea, the picture of wet
and disconsolate solitude, a little beacon, erect on three legs, like