"No," replied Mr Button, "but it will."



CHAPTER II

UNDER THE STARS

It was a wonderful night up on deck, filled with all the majesty
and beauty of starlight and a tropic calm.

The Pacific slept; a vast, vague swell flowing from far away
down south under the night, lifted the Northumberland on its
undulations to the rattling sound of the reef points and the
occasional creak of the rudder; whilst overhead, near the fiery
arch of the Milky Way, hung the Southern Cross like a broken kite.

Stars in the sky, stars in the sea, stars by the million and the
million; so many lamps ablaze that the firmament filled the mind
with the idea of a vast and populous city--yet from all that living
and flashing splendour not a sound.

Down in the cabin--or saloon, as it was called by courtesy--were
seated the three passengers of the ship; one reading at the table,
two playing on the floor.

The man at the table, Arthur Lestrange, was seated with his
large, deep-sunken eyes fixed on a book. He was most evidently in
consumption--very near, indeed, to reaping the result of that last