years!"




VI

RECOGNITION


At these words and at sight of the speaker, Morton Harland started
back as if he had been shot.

"Santoris!" he exclaimed--"Not possible! Rafel Santoris! No! You
must be his son!"

The stranger laughed.

"My good Harland! Always the sceptic! Miracles are many, but there
is one which is beyond all performance. A man cannot be his own
offspring! I am that very Santoris who saw you last in Oxford. Come,
come!--you ought to know me!"

He stepped more fully into the light which was shed from the open
door of the deck saloon, and showed himself to be a man of
distinguished appearance, apparently about forty years of age. He
was well built, with the straight back and broad shoulders of an
athlete,--his face was finely featured and radiant with the glow of
health and strength, and as he smiled and laid one hand on Mr.
Harland's shoulder he looked the very embodiment of active, powerful