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"Not until we are farther from land, my dear," he said. "Then you may yell your

pretty head off."

Lady Greystoke turned to look into the leering, bearded face so close to hers. The

man relaxed the pressure of his fingers upon her lips, and with a little moan of

terror as she recognized him the girl shrank away from her captor.

Nikolas Rokoff! M. Thuran!" she exclaimed.

Your devoted admirer," replied the Russian, with a low bow.

My little boy," she said next, ignoring the terms of endearment--"where is he?

Let me have him. How could you be so cruel--even as you--Nikolas Rokoff--

cannot be entirely devoid of mercy and compassion? Tell me where he is. Is he

aboard this ship? Oh, please, if such a thing as a heart beats within your breast,

take me to my baby!"

"If you do as you are bid no harm will befall him," replied Rokoff. "But remember

that it is your own fault that you are here. You came aboard voluntarily, and

you may take the consequences. I little thought," he added to himself, "that any

such good luck as this would come to me."

He went on deck then, locking the cabin-door upon his prisoner, and for several

days she did not see him. The truth of the matter being that Nikolas Rokoff was

so poor a sailor that the heavy seas the Kincaid encountered from the very

beginning of her voyage sent the Russian to his berth with a bad attack of sea-

sickness.

During this time her only visitor was an uncouth Swede, the Kincaid's unsavoury

cook, who brought her meals to her. His name was Sven Anderssen, his one

pride being that his patronymic was spelt with a double "s."

The man was tall and raw-boned, with a long yellow moustache, an unwholesome

complexion, and filthy nails. The very sight of him with one grimy thumb buried

deep in the lukewarm stew, that seemed, from the frequency of its repetition, to

constitute the pride of his culinary art, was sufficient to take away the girl's

appetite.

His small, blue, close-set eyes never met hers squarely. There was a shiftiness of

his whole appearance that even found expression in the cat-like manner of his

gait, and to it all a sinister suggestion was added by the long slim knife that

always rested at his waist, slipped through the greasy cord that supported his

soiled apron. Ostensibly it was but an implement of his calling; but the girl could

The Beasts of Tarzan