www.freeclassicebooks.com

With a bow he turned and left the cabin.

For weeks the Halfmoon kept steadily on her course, a little south of west. There

was no material change in the relations of those aboard her. Barbara Harding,

finding herself unmolested, finally acceded to the repeated pleas of Mr. Divine, to

whose society she had been driven by loneliness and fear, and appeared on deck

frequently during the daylight watches. Here, one afternoon, she came face to

face with Theriere for the first time since her abduction. The officer lifted his cap

deferentially; but the girl met his look of expectant recognition with a cold, blank

stare that passed through and beyond him as though he had been empty air.

A tinge of color rose to the man's face, and he continued on his way for a moment

as though content to accept her rebuff; but after a step or two he turned

suddenly and confronted her.

"Miss Harding," he said, respectfully, "I cannot blame you for the feeling of

loathing and distrust you must harbor toward me; but in common justice I think

you should hear me before finally condemning."

"I cannot imagine," she returned coldly, "what defense there can be for the

cowardly act you perpetrated."

"I have been utterly deceived by my employers," said Theriere, hastening to take

advantage of the tacit permission to explain which her reply contained. "I was

given to understand that the whole thing was to be but a hoax--that I was taking

part in a great practical joke that Mr. Divine was to play upon his old friends, the

Hardings and their guests. Until they wrecked and deserted the Lotus in mid-

ocean I had no idea that anything else was contemplated, although I felt that the

matter, even before that event, had been carried quite far enough for a joke.

They explained," he continued, "that before sailing you had expressed the hope

that something really exciting and adventurous would befall the party--that you

were tired of the monotonous humdrum of twentieth-century existence--that you

regretted the decadence of piracy, and the expunging of romance from the seas.

"Mr. Divine, they told me, was a very wealthy young man, to whom you were

engaged to be married, and that he could easily afford the great expense of the

rather remarkable hoax we were supposed to be perpetrating. I saw no harm in

taking part in it, especially as I knew nothing of the supposititious purpose of the

cruise until just before we reached Honolulu. Before that I had been led to believe

that it was but a pleasure trip to the South Pacific that Mr. Divine intended.

The Mucker