PRISONERS 
 
 CAPTIVES
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 UNtVfMfTY Of 
 CALIFORNIA 
 AN MMO
 
 PR 
 K 
 
 
 
 /R
 
 PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES
 
 "A *harp report broke upon that echoless silence." Page 377. 
 (FRONTISPIECE)
 
 PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES 
 
 BY 
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN 
 
 AUTHOR OP 
 
 'Young Mistley," "The Sowers," Roden's Corner," etc. 
 
 R. F. FENNO & COMPANY : 9 AND n EAST 
 
 SIXTEENTH STREET : : NEW YORK CITY 
 
 1899
 
 Copyright 1899 
 
 BY 
 
 R. F. KENNO & COMPANY 
 
 Prisoners and Captives
 
 TO THE CRITIC 
 
 ON MY HEARTH
 
 Of Liberty, let Poets sing : 
 
 We know better. 
 Within the song there thrills the ring 
 
 Of a fetter. 
 
 We dream a Dream in early years : 
 
 It goes. 
 Life is a tale of chains and tears, 
 
 In prose. 
 
 There, the shade of a dungeon wall ! 
 
 Thine. 
 Here, the ring of the gyves that gall 1 
 
 Mine. 
 
 HENRY SETON MERRIMAN.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAP. PAQK 
 
 I. Dead Waters 9 
 
 II. Against Orders 20 
 
 III. Home 31 
 
 IV. In Brook Street 42 
 
 V. A Reunion 51 
 
 VI. Doubts 63 
 
 VII. The " Argo " 72 
 
 VIII. In the City 82 
 
 IX. Seven Men 92 
 
 X. Misgivings 103 
 
 XI. On the Track 113 
 
 XII. Carte and Tierce 122 
 
 XIII. A Meeting 133 
 
 XIV. Brother and Sister 143 
 
 XV. Tyars pays a Call 152 
 
 XVI. An Explanation 161 
 
 XVII. The Last Meeting 170 
 
 XVIII. A Dinner- Party 179 
 
 XIX. Easton watches 189 
 
 XX. For the last Time 199 
 
 XXI. Miss Winter moves 209 
 
 XXII. A Sermon 219 
 
 XXIII. Miss Winter Diverges r 229 
 
 XXIV. Greek and Greek 238 
 
 XXV. Easton's Box 246 
 
 XXVI. An Emergency 255 
 
 7
 
 8 Contents. 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 XXVII. A Midnight Call 265 
 
 XXVIII. From Afar 272 
 
 XXIX. An Overture 281 
 
 XXX. Trapped 291 
 
 XXXI. Easton's Care 300 
 
 XXXII. Easton takes Counsel 309 
 
 XXXIII. Easton makes a Stand 318 
 
 XXXIV. And Tyars makes an Effort 327 
 
 XXXV. The Eleventh of March 335 
 
 XXXVI. Off 345 
 
 XXXVII. A Horrible Task 352 
 
 XXXVIII. On the Neva 360 
 
 XXXIX. They tried it 368 
 
 XL. Three Years after 378 
 
 XLI. Salvage 386
 
 PRISONERS AND CAPTIVES. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 DEAD WATERS. 
 
 THE march of civilization has turned its steps aside from 
 certain portions of the world. Day by day certain south- 
 ern waters find themselves more and more forsaken. 
 
 The South Atlantic, the high-road of the world at one 
 time, is now a by-lane. 
 
 One afternoon, some years ago, the copper-bright rays 
 of a cruel sun burnt the surface of the tepid ocean. The 
 stillness of the atmosphere was phenomenal, even in the lat- 
 itudes where a great calm reigns from month to month. 
 It is almost impossible to pr ;sent to northern eyes this 
 picture of a southern sea gleaming beneath a sun which 
 had known no cloud for weeks ; impossible to por- 
 tray the brilliant monotony of it all with any degree of 
 reality to the imagination of those who only know our 
 white-flecked heavens. Those who live up north in the 
 cool " fifties " can scarcely realize the state of an atmos- 
 phere where the sun rises day by day, week in week out, 
 unclouded from the straight horizon ; sails right overhead, 
 and at last sinks westward undimmed by thinnest vapor. 
 Month after month, year after year, ay ! century after 
 century, this day's work is performed. The scorching 
 
 9
 
 io Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 orb of light rises at the same monotonous hour and sets, 
 just as he did when this world was one vast ocean, with 
 but one ship sailing on it. 
 
 From the dark mysterious depths of the ocean wavering 
 ripples mounting in radiation to the surface, broke at 
 times the blue uniformity of its bosom. Occasionally a 
 delicate nautilus floated along before some unappreciable 
 breath, presently to fold its sails and disappear. Long 
 trailers of seaweed floating idly almost seemed to be en. 
 dowed with a sinuous life and movement. 
 
 No bird in the air, no fish in the sea ! Nothing to break 
 the awful silence ! A wreck might float and drift, here 
 or there, upon these aimless waters for years together and 
 never be found. 
 
 But Chance, the fickle, ruled that two vessels should 
 break the monotony of sea and sky on this particular 
 afternoon, as I have said, some years ago. One, a mighty 
 structure, with tall tapering masts, perfect in itself, an 
 ideal merchantman. The other, small, of exquisite 
 yacht-like form, and with every outward sign of a great 
 speed obtainable. 
 
 There was obviously something amiss with the larger 
 vessel. Instead of white sails aloft on every spar, bare 
 poles and slack ropes stood nakedly against the blue ether. 
 In a region of calms and light winds the merchantman had 
 only her topsails set. 
 
 In contrast the other carried every foot of canvas. 
 Carried it literally ; for the white cloth hung mostly idle, 
 only at times flapping softly to a breath of air that was 
 not felt on deck. Even this was sufficient to move the 
 little vessel through the water, which rippled past her 
 copper-sheathed bows in long unctuous streamers. With 
 her tremendous spread of canvas the merchantman might 
 perhaps have made a little weigh, but under heavy topsails
 
 Dead Waters. II 
 
 she lay like a log. Since dawn the smaller vessel had 
 been steadily, though very slowly, decreasing the distance 
 between them, and now there were signs of activity on 
 her deck, as though a boat were about to be lowered. 
 Across the silent waters trilled the call of a boatswain's 
 whistle, but this confirmation would have been unneces- 
 sary to the veriest tyro in nautical matters. The vessel 
 was plainly a man-of-war. As a matter of fact, she was 
 one of the quick-sailing schooners built and designed by 
 the British Government for the suppression of slave-trade 
 on the West Coast of Africa. 
 
 Every knob of brass gleamed in the sun, every inch of 
 deck was holystoned as white as milk. Aloft no rope 
 was frayed, no seizing adrift. It was easy to see that 
 this trim vessel carried a large crew under strict discipline ; 
 and in that monotonous life the very discipline must itself 
 have been a relief. 
 
 And now the melodious song of sailors hauling together, 
 floated through the glittering air to the great vessel of the 
 dead. No answering cry was heard no expectant faces 
 peered over the black bulwarks. The signal flags, " Do 
 you want help ? " hung unnoticed, unanswered, from the 
 mast of the little vessel. The scene was suggestive of 
 that fable telling of a mouse proffering aid to a lion. The 
 huge still merchantman could have taken the slave-catcher 
 upon its broad decks. 
 
 Presently a boat left the smaller vessel and skimmed 
 over the water, impelled by sharp regular strokes. The 
 sound of the oars alone broke the silence of nature. 
 
 In the stern of the boat sat a square-shouldered little 
 man, whose brown face and glistening chestnut beard, 
 close-cropped to a point, were pleasantly suggestive of 
 cleanly English refinement, combined with a readiness of 
 resource and a cheery equanimity which are learnt more
 
 12 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 readily on British decks than elsewhere. His pleasant 
 eyes were scarcely hazel, and yet could not be described 
 as gray, because the two colors were mixed. The clean 
 curve of his nose was essentially of Devonshire origin. 
 
 As the boat approached the great merchantman, this 
 officer formed his two hands into a circle and raised his 
 practised voice. 
 
 " Ahoy there ! " 
 
 There was no reply, and a moment or two later the 
 small boat swung in beneath the high bulwarks. There 
 was a rope hanging almost to the water, and after testing 
 its powers, with a quick jerk the young fellow scrambled 
 up the ship's side like a monkey. Three of the boat's 
 crew prepared to follow him. 
 
 He sat for a moment balanced on the blistered rail, and 
 then leaped lightly down on to the deck. This was of a 
 light green, for moss had grown there in wet weather only 
 to be parched by a subsequent sun. Between the planks 
 the pitch had oozed up and glistened like jet, in some 
 places the seasoned wood had warped. 
 
 He stood for a moment alone amidst the tangled ropes, 
 and there were beads of perspiration on his brown fore- 
 head. It is no pleasant duty to board a derelict ship, for 
 somewhere or other there will probably be an unpleasant 
 sight, such as is remembered through the remainder of 
 the beholder's life. 
 
 There was something crude and hard in the entire pic- 
 ture a cynical contrast, such as a Frenchman loves to 
 put upon his canvas. In the merciless, almost shadowless, 
 light of a midday sun every detail stood out in hard out- 
 line. The perfect ship, with its forlorn, bedraggled deck ; 
 the clean spars towering up into the heavens, with their 
 loose cordage, their clumsily-furled sails ; and upon the 
 moss-grown deck this square-shouldered little officer
 
 Dead Waters. 13 
 
 trim, seaman-like, prompt amidst the universal slackness 
 the sun gleaming on his white cap and gilt buttons. 
 
 While he stood for a moment hesitating, he heard a 
 strange, unknown sound. It was more like the rattle in a 
 choking man's throat than anything else that he could 
 think of. He turned quickly, and stood gazing upon the 
 saddest sight he had yet seen in all his life. Over the 
 tangled ropes the gaunt figure of a white dog was creeping 
 towards him. This poor dumb brute was most piteous and 
 heartrending ; for the very dumbness of its tongue endowed 
 its bloodshot staring eyes with a heaven-born eloquence. 
 
 As it approached there came from its throat a repetition 
 of the sickening crackle. The young officer stooped over 
 it with kindly word and caress. Then, and then only, 
 did he realize that the black and shriveled object hanging 
 from its open lips was naught else but the poor brute's 
 tongue. This was more like a piece of dried-up leather 
 than living flesh. 
 
 " Water ! " said the officer quickly to the man climbing 
 over the rail behind him. 
 
 Some moments elapsed before the small beaker was 
 handed up from the boat, and during these the officer 
 moistened his finger at his own lips, touching the dog's 
 tongue tenderly and skilfully. 
 
 " Look after the poor brute," he said to the man, who 
 at length brought the water. " Don't give him too much 
 at first." 
 
 A slight feeling of relief had come over them all. For 
 some reason, they concluded, the vessel had been aban- 
 doned, and in the hurry of departure the dog had been 
 left behind. 
 
 With a lighter step he walked aft, and climbed the 
 brass-bound companion-ladder leading to the raised poop, 
 while two of the boat's crew followed upon his heels.
 
 14 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Upon the upper deck he stopped suddenly, and the 
 color left his lips. His face was so sunburnt that no other 
 change was possible. Thus the three men stood in si- 
 lence. There, at the wheel, upon an ordinary kitchen- 
 chair, sat a man. His two hands clutched the brass- 
 bound spokes ; his head lay prone upon his arms. A 
 large Panama hat completely hid his features, and the 
 wide graceful brim touched his bent shoulders. 
 
 As the stately vessel slowly rocked upon the glassy 
 sweep of rolling wave the echo of some far-off storm 
 in other waters the great wheel jerked from side to side, 
 swaying the man's body with it. From one muscular 
 arm the shirt-sleeve had fallen back, displaying sinews 
 like cords beneath the skin. Here was Death steering 
 a dead ship through lifeless waters. 
 
 And yet in . the dramatic picture there was a strange 
 sense of purpose. The man was lashed to the chair. If 
 life had left him, this lonely mariner had at least fought a 
 good fight. Beneath the old Panama hat an unusual brain 
 had at one time throbbed and planned and conceived a 
 purpose. This was visible in the very simplicity of his 
 environments, for he was at least comfortable. Some bis- 
 cuits lay upon the grating beside him there was bunting 
 on the seat and back of the chair while the rope loosely 
 knotted round his person seemed to indicate that sleep, 
 and perhaps death, had been provided for and foreseen. 
 
 Gently and with excusable hesitation the English naval 
 officer raised the brim of the large hat and displayed the 
 face of a living man. There could be no doubt about it. 
 The strong British face bore the signs of perfect health 
 the brown hair and closely-cropped beard were glossy with 
 life. 
 
 " He's asleep ! " whispered one of the sailors a young 
 man who had not known discipline long.
 
 7*5 
 
 " V.'lth hesitation the officer raised the brim of the large hat." Page 14.
 
 Dead Waters. 15 
 
 This statement, if informal, was at least correct ; for 
 the steersman of the great vessel was peacefully slumber- 
 ing, alone on an abandoned ocean, beneath the blaze of 
 an equatorial sun. 
 
 " Hulloa, my man ! Wake up ! " called out the young 
 officer, clapping the sleeper on the back. 
 
 The effect was instantaneous. The sleeper opened his 
 eyes and rose to his feet simultaneously, releasing him- 
 self from the rope which was hitched over the back of his 
 chair. Despite ragged shirt and trousers, despite the old 
 Panama hat with its limp brim, despite bare feet and tarry 
 hands, there was something about this sailor which placed 
 him on a par not with the able-seamen standing open- 
 mouthed before him but with the officer. These social 
 distinctions are too subtle for most of us. We can feel 
 them, but to explain is beyond us. We recognize a gentle- 
 man, but we can in no wise define one. One may meet 
 a gentleman in the forecastle of a coasting schooner, but 
 he would be sadly out of place in a ball-room. Again the 
 spurious article is to be found in a ball-room, and he would 
 still be a cad had his lines been cast in the forecastle of a 
 coasting-schooner. 
 
 This sailor's action was perfectly spontaneous and 
 natural as he faced the officer. It was an unconscious 
 assertion of social equality. 
 
 "An English officer ! " he exclaimed, holding out his 
 hand. " 1 am glad to see the uniform again." 
 
 The small man nodded his head without speaking, but 
 he grasped the brown hand somewhat ceremoniously. The 
 form of greeting was also extended to the two seamen by 
 the ragged sailor. 
 
 " Are you in command of this vessel ? " inquired Lieu- 
 tenant Grace, looking round critically. 
 
 " I am at present. I shipped as second mate, but
 
 1 6 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 have now the honor of being captain . . . crew . . . and 
 . . . bottle-washer." 
 
 The men moved away, looking about them curiously. 
 The younger made for the deck-house, seeking the com- 
 panion-way below. 
 
 " Halloa ! " exclaimed the solitary mariner, " where 
 are your men going to ? Hold hard there, you fellows ! 
 Let me go down first." 
 
 The stoutly-built little officer held up a warning hand to 
 his men, which had the effect of stopping abruptly their 
 investigations. Then he turned and looked keenly into 
 his companion's face. The glance was returned with the 
 calm speculation of a man who had not yet found his moral 
 match. 
 
 " Yellow fever ? " interrogated Grace. 
 
 "Yellow fever," answered the other, with a short 
 nod: 
 
 " I ain't afeerd of Yellow Jack ! " said one of the sea- 
 men who had approached. 
 
 " That I can quite well believe, but it is useless to run 
 an unnecessary risk. I will go first." 
 
 Suiting the action to the word, he led the way, and 
 the young officer followed closely. The latter was vaguely 
 conscious of a certain strain in this man's manner, as if 
 his nerves were at an undue tension. His eyes were those 
 of a person overwrought in mind or body, and Lieutenant 
 Grace watched him very keenly. 
 
 At the head of the companion-ladder the sailor stopped. 
 
 " What is to-day ? " he inquired, abruptly. 
 
 "Thursday." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 They were standing close together, and the short man 
 looked up uneasily into his companion's face. 
 
 " Why do you inquire ? " he said, gently.
 
 Dead Waters. 17 
 
 " It was Tuesday when I lashed myself to that chair. 
 I must have been sleeping forty-eight hours." 
 
 " And you have had no food since then ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I really cannot tell you. I remember 
 taking the wheel at midday on Tuesday ; since then I 
 don't exactly know what I have done." 
 
 The little officer had a peculiar way of looking at 
 persons who were addressing him. It gave one the 
 impression that he was searching for a fuller mean- 
 ing in the eyes than that vouchsafed by the tongue 
 alone. 
 
 He made no reply, but stepping closer to his companion 
 he placed his arm around him. 
 
 " You are a little overdone," he said. " I imagine you 
 have been too long without food. Just sit down on these 
 steps and I will get you something." 
 
 The other man smiled in a peculiar way and put the 
 proffered arm aside in such a manner as to remove any 
 suspicion of ridicule at the idea of aid coming from such a 
 quarter. 
 
 " Oh, no," he answered, " I am all right. It is just a 
 little giddiness the effect of this hot sun, no doubt. 
 There is some brandy down below. I am a great believer 
 in brandy." 
 
 He had descended the brass-bound steps, and as he 
 spoke the last words he led the way into the saloon. A 
 sail had been cast over the open skylight, so that the full 
 glare of day failed to penetrate into the roomy cabin. 
 Upon the oilcloth-covered table lay a rolled sheet of 
 brown paper in the rough form of a torch, and beside it a 
 box of matches. 
 
 "I burn brown paper," said the sailor, quietly, as he 
 struck a light and ignited the paper "it is the only disin- 
 fectant I have left." 
 2
 
 1 8 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " By God you need it ! " exclaimed the officer in his 
 handkerchief. 
 
 In the meantime the other had advanced farther into the 
 cabin. Upon the floor, beyond the table, with their heads 
 resting upon the hatch of the lazarette, lay two men 
 whose forms were distinguishable beneath the dusky 
 sheets cast over them. 
 
 " Those are the last of nineteen," said the ragged man, 
 waving aside the acrid smoke. " I have buried seventeen 
 myself and nursed nineteen. That is the steward, this 
 the first mate. They quarreled when they were . . . 
 alive. It seems to be made up now ... eh ? I did my 
 best, but the more I got to know of yellow fever the 
 greater was my respect for it. I nursed them to the best 
 of my knowledge, and then I ... played parson." 
 
 He pointed to an open Bible lying on the floor, and a 
 ghastly grin flickered across his face. 
 
 The little officer was watching him with that peculiar 
 and continuous scrutiny which has already been noticed. 
 He barely glanced at the Bible or at the still forms beneath 
 the unwashed sheet. All his attention was concentrated 
 upon the survivor. 
 
 " And now," he said, deliberately, " if you will kindly 
 go on board the Foam, I shall take charge of this ship." 
 
 " Eh ? " 
 
 They stood looking at each other. It is rather a difficult 
 task for a small man to look up into a face that is consid- 
 erably above him, with a continued dignity, but this 
 square-shouldered representative of British Majesty ac- 
 complished it with undoubted success. 
 
 " I take command of the ship," he said, soothingly ; 
 " you are only fit for the sick-list." 
 
 Across the long and sunken face there gleamed again an 
 unpleasant smile a mere contraction of the features, for
 
 Dead Waters. 19 
 
 the eyes remained terribly solemn. Then he looked 
 round the cabin in a dreamy way and moved towards the 
 base of the mizzenmast. 
 
 "I have navigated her almost single-handed for a fort- 
 night," he said ; " I am . . . glad you came." 
 Then the officer led him away from the cabin.
 
 2O Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 AGAINST ORDERS. 
 
 THIS is no record of horrors. It is not my intention to 
 expatiate upon the interior of a fever-stricken ship, found 
 in the midst of a torrid ocean. There are many of us who 
 seem to labor under the impression that in telling our 
 woes, detailing our sorrows and describing such unpleasant 
 sights as have come before us, we are in some vague way 
 fulfilling a social duty. But upon reflection it will appear 
 manifest that the love of notoriety which is in these days 
 more than ever prominent among human motives, has a 
 great share in the work of beneficence. For instance, I 
 take absolutely no interest in the death-bed scene of the 
 late spouse of my washerwoman, but that afflicted female 
 never fails to seize such opportunities as present them- 
 selves to detail most harrowing incidents of such a nature. 
 She is an intelligent woman, and it seems scarcely prob- 
 able that she should imagine me to be greatly interested or 
 impressed therefore one is forced to come to the conclu- 
 sion that her motive is simply to demonstrate that by 
 reason of her sorrows she is quite different from other 
 slaves of the wash-tub. Even in the laundry the love of 
 notoriety hovers in the atmosphere. 
 
 It is, however, questionable whether that fame which 
 might attach itself to the display of an intimate knowledge 
 of the horrors and revulsions of yellow fever is worth 
 striving after ; and it is quite certain that no man,
 
 Against Orders. 21 
 
 woman, or child is the better for the perusal of such 
 matters. 
 
 Among the many peculiar characteristics of the genera- 
 tion ornamented by ourselves, there is a growing love for 
 the investigation of the seamy side. Young girls seek 
 realism in hospitals, young men read and write realistic 
 books. Now, this so-called realism is no new thing. It 
 was there when the Psalms were written, but in those 
 days writers and poets had the good taste and the wisdom 
 to slur over it. 
 
 Nor is this a seafaring record. The good ship Martial 
 has been introduced here because her deck was the meet- 
 ing-place of two men, whose lives having hitherto been 
 cast in very different places, drifted at last together upon 
 the broad waters in precisely the same aimless, incompre- 
 hensible way that the two vessels found each other upon 
 the breathless ocean. 
 
 In life as in the Gulf of Guinea there are many currents 
 drawing us back when the wind is fair, urging us insen- 
 sibly onwards when we think our progress slow ; and like 
 ships upon the sea we drift together, and in the night-time 
 lose each other again without definite rhyme or reason. 
 
 From the moment that the ragged steersman opened his 
 mournful gray eyes and looked upon the sunburnt face of 
 Lieutenant Grace, he had felt himself insensibly drawn 
 towards his rescuer. This feeling was not the mere sense 
 of gratitude which was naturally awakened, but something 
 stronger. It was almost a conviction that this chance meet- 
 ing on the deck of a fever-stricken ship was something 
 more than an incident. It was a beginning the begin- 
 ning of a new influence upon his life. 
 
 When Grace laid his sunburnt hand upon the sleeper's 
 shoulder he had felt pleasantly conscious of a contact which 
 had further import than mere warm flannel and living
 
 22 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 muscle. It was distinctly sympathetic in its influence, 
 for there is a meaning in touch. All hands are not the 
 same within the grasp of our fingers. 
 
 As the two men emerged on deck the officer turned to- 
 wards his companion. 
 
 " In another hour," he said, " that small dog would have 
 been dead." 
 
 " Ah ! you've saved him ? " exclaimed the other, with 
 a sudden change of manner a change which the first 
 speaker had in some degree expected. They were be- 
 ginning to understand each other, these two, for sailors 
 soon read the hearts of men ; and it will be generally found 
 that he who loves a dog is the first to discover a similar 
 love in the heart of another. 
 
 " Yes ! He will recover. I know dogs." 
 
 " He's had no water since Tuesday." 
 
 " He looked rather like it. Tell me do you feel better 
 after that brandy ? " 
 
 " Yes ; thanks," replied the big man with a slow 
 smile. 
 
 " Come, then. We will go on board my ship and re- 
 port to the old man, while you get a meal some soup I 
 should think will be best. You will have to be careful." 
 
 He led the way aft, towards the rail where the men, 
 having found a rope-ladder, were lowering it over the side. 
 Before reaching them he turned. 
 
 " By the way," he said, quietly, " what Is your 
 name ? " 
 
 " Tyars Claud Tyars." 
 
 " Claud Tyars," repeated the little officer musingly, as 
 if searching in his mind for some recollection. " There 
 was a Tyars in the Cambridge boat two years ago a 
 Trinity man." 
 
 " Yes there was."
 
 Against Orders. 23 
 
 Lieutenant Grace looked up in his singular, searching 
 way. 
 
 "You are the man ? " 
 
 " I am the man." 
 
 With a little nod the young officer continued his way. 
 They did not speak again until they were seated in the 
 gig on the way towards the Foam. 
 
 " I had a cousin," the officer remarked then in a cheer- 
 fully conversational manner, " at Cambridge. He would 
 be a contemporary of yours. My name is Grace." 
 
 The rescued man acknowledged this neat introduction 
 with a grave nod. 
 
 " I remember him well," he replied. " A great mathe- 
 matician." 
 
 "I believe he was," answered Grace. He was look- 
 ing towards his ship, which was now near at hand. The 
 crew were grouped amidships, peering over the rail, while 
 a tall old man on the quarterdeck, stopping in his medita- 
 tive promenade occasionally, watched their approach with 
 the aid of a pair of marine glasses. 
 
 " The skipper is on the lookout for us," continued the 
 young officer in a low tone of voice requiring no reply. 
 
 " A slaver ? " inquired Tyars, following the direction 
 of his companion's eyes. 
 
 " Yes ; a slaver, and the quickest ship upon the coast." 
 
 Propelled by strong and willing arms the boat soon 
 reached the yacht-like vessel, and in a few minutes Claud 
 Tyars was repeating his story to her captain a genial, 
 white-haired, red-faced old sailor. 
 
 Lieutenant Grace was present, and certain entries 
 were made in the log-book. The two servants of her 
 Majesty were prompt and businesslike in their questions. 
 Tyars had taken the precaution of bringing the log-book 
 of the Martial, in which the deaths of the whole crew
 
 24 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 excepting himself were faithfully recorded. The pro- 
 ceedings were ship-shape and businesslike, but as the 
 story progressed the old commander became more and 
 more interested, to the detriment of his official punctilio. 
 When at last Tyars finished his narrative with the 
 words 
 
 "And this afternoon Lieutenant . Grace found me 
 asleep on the wheel," the old sailor leant forward across 
 the little cabin-table, and extended an unsteady, curved 
 hand. 
 
 " Your hand, sir. I should like to take by the hand a 
 man with such a record as yours. You have done a won- 
 derful thing in navigating that ship almost single-handed 
 as far as this. In nursing the poor fellows you have acted 
 with the tenderness of a woman ; in the management of 
 your ship you have proved yourself a good sailor, and in 
 your marvelous pluck you have shown yourself an English 
 gentleman for such I think you must be, though you 
 shipped as second mate of a merchantman." 
 
 Tyars took the proffered hand, smiling his slow, un- 
 consciously mournful smile. 
 
 " But," he said, calmly ignoring the interrogation of 
 the old man's glance, " you must not give me the whole 
 credit. There are other records as good as mine, but 
 they are finished, and so the interest suffers. Some of 
 the men behaved splendidly. One poor fellow actually 
 dropped dead at the wheel, refusing to go below until it 
 was too late. He knew it was hopeless, but he took a 
 peculiar sort of pride in dying with his fingers round the 
 spokes. There was only one coward on board, and I am 
 glad to say he was not an Englishman." 
 
 " Now, what was he ? " asked the old sailor, who, being 
 of a school almost extinct to-day, upheld the Anglo-Saxon 
 race far above all other nations.
 
 Against Orders. 25 
 
 " That is hardly a fair question," interposed the more 
 modern first officer. 
 
 " A German," answered Tyars, shortly. 
 
 Then the young surgeon of the Foam appeared and took 
 charge of his second patient ; for the terrier " Muggins " 
 had, by Tyars' request, been attended to first. 
 
 In the quiet days that followed, the rescued man and 
 his dog recovered from the effects of their hardship with 
 wonderful rapidity. Youth is the greatest healer of 
 wounds, fatigue, or hardship that the frame, human or 
 canine, can well desire, and in this matter Muggins had a 
 decided disadvantage of his master. He was older as a 
 dog than Tyars as a man ; moreover his hardships had 
 been greater, for thirst is a terrible enemy and leaves 
 his mark deep-sunken. It is not for us to say that the 
 man suffered mentally, which the dog could not do. 
 Tyars had passed through a most trying period, but Provi- 
 dence had chosen to place within his broad chest a heart 
 semi-indifferent, semi-stubborn the hard heart of a fear- 
 less man. In his place nine out of ten would have lost 
 their reason ; Grace found him as nearly hysterical as a 
 strong will could well be. 
 
 Many there are who will say that Muggins escaped 
 this, that his hardships were purely physical. Some 
 would perhaps go so far as to assert that he could in no 
 way participate in the gloom of the stricken crew that to 
 his unreasoning mind the melancholy ceremonies that took 
 place almost daily on the main deck, were of no greater 
 import than the discharge of cargo over the ship's side. 
 All that there is to record is that he attended every 
 funeral, standing gravely by the ship's bulwark, with his 
 strong lithe legs trembling perceptibly. Nor did he after 
 the ominous splash scamper aft with a cheery bark to 
 peer out under the stem-rail, as he did when the steward
 
 26 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 threw away his refuse. I think Muggins knew what the 
 roughly-sewn canvas hid from view. It is my opinion, 
 that as the great ship glided slowly forward through the 
 becalmed waters, sowing in her wake the grains of that 
 human seed which the Anglo-Saxon race delights to cast 
 abroad in many strange places, the dog knew that the 
 hand of God was upon the good merchantman Martial. 
 I believe that he, in his dumb way, fought his small fight 
 among the men fighting their greater battles ; reasoning in 
 his lesser way, and trusting, as bravely as they trusted, 
 that a better time was coming. 
 
 Muggins was naturally of a grave and thoughtful habit, 
 inclining perhaps to melancholy during the morning hours, 
 when his so-called betters are equally liable to pensiveness. 
 In his life there had been a great break, and it is just 
 possible that his sadness of demeanor was to be ascribed 
 in some degree to dyspeptic symptoms. No dog had re- 
 joiced more thankfully in ratty sedges, in succulent 
 grasses, and other botanical delicacies ; and now behold ! 
 he was a seafarer. This had been the break in his life. 
 Although he accepted the sea and its privations with the 
 philosophic calm inherent in all bull-terriers, he made no 
 pretensions to being a sailor. He could not bring himself 
 to contemplate the Martial as other than a mere convey- 
 ance. Her deck-work and cabin fittings possessed in their 
 familiarity no homelike sympathy ; and in bad weather, 
 life from Muggins' sea-water-ridden point of view was 
 hardly worth the living. 
 
 It was true that he had met many pleasant companions 
 on board, men who did not hesitate to give him the softer 
 corners of their daily biscuits, and possessed no squeamish 
 doubts about allowing him to lick out their meat-kids on 
 Sundays, when Australian mutton took the place of salt 
 victuals. But he held little to mere friendship with man or
 
 Against Orders. 27 
 
 dog, for all his love was centered on one being all his 
 social eggs were in one basket. It is therefore excusable 
 that this dog should find himself most comfortable on 
 board the Foam, where his welfare was attended to by a 
 devoted doctor, and all the crew from forecastle head to 
 stern-rail had a word of sympathy at the sight of his red 
 eyes and swollen tongue. Perhaps he had forgotten his 
 former friends we cannot tell. And if he did, most of us 
 must hesitate to cast the first stone, seeing the structure 
 of our own hearts. 
 
 Claud Tyars soon regained his energy, and with the 
 return of it came that restlessness which characterized his 
 daily way of life. He wished to be up and doing, holding 
 idleness as an abomination as soon as its necessity became 
 questionable. A few men had been put on board the 
 merchantman with instructions to keep near their own 
 ship under all circumstances, and in consort the vessels 
 were creeping slowly through the placid waters towards 
 the north. 
 
 It happened that Lieutenant Grace was soon to leave 
 the slaver on a long leave of absence, and he was there- 
 fore selected to go on board the Martial, with Tyars as 
 joint commander, and a few men (for many could not be 
 spared), with a view to sailing for Madeira, where the 
 crew could be strengthened. 
 
 At last the doctor announced that the rescued man was 
 perfectly strong again, and that the fever-stricken ship 
 was to the best of his knowledge purified and disin- 
 fected. 
 
 " But," he added, gravely looking at Tyars, "the dog 
 is in a critical condition. I do not consider myself justified 
 in allowing him to go out of my hands. He requires con- 
 stant medical attendance." 
 
 " Bosh ! " replied Tyars, with much solemnity.
 
 28 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " 1 will give you five pounds for him," said the doctor, 
 innocently. 
 
 " I have not come on board this vessel to sell my dog." 
 
 The offer was increased, but to no purpose. Tyars was 
 as faithful to his dog as Muggins to his master. And so 
 the two returned to their vessel early one morning, when 
 a fair breeze was blowing. For the first time since her 
 departure from South America the Martial's sails were all 
 shaken out, and beneath a cloud of snowy canvas she 
 moved away on her stately progress northwards ; while 
 the little slave-catcher returned to the cursed coast which 
 required so close a watch. 
 
 One cannot go so far as to say that the seamanship dis- 
 played on board the merchantman was good, but at all 
 events it was bold. An older navigator would, without 
 hesitation, have accused the young captain and his blue- 
 coated first officer of utter recklessness. Tyars held a 
 master's certificate, and by right of seniority succeeded to 
 the command of the Martial vice captain and first mate 
 dead and buried. In Lieutenant Grace he found a coad- 
 jutor of sympathetic metal.' Energetic, alert, and bold, he 
 ruled the deck with cheery despotism, and went below 
 for rest with the comforting conviction that Grace would 
 never shorten sail from nervousness. 
 
 The vessel was ludicrously under-manned, and yet 
 these two commanders carried on night and day, with no 
 thought of taking in sail for safety's sake. The division 
 of this mighty crew of ten into watches was in itself a 
 farce, for it resulted in a sum-total of three able seamen 
 to handle sails sufficient to employ four or five times their 
 number. 
 
 There was no steward, no carpenter, no sail-maker on 
 board. But sail-maker's and carpenter's work were alike 
 allowed abeyance, while each watch cooked for itself.
 
 Against Orders. 29 
 
 At first the straight-laced blue-jackets failed to enter into 
 the spirit of the thing, and could not quite shake off their 
 naval habit of awaiting orders. This, however, gave way 
 in time to a joyous sense of freedom and adventure. 
 
 The question before this little band of men was the 
 safe conduct of a valuable ship and precious cargo home 
 to England, and this they one and all came to look upon 
 in time with that breadth of view which the circumstances 
 required. Man-of-war trimness was out of the question 
 carpenter there was none, so paints could not be mixed, 
 nor decks calked, nor woodwork repaired. There was no 
 sail-maker, so things must perforce be allowed to go a 
 little ragged. 
 
 After a long consultation with Grace, Tyars had called 
 together his little crew round the wheel, and there de- 
 livered to them a short harangue in his best " Union " 
 style. The result of this and a few words from the lieu- 
 tenant was that the island of Madeira was enthusiastically 
 shelved. There were to be no half measures on board 
 the Martial. They would take the ship home, if there 
 was no watch below for any of them. 
 
 This program was ultimately carried out to the letter. 
 With the aid of good fortune, a safe and rapid passage was 
 performed, though, indeed, there was not too much sleep 
 for any on board. No mean energy was displayed by 
 Muggins among others. He gravely superintended every 
 alteration of sail, every bit of work requiring all hands, 
 and was never missing from his post by night or day. 
 When at last the Channel pilot came on board, gazing 
 curiously up aloft, where things were anything but taut, 
 Muggins was among the first to greet him with that self- 
 possessed gentlemanliness which he wielded so uncon- 
 sciously. 
 
 And during the voyage home Lieutenant Grace had
 
 30 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 studied his companion with a slow comprehensive scru- 
 tiny, such as sailors exercise. The two commanders had 
 not been thrown much together, by reason of their duties 
 being separate ; but it was not to this fact alone that the 
 naval officer attributed his failure to make anything of 
 Claud Tyars. He had found this ex-wrangler calmly in- 
 stalled in the humble post of second mate to a merchant 
 sailing-ship. Moreover, there was no attempt to conceal 
 an identity which was, to say the least of it, strange. 
 Tyars appeared in no way conscious of an unanswered 
 question existing in his intercourse with the naval officer, 
 and there was no suspicion of embarrassment such as might 
 arise from anomaly.
 
 Home. 31 
 
 CHAPTER IH. 
 
 HOME. 
 
 
 
 THINGS were in this state between the two young men 
 when on one morning in June the Martial dropped anchor 
 at Gravesend to await the tide. The news of her tardy 
 arrival had been telegraphed from the coast, and the 
 Channel pilot, on landing at Deal, had thought fit to com- 
 municate to a friend in the journalistic interest a some- 
 what sensational account of the wonderful voyage. 
 
 It thus happened that before the anchor was well home 
 in its native mud a stout gentleman came alongside in a 
 wherry and climbed on deck with some alacrity. His lips 
 were a trifle white and unsteady as he recognized Tyars, 
 and came towards him with a fat gloved hand out- 
 stretched. 
 
 "Mr. Tyars," he said, breathlessly; "you don't re- 
 member me, perhaps. I am George Lowell, the owner. 
 I have ten riggers coming on board to start unbending sail 
 at once. I have to thank you in the name of the mer- 
 chants and of myself for your plucky conduct, and you 
 too, sir, as well as these men." 
 
 So the voyage was accomplished, and Grace recognized 
 the fact that the time had arrived for him to withdraw his 
 eight blue-jackets. Their strange duties were at an end, 
 and one more little tale of bravery had been added to 
 England's great roll. 
 
 He gave the word to his men and went below to get
 
 32 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 together his few belongings. As first officer, pro tempore, 
 he had navigated the ship, and for some minutes he leant 
 over the plain deal table in his diminutive state-room with 
 his elbows upon the outspread chart. 
 
 Across the great spread of ocean was a dotted line, but 
 in the marks there was a difference, for three navigators 
 had worked out the one voyage. As his eyes followed 
 the line, day by day, hour by hour, in vivid retrospection 
 back to the still hot regions near the equator, the young 
 fellow realized that the voyage had been something more 
 than a mere incident in his life. The restless days and 
 sleepless nights had been very pleasant in their sense of 
 satisfactory toil ; the very contrast of having too much 
 to do instead of too little was pleasurable. But above all, 
 there was the companionship and friendship of a man who 
 interested him more than any he had yet come in contact 
 with. In all these days and nights this companionship 
 was subtly interlaced, casting its influence over all. And 
 now as he stood in the little, dimly-lighted cabin, listening 
 vaguely to the footsteps on deck overhead, he was won- 
 dering how it was that he still knew so little of Claud 
 Tyars ; speculating still, as he had speculated weeks be- 
 fore in vain, why this educated gentleman had taken up 
 the rough hard life of a merchant sailor. 
 
 Looking back over the days and nights they had passed 
 through together, he realized how little leisure there had 
 been for mere conversation. In the working of the ship, 
 in the attempt to enable ten men to do the work of twenty, 
 there had been sufficient to keep them fully engaged with- 
 out leaving time for personal matters. But it is in such 
 a life as this, lived together, that men really learn to 
 know each other, and not in the mere interchange of 
 thought, or give and take of question and answer. 
 
 Lieutenant Grace was in his small way a student of
 
 Home. 33 
 
 human nature. Men who watch the sea and sky, to 
 gather from their changes the deeper secrets of wind and 
 weather, acquire a habit of watching lips and eyes, 
 gathering therefrom little hints, small revelations, tiny 
 evidences which, when pieced together, make that strange 
 incongruous muddle called Man. Of the human being 
 Claud Tyars he knew a good deal of the gentleman, the 
 University athlete, the traveled sportsman, he knew ab- 
 solutely nothing. Beyond the bare fact that Trinity 
 College had left its ineffaceable mark upon him, the past 
 history of this sailor was a blank to Grace. The char- 
 acter was there in all its self-reliant, independent strength, 
 but of its foundation the little naval philosopher would 
 fain have learnt more. He was, however, too thorough 
 a gentleman to give way to a mere vulgar curiosity, and 
 he refrained from direct or hinted interrogation. 
 
 To be thoroughly interesting a human character must 
 be quite unconscious of exciting speculation. Your con- 
 sciously interesting man or woman is a priggish fraud. 
 At times the unconsciousness of Claud Tyars almost 
 exasperated his companion as they journeyed on together. 
 It was the source of some annoyance, because at times 
 Grace suspected that Tyars shielded himself by this 
 means from legitimate speculation. Most reserved men 
 hold the belief that their more intimate thoughts and 
 motives are without interest to the general public, and 
 upon that belief bury many facts and fancies which might 
 on occasion lubricate the social wheel with some advantage. 
 
 Grace, on the other hand, had spoken frankly enough 
 of his family, his prospects and intentions, during such 
 limited intercourse as their duties had allowed them. 
 There had been no question of a different social status 
 between the two men thus strangely thrown together, 
 and Tyars had accepted his companion's recognition of 
 3
 
 34 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 equality without comment or remark. Of his former 
 companions he spoke with kindness and some admiration, 
 both totally devoid of patronage. Altogether he treated 
 the question of his peculiar position with an aggravating 
 nonchalance. 
 
 Men possess in a greater degree than women the power 
 of accepting the present without reference to the past or 
 future. 
 
 They are more ready to take a man or woman as they 
 find him or her, without seeking to know them more fully 
 by means of a past record. In fighting and working, in 
 sport or play, we make very pleasant friends who remain 
 pleasant friends, although we never meet them except at 
 such periods as a joint occupation provides for. Lieu- 
 tenant Grace had this spirit in considerable development, 
 as all soldiers or sailors or wanderers are bound to have. 
 He had made the acquaintance of many pleasant and in- 
 teresting fellows, only to part with them later in full 
 knowledge that the probabilities of life were decidedly 
 against a future continuance of the friendship. This was 
 exactly what he desired to avoid in the case of Claud 
 Tyars, and as he packed his portmanteau he wondered 
 vaguely what the feelings of that young man might be 
 upon the subject. 
 
 When he went on deck a little later, leaving his bag- 
 gage to be brought up by one of the blue-jackets, this 
 thought was still uppermost in his mind. He found Tyars 
 and Mr. Lowell walking together on the after-deck ; the 
 former talking earnestly, while the owner of the ship 
 listened with pained eyes. They came towards Grace 
 together, and he told them of his intention to take his 
 men up to London by train at once in order to report 
 themselves at the Admiralty. 
 
 There were boats alongside the riggers were on board,
 
 Home. 35 
 
 indeed they were already at work aloft, and there was no 
 cause for further delay. He turned away with visible 
 reluctance, and went forward to call his men together. 
 Mr. Lowell followed and shook hands gratefully, after 
 which he went aft to speak to the pilot, who was sitting 
 upon the wheel-grating reading a newspaper. Thus 
 Grace and Tyars were left alone amidships, for the men 
 were busy throwing their effects into the attendant boats. 
 
 "I hope," said Tyars, "that you will not get into a 
 row for coming straight home without calling at Madeira 
 on the chance of picking up more men." 
 
 " I don't anticipate any difficulty," was the reply ; " my 
 uncle has the pulling of a few of the strings, you know." 
 
 Tyars nodded his head. There was nothing more to be 
 said. The men were already clambering down the ship's 
 side, eager to get ashore. 
 
 " Good-by," said Grace, holding out his hand. " I 
 eh I'm glad we got her home." 
 
 " Good-by." 
 
 They shook hands, and Tyars stood still upon the deck 
 he had trodden so bravely, while the little officer moved 
 away towards the gangway. Somehow there was a sense 
 of insufficiency on both sides. There was something left 
 unsaid, and yet neither could think of anything to say. 
 
 Grace had not gone many yards when he stopped, 
 hesitated, and finally returned. 
 
 " I say, Tyars," he said, hurriedly, " is this going to 
 be the end of it all? I mean are we going to lose sight 
 of each other now? We have been thrown together in 
 rather a singular way ; and, under peculiar circumstances, 
 we have got on very well together haven't we? " 
 
 Tyars changed color beneath his sunburn. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, with the awkward geniality of a 
 man accustomed to the exercise of an iron reserve over
 
 36 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 any emotion, and yet ashamed of his own unresponsive- 
 ness. " Yes, we have got on very well." 
 
 " I don't think we ought to lose sight of each other," 
 suggested Grace. 
 
 " No ; I don't think we ought." 
 
 Still he seemed to have nothing to suggest no common 
 haunt to hold up as a likely meeting-place such as men 
 bound by many social or household ties shield themselves 
 behind when friendship becomes exacting. 
 
 A more sensitive man than the young officer would at 
 once have felt rebuffed, but Grace, in his genial honesty, 
 had no such thought. Perhaps, indeed, he searched 
 deeper into the man's silence with his steady gaze, and 
 discovered the presence of some other motive than unso- 
 ciability. 
 
 " Then," he said, " will you come up and see us in 
 town. The gov'nor would like to make your acquaint- 
 ance. Come and dine yes, that is best, come and dine 
 to-morrow evening. Number one hundred and five 
 Brook Street, Grosvenor Square. You won't forget the 
 address ? " 
 
 " Thanks ; I shall be most happy. What time do you 
 dine?" 
 
 " Well, I don't know. I have been away from home 
 four years ; but come at seven." 
 
 "Seven o'clock; number one hundred and five Brook 
 Street. Thanks." 
 
 They had reached the gangway, and Grace now turned 
 with a little nod of acknowledgment, and began making 
 his way down the unsteady steps into the boat awaiting 
 him. Tyars stood on the grating, with one hand resting 
 on the rail of the ship, the other in his jacket-pocket. 
 
 " By the way," called out Grace as the boatman 
 shoved off, " bring Muggins ! "
 
 Home. 37 
 
 That sage dog, standing between his master's legs, 
 wagged the white stump that served him for a tail, and 
 dropped his pointed ears in quick acknowledgment of the 
 mention of his name in a way which he knew to be 
 friendly. 
 
 "He is not accustomed to the habits of polite society," 
 replied Tyars, in a shout, because the stream had carried 
 the boat astern already. " He has got out of the way of 
 it." 
 
 "Muggins is a gentleman," shouted Grace, "who 
 knows how to behave himself in all societies and all 
 circumstances. You must bring him ! " 
 
 "All right!" laughed Tyars, and he smiled down at 
 the upturned eager face, the quivering ears, and twitching 
 tail of the dog ; for Muggins knew well enough that he was 
 under discussion, and awaited the verdict from his master's 
 lips. 
 
 At seven o'clock that night the Martial found rest at last, 
 moored safely alongside the quay in the East India Dock. 
 There was a little crowd of idlers upon the pier and on the 
 gates of the tidal basin, for the fame of the ship had spread. 
 But more eyes were directed towards the man who had 
 done this deed of prowess, for the human interest is, after 
 all, paramount in things in which we busy our minds. 
 For one who looked at the ship, there were ten of those 
 mariners, dock-laborers, and pilots who sought Tyars. 
 
 " He ain't one of us at all," muttered a sturdy lighter- 
 man to his mate. " 'E's a toff, that's wot 'e is ; a gentle- 
 man, if yer please." 
 
 But gentleman or no gentleman, these toilers of the sea 
 welcomed the plucky sailor with a hoarse cheer. The 
 stately ship glided smoothly forward in all the deep-seated 
 glory of her moss-grown decks, her tarnished brass, her 
 slack ropes. There seemed to be a living spirit of calm
 
 38 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 silent pride in the tapering spars and weather-beaten hull, 
 as if the vessel held high her head amidst her sprucer 
 compeers. She seemed to be conscious this mere struc- 
 ture of wood and iron and yielding hemp that her name 
 was far above mere questions of paint and holystone. 
 Her pride lay in her deeds and not in her appearance. 
 Her sphere was not in moorings but upon the great seas. 
 She came like a soldier into camp, disdaining to wipe 
 the blood from off his face. 
 
 Tyars stood near the wheel, hardly noticing the crowd 
 upon the quay. The pilot and the dockmaster had to 
 some extent relieved him of his command, but he still had 
 certain duties to perform, and he was still the captain of 
 the Martial, the only man who sailed from London in her 
 to return again. 
 
 When at last she was moored and his command had 
 ceased, he went below and changed his clothes. When 
 he came on deck a little later, Claud Tyars was trans- 
 formed. The keen, resourceful sailor was merely a 
 gentleman of the world. Self-possessed and somewhat 
 cold in manner, he was the sort of man one would expect 
 to meet on the shady side of Piccadilly, while his brown 
 face would be accounted for by military service in a tropi- 
 cal climate. 
 
 There was about his bearing that peculiar carriage 
 of the head, or expression of lips and eyes (I know not 
 which), noticeable in well-born Englishmen, conveying 
 in a manner, not always welcome, a sense of unquench- 
 able independence. What renders this insular in- 
 dependence difficult to meet, and almost offensive, is that 
 it is neither transatlantically eager, nor German in its 
 truculence ; it is merely indifferent. It seems to say : 
 " My dear man, you may be a hero or a cad, a bore or a 
 prig, but these possibilities affect me in no way. We
 
 Home. 39 
 
 meet by chance, by chance we shall never meet again. 
 I am neither better nor worse for having met you. You 
 are neither worth cultivating nor avoiding." 
 
 I do not say that the above reflections are necessarily 
 a part of that repose of manner which we pride ourselves 
 upon possessing, but merely observe that something to 
 the same effect appears to be conveyed by the average 
 Briton whose youth has been nurtured at public school 
 and university, Woolwich Academy and Sandhurst. 
 
 The idlers in the Shipping Office at Tower Hill were 
 treated on the following morning to a strange sight. Ac- 
 cording to formula, the brokers of the Martialhad indicated 
 to the shipping authorities their desire to pay off the crew 
 of the vessel. Shortly before the hour named a number 
 of women began to assemble. Some were dressed re- 
 spectably, others were of the lowest class that London 
 produces ; but all made some attempt at mourning. One 
 or two wore their crape weeds with that incomprehensible 
 feminine pride in such habiliment which shows itself in all 
 grades of society, while others were clad in black rusty, 
 ill-fitting, evidently borrowed. A common sorrow, a 
 mutual interest, served as introduction among these ladies, 
 and they talked eagerly together. Scraps of conversation 
 floated over the black bonnets. One had lost her hus- 
 band, another her son, a third only her brother. 
 
 "Ain't 'e come yet ? " they asked each other at inter- 
 vals. "The survivor 'im that brought 'er 'ome with 
 his own 'ands. I wanter ask him about my man about 
 'is end." 
 
 There were no signs of violent sorrow ; only a sense 
 discernible here and there, of importance, the result of 
 crape. 
 
 At last a hansom cab turned the corner of the Minories 
 and pulled up noisily on the noisy stones. Claud Tyars
 
 4O Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 threw open the doors and stepped out. He had come to 
 be paid off ; he was the crew of the Martial. 
 
 In a moment he was surrounded by the women, every 
 one clamoring for news of her dead sailor. The broker's 
 clerk, an observant youth, noticed that during the half- 
 hour that followed, Tyars never referred to his log-book, 
 but answered each question unerringly from memory. 
 He gave details, dates, and particulars without hesitation 
 or doubt. It was perhaps owing to a knowledge of the 
 commercial value of a good memory that the young clerk 
 made note of these details. He was not observant enough 
 to take account of the finer shades of manner, of the in- 
 finite tact with which the survivor of the crew treated the 
 women-folk of his late comrades. He did not detect the 
 subtle art by which some were sent away rejoicing over 
 the dogged, dauntless courage of their husbands ; he was 
 only conscious of a feeling of admiration for this man who 
 hitherto had hardly noticed him. But he failed to discern 
 that the difficult task was accomplished unconsciously. 
 He did not realize that Claud Tyars possessed a gift 
 which is only second to genius in worldly value the gift 
 of unobtrusively ruling his fellow-men. 
 
 As Tyars drove away from the Shipping Office, he 
 saw the street news-vendors displaying their posters with 
 the words : "A wonderful story of the sea," printed in 
 sensational type. 
 
 " Hang it," he muttered with a vexed laugh, " I never 
 counted on a notoriety of this sort." 
 
 Presently he bought an evening paper and read of the 
 exploits of " Captain " Tyars with a singular lack of 
 pride. 
 
 When Mr. Lowell, the owner of the Martial, offered 
 him the command of the ship the same afternoon in Lead- 
 enhall Street, he gravely and politely declined it. With
 
 Home. 41 
 
 the shipowner, as with Lieutenant Grace, Tyars appeared 
 quite blind to the necessity of an explanation, and none 
 was asked. 
 
 So ended the incident of the Martial. Its direct bear- 
 ing upon the life of Claud Tyars would seem to terminate 
 at the same moment ; but indirectly the experience thus 
 acquired influenced his career, formed to some extent his 
 character, and led (as all things great and small lead us) 
 to the end.
 
 42 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 IN BROOK STREET. 
 
 IN the meantime Lieutenant Grace had received at the 
 hands of his father and sister a warm welcome. 
 
 Without announcement of any description he made his 
 way from the Admiralty to Brook Street, and knocked at 
 his father's door. He found the old gentleman and Miss 
 Helen Grace engaged in the consumption of afternoon 
 tea. 
 
 " Oswin ! " exclaimed the old admiral in a voice laden 
 with muffin and emotion. " I thought you were on the 
 African coast." 
 
 Helen Grace was a young lady not much given to ex- 
 clamatory expression of feeling. She rose from the low 
 chair she habitually occupied near the small table built 
 upon two stories tea above and work below and kissed 
 her brother. 
 
 Then she turned his face towards the light by the collar 
 of his coat. 
 
 " Have you been invalided home ? " she asked. 
 
 " No." 
 
 "But the Foam is out there still," put in the admiral, 
 eager to show his intimate knowledge of official matters. 
 
 " Yes. I came home in a derelict. A fine, big ship 
 without a crew. All dead of yellow fever, except one. I 
 am glad that he was picked out by Providence to sur- 
 vive."
 
 In Brook Street. 43 
 
 "Why ? " inquired Helen. 
 
 " Because I like him." 
 
 " What was he A.B. or officer ? " asked the admiral, 
 who having despatched the muffin was now less emo- 
 tional. 
 
 " Second mate, holding a captain's certificate. I have 
 asked him to dinner to-morrow night." 
 
 " Oh ! " murmured Helen, doubtfully. 
 
 " With his dog the other survivor." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Helen, in a more interested tone. " Do 
 they know how to behave themselves ? " 
 
 " I think so both of them," was the reply. " Al- 
 though we did not dress for dinner on board the Martial.' 1 
 
 " It seems to me," observed the admiral, with an easy 
 chuckle, which seemed in some way connected with the 
 depths of his chest, " that you did not devote much time 
 at all to the question of toilet." 
 
 "No," replied Grace, frankly. " We were a shady 
 crew. You see there were only ten of us to navigate a 
 thousand-ton ship full-rigged. We had no time for per- 
 sonal adornment. You will see all about it in the evening 
 paper ; I brought one with me on purpose. May I have 
 some tea, Helen ? It is months since I have seen such an 
 article as bread-and-butter." 
 
 The girl hastened to supply his wants, performing her 
 duties with that deft sureness of touch which I venture to 
 think is only found in this happy land where maidens are 
 not dolls. While Grace was performing wonders among 
 the dainties supplied to him, his father read aloud the de- 
 tails of his deeds upon the high seas, and Helen listened 
 with a faint smile of pride upon her refined face. 
 
 " And this man," she inquired when the paragraph had 
 been duly digested "the man you have asked to din- 
 ner what is he like? "
 
 44 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 The naval officer helped himself to a limp slice of bread- 
 and-butter with great thoughtfulness. 
 
 " That is just the difficulty, my dear," he replied. " I 
 cannot tell you what he is like because I don't know. I 
 do not understand him that is the long and short of it. 
 He is above me." 
 
 " I suppose," suggested the admiral, who held the 
 keener study of human nature in some contempt, " that 
 he is merely a rough sailor-man a merchant captain." 
 
 The lieutenant shook his smooth head. 
 
 "No," he answered, " he is hardly that. Iwantyou," 
 he continued after a pause, turning to his sister, "to judge 
 for yourself, so will not tell you what I think about 
 him." 
 
 " Then he is interesting ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think you will find him interesting." 
 
 Helen was already seeking in her mind how things 
 could be made easy and comfortable for the unpolished 
 hero whom her brother had so unceremoniously intro- 
 duced into the house. 
 
 " Agnes Winter was coming to-morrow to dine, but she 
 can be put off," she observed, carelessly. 
 
 " Agnes Winter why should she be put off ? Let her 
 come by all means." 
 
 The little man's manner was perhaps too indifferent to 
 be either natural or polite. He was either unconsciously 
 rude or exaggerating an indifference he did not feel. 
 Helen, however, continued her remarks without appearing 
 to notice anything. 
 
 " Would you not," she inquired, while replacing in its 
 vase a flower that had become displaced, " rather have 
 him quite alone when we are by ourselves, I mean ? " 
 
 " Oh no. He is all right. If he is good enough for 
 you, he is gooyd enough for Agnes Winter."
 
 In Brook Street. 45 
 
 " Has he got a suit of dress-clothes ? " asked the 
 admiral, with a blunt laugh. 
 
 Lieutenant Grace let his hand fall heavily upon his 
 thigh with a gesture of mock regret. 
 
 " I quite forgot to ask him," he exclaimed, dramatically. 
 
 "There is some mystery attached to this person," 
 laughed Helen. Her laughter was a little prolonged in 
 order that her father (whose duller sense of humor some- 
 times failed to follow his son's fancy) might comprehend 
 that this was a joke. 
 
 " Well," said the old gentleman, thrusting his hands 
 deeply into his pockets, "I like a man to come to my 
 table in a claw-hammer coat." 
 
 Helen's gentle eyes rested for a moment on her 
 brother's face. With an almost imperceptible movement 
 of lid and eyebrow, hardly amounting to the license of a 
 wink, he reassured her. 
 
 " What time is dinner ? I told him to come at seven 
 o'clock," said he, holding out his cup for more tea. 
 
 " That is right," answered Helen. 
 
 " You would have done better," said the admiral, still 
 unpacified, "to have given the man a dinner at your 
 club." 
 
 " Oh," replied his son, serenely, " I wanted you and 
 Helen to make his acquaintance ; besides I could not have 
 invited Muggins to the club." 
 
 " Muggins ? " growled the old gentleman interroga- 
 tively. 
 
 " The dog." 
 
 "Ah. Is he a presentable sort of fellow then, that you 
 want your sister to meet him ? " 
 
 " The dog ? " inquired Grace, with much innocence. 
 
 " No," laughed his father, despite himself; "the man 
 Tyre, or Sidon, or whatever his name is."
 
 46 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " Tyars. Yes ; I think so. Tyars is distinctly pre- 
 sentable ... or else I would not have suggested his 
 coming to dine with Helen . . . and Agnes Winter." 
 
 Helen had moved away towards the window, and was 
 now leaning against the folded and old-fashioned shutter. 
 She turned and looked at her brother as he spoke with 
 that gentle womanly scrutiny which I, for one, have learnt 
 to dread ; there is no deceiving it. It is futile to tell bold 
 untruths concerning one's health, or the success of one's 
 last literary venture, beneath that scrutiny. I have tried 
 with ignominious results. 
 
 The sun was setting, and its last rays glinting through 
 the taller trees of the Park suffused prosaic Brook Street 
 in a rosy haze no less rosy because of the glittering dust 
 rising from the motion of many wheels and many feet. 
 
 Like her brother, Helen Grace favored to some extent 
 a gravity of demeanor when in repose, and her face was 
 of that refined type which possesses a great mobility. 
 Some faces there are which seem to have brought from 
 old times a recollection of gay knights, full of poetry and 
 full of fight ; of troubadours and patient women. Oswin 
 and Helen Grace were of this mold. In profile the 
 chiseling of either face was perfect, for Helen was but a 
 refined miniature of her brother ; and in smiling their 
 gray eyes lighted up with the self-same soft merriment. 
 
 In figure the girl had the advantage of her brother. 
 She was slighter and taller in comparison of sex, but there 
 was in her manner of carrying head and shoulders a dis- 
 tinct resemblance to the sturdy little sailor. The same 
 indescribable stamp of "breed" was upon them both. 
 In the man it amounted to resolution ; in the woman it be- 
 spoke the womanly virtue of endurance, and to both alike 
 it lent a fascination appealing more to the stronger than 
 to the weaker sex. In the slight and girlish contours of
 
 In Brook Street. 47 
 
 her form, there was a subtle sureness and strength which 
 was in keeping with her demeanor and quiet grace. In 
 animation her expression was more varied, her lips more 
 mobile than her brother's manly features, and her eyes 
 were capable of conveying a greater tenderness. 
 
 As she stood in the soft sunlight looking sideways 
 towards her brother, this tenderness was visible. These 
 two were the only children of a dead mother, who if she 
 had never quite understood her husband had at all events 
 possessed the power of loving her children. It is a la- 
 mentable fact that brotherly love is little nurtured by 
 propinquity. Brothers and sisters whose respective walks 
 in life have been a trifle divergent, undoubtedly love each 
 other more dearly than those who have lived from child- 
 hood under the same roof. Oswin Grace had left home 
 early, as all naval men must, and during the short spells 
 allowed to him by a grateful country as recreation, he 
 had not learnt to know his sister very well not well 
 enough to forget that he owed to her the respect due to 
 all women. 
 
 The two men now started a conversation upon very 
 nautical matters, employing such technical terms and 
 waxing so interested that Helen sought a chair near the 
 window and settled down to listen with respectful silence. 
 This went on until a functionary blessed with a beaming 
 countenance came to announce that the admiral's hot 
 water had gone up-stairs. It was always a pleasure to 
 be waited on by Salter, although as a butler pur et simple 
 he was a questionable success. Although he wore a black 
 coat and irreproachable linen, carried the cellar-key, and 
 performed most scrupulously his household duties, the 
 man was a sailor from the top of his thickly-covered gray 
 head to the soles of his great silent splay feet, to which 
 shoes were an evident trial.
 
 48 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 When the admiral had left the room to attend to his 
 formal toilet, Oswin crossed the floor and stood beside 
 his sister, his hands stuffed deeply into his trouser-pockets, 
 his scrutinizing glance cast downwards. 
 
 " And," he observed, " and here we are again ! " 
 
 She laid aside her work. 
 
 " Yes," said she, affectionately. " Here we are again. 
 I have not quite realized it yet. I am rather sorry I did 
 not know that you were coming home. There is a mild 
 excitement attached to making and remaking unnecessary 
 preparations for the return of the traveler which is pleas- 
 ant to the hearts of those who wait at home." 
 
 " But I could not let you know, my dearly beloved." 
 
 " No, I suppose not. As it is, the faithful Salter will 
 be happy because it will be in his hands. I expect he 
 has been in your room ever since you arrived." 
 
 " Poor old Salter ! " exclaimed the young fellow in a 
 tone which betokened that he was not thinking very much 
 of what he was saying. " When he opened the door he 
 swore and remarked affably that it was Oswin, without 
 any narrow-minded prefix or title. Then he offered me 
 a hand as large as the door-mat, part of which I shook 
 with some condescension." 
 
 There was about Grace's manner the slightest suspi- 
 cion of a desire to fill up time. He was talking with the 
 view of gaining time to think of some other subject. He 
 now broke off suddenly and walked away down the whole 
 length of the large room, looking at chairs, tables, and 
 ornaments critically. 
 
 " It is very nice," he observed, "to be home again." 
 
 Helen had resumed her work, and without looking up 
 she answered 
 
 " It is very nice to have you back." 
 
 For some moments there was a silence in the room
 
 In Brook Street. 49 
 
 while the young officer examined critically a bowl of 
 flowers standing upon the mantelpiece. Then he turned 
 and spoke with a conversational evenness. 
 
 " How is Agnes Winter ? " he asked. 
 
 " She is very well. Did those flowers remind you of 
 her ? " 
 
 " Ye es," he replied, slowly ; " I wonder why." 
 
 "Because she arranged them, I suppose," suggested 
 the girl, looking up suddenly as if struck at the possibility 
 of her idea being of some weight. 
 
 " Perhaps so. She is not engaged yet ? " 
 
 Helen threaded a needle with some care and stooped 
 over her work. 
 
 " No ; she is just the same as ever. Always busy, 
 always happy, always a favorite. But one never hears 
 the slightest rumor of an engagement, or even a flirta- 
 tion." 
 
 " While," added Grace, airily, "her dear friend flirts 
 here and flirts there, but keeps clear of the serious part 
 of it all with equal skill." 
 
 " Which friend ? " inquired Helen, innocently. 
 
 "Yourself!" 
 
 " Oh ! I have my duties. Papa could not get on 
 without me. Besides, I never flirt. Marriage and love 
 and all that, my brother, have much more to do with con- 
 venience than is generally supposed." 
 
 " Indeed ? " he inquired with fine sarcasm. 
 
 "Yes; I have studied the question. You may know 
 more about the slave-trade than I do, because you have 
 had superior advantages in that direction ; but I also have 
 had advantages, and from personal observation beg to 
 state that in nine cases out of ten convenience is the source 
 of love in the tenth case it is propinquity." 
 
 " Thank you," he said, fervently. " I will make a 
 4
 
 50 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 mental note of your observations, and when I marry a 
 plain and stupid heiress perhaps you will withdraw them." 
 
 She ignored his pleasantry. 
 
 " I often wonder," she said, thoughtfully, " why some- 
 body or other does not fall in love with Agnes Winter." 
 
 After a pause he put forward a suggestion. 
 
 " Because she will not let him, perhaps." 
 
 " That may be so, but surely a sensible man does not 
 wait to be allowed." 
 
 " The question," he answered, with mock gravity, 
 " is rather beyond me. It is hard to say what a sensible 
 man would do, because in such matters no rule can be laid 
 down defining where sense begins and foolishness ends. 
 The man who got Agnes Winter would be sensible, how- 
 ever he did it." 
 
 Presently the girl went to dress for dinner, leaving her 
 brother standing at the window, whistling softly beneath 
 his breath.
 
 A Reunion. 51 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 A REUNION. 
 
 IF there had been any doubts entertained or discussed 
 as to the presentability of Claud Tyars in polite circles, 
 these were destined to an instant removal when that indi- 
 vidual entered the drawing-room of No. 105 Brook Street. 
 
 His dress, if it erred at all, did so on the side of a too 
 scrupulous adherence to the latest dictates of society. His 
 manners were those of a traveled and experienced Eng- 
 lish gentleman. That is to say he was polite without 
 eagerness, pleasant without gush, semi-interested, semi- 
 indifferent. 
 
 Oswin Grace advanced to meet him with a quick 
 glance of satisfaction at his irreproachable get-up, which 
 Tyars showed no sign of having detected. 
 
 The necessary introductions were made, and Tyars dis- 
 played the same perfect knowledge of social habits up to 
 date. His bow was a bow pure and simple, and to the 
 admiral he offered his hand in a calm, decisive way, which 
 somewhat interfered with the old gentleman's dignified 
 coldness. There was no bungling over this most un- 
 graceful and difficult social duty. 
 
 "I think," said Helen at once, with a characteristic 
 desire to make things pleasant, " that we have met 
 before." 
 
 She was looking up at Tyars, who being very tall stood 
 a head higher than any one in the room, and in her eyes
 
 52 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 there was no speculation, no searching into the recesses 
 of her memory. The remark was without interrogative 
 hesitation. It was the assertion of a fact well known to 
 her, and yet her color changed. 
 
 " Yes," answered Tyars ; " I had the pleasure of danc- 
 ing with you on several occasions at the Commemoration 
 three years ago." 
 
 " But you are not an Oxford man ! " put in Lieutenant 
 Grace. 
 
 " No." 
 
 He did not seem to think it worth while mentioning that 
 his name was on the books of the sister University. 
 
 "What a good memory you have, Mr. Tyars! " ob- 
 served Miss Agnes Winter in a smooth soft voice. " Per- 
 haps you can help mine. Have we met before ? I know 
 your face." 
 
 He turned to her with a smile in which there was no 
 light of dawning recollection. 
 
 " Hardly," he replied. " But you were sitting in the 
 middle of the last row of the stalls at a performance of 
 \Hamlet last autumn." 
 
 " Now I remember," interrupted Miss Winter, with her 
 pleasant laugh ; " of course. Please don't tell me any 
 more. My stall was number number two hundred and 
 sixty . . .?" 
 
 " Four," suggested Tyars, in such a manner that it was 
 in reality no suggestion at all. 
 
 " Yes ; two hundred and sixty-four. There was an 
 empty seat on my right hand." 
 
 " And an old gentleman occupied that on your left." 
 
 " My father," she explained simply, but in the tone of 
 her pleasant voice there was something which made Tyars 
 look gravely at her with a very slight bow as if in apology. 
 Oswin Grace glanced at his sister with raised eyebrows,
 
 A Reunion. 53 
 
 and she nodded almost imperceptibly. He had not heard 
 of old Mr. Winter's death. 
 
 In less skilled hands this incident might have led to an 
 awkward silence, but Agnes Winter had not spent ten years 
 of her life in a whirl of society for nothing. She knew 
 that one's own feelings are of a strictly individual value. 
 
 " You," she continued, " took the vacant seat." 
 
 There was something very like a question in her glance. 
 Oswin Grace did not look pleased, and his eyes turned 
 from one face to the other searchingly. Then she seemed 
 suddenly to have received an answer to her query, for she 
 turned to Helen and launched into narration gaily. 
 
 " I will tell you," she said, " why these details are en- 
 graven so indelibly upon such a poor substance as my 
 memory. It was rather a grand night ; royalty was pres- 
 ent, and the theater was almost full. In front of me 
 were two men who did not appear to be taking an absorb- 
 ing interest in the play, for one was drawing something 
 which I took to be a map upon his program . . ." 
 
 " It was a map," confessed Tyars, lightly. 
 
 " While he whispered earnestly at intervals to his com- 
 panion. I came to the conclusion that he was trying to 
 persuade him to go and look for Livingstone, which sug- 
 gestion was not well received. At last he turned round. 
 I thought he was admiring, or at least noticing, the new 
 diamond star in my hair, but subsequent events proved 
 that he was looking over my head. I was disappointed," 
 she added aside to Tyars. 
 
 " I both noticed and admired," he exclaimed in self-de- 
 fense. " There were two diamond stars, one much larger 
 than the other." 
 
 All, except Oswin, laughed at this feat of memory. 
 
 " Well," continued Miss Winter, in her gentle rippling 
 style, " at the first interval this irreproachable young man
 
 54 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 left his seat, came round, turned back the chair next to 
 me, and shook . . . hands with a man in the pit! " 
 
 The pith of the story lay in its narration, which was 
 perfect. The lady knew her audience as an able actor 
 knows his house. By some subtle trick of voice the in- 
 cident was made to redound to Tyars' credit, while its 
 tone was distinctly against him. The easy, cheery, hon- 
 est humor of voice and expression was irresistible. 
 Even the admiral laughed as much as he ever laughed at 
 a joke not related by himself. 
 
 " He was," explained Tyars in his unsatisfactory way, 
 " a friend of mine." 
 
 At this moment the door was opened by Salter, who 
 came forward as if he were going to snatch at his fore- 
 lock and report that he had come on board ; but he evi- 
 dently recollected himself in time, and announced that 
 dinner was ready. 
 
 As they were moving towards the door, Oswin suddenly 
 stopped. 
 
 " Where is Muggins ? " he asked. 
 
 " On the mat," replied Tyars. " He was rather shy, 
 and preferred waiting for a special invitation. He is not 
 quite at home on carpets yet." 
 
 " I have heard about Muggins," said Helen to Tyars as 
 they went down-stairs together, " and am quite anxious 
 to make his acquaintance." 
 
 So Muggins was introduced to his new friends, standing 
 gravely on the dining-room hearthrug with his sturdy legs 
 set well apart, his stump of a tail jerking nervously at 
 times, and his pink-rimmed eyes upraised appealingly to 
 his master's face. He was endeavoring to the best of his 
 ability to understand who all these well-dressed people 
 were, and why he was forced into such sudden social prom- 
 inence. Moreover, he was desirous of acquitting him-
 
 A Reunion. 55 
 
 self well ; and that smell of ox-tail soup was somewhat 
 distracting to a seafarer. 
 
 He formed the subject of conversation while this same 
 soup was being discussed, and Tyars was almost enthu- 
 siastic on the subject, somewhat to the amusement of 
 Miss Agnes Winter, who was not a great lover of dogs. 
 
 The dinner passed off very pleasantly, and many sub- 
 jects were discussed with greater or less edification. Miss 
 Winter seemed to take the lead, in virtue of her seniority 
 over the young hostess, touching upon many things with 
 her light and airy precision, her gay philosophy, her 
 gentle irony. Helen was graver in her conversation, 
 lacking the dexterity of Miss Winter in dealing with every 
 subject as if at one time she had studied it and thought 
 upon it. Oswin was lightest in his touch of them all, for 
 he treated most things in life from a farcical point of view 
 at least in conversation. And upon every subject 
 Claud Tyars seemed to know something. In the recesses 
 of his singular memory there seemed to be an inexhaust- 
 ible store of experience, reading, hearsay, and knowledge. 
 Great facts were mixed up and stored side by side with 
 trivial details. He was as intimate with the words of 
 Hamlet as he was posted up in the details of Miss Winter's 
 toilet on the occasion of that play being acted in London 
 a year before. 
 
 When the two ladies left the dining-room, they carried 
 with them the impression that Claud Tyars was quite 
 unlike any man they had ever met. It was difficult to 
 define in the possession of what qualities this difference 
 lay, but both alike were vaguely conscious of that fascina- 
 tion which is exercised by utter naturalness. It was in 
 his complete unconsciousness of any difference that Claud 
 Tyars was different from other men. He was in perfect 
 ignorance of his own individuality. In his heart he rather
 
 56 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 prided himself upon being eminently commonplace. From 
 a desire to pass unnoticed in the crowd he made himself 
 remarkable ; because his indifference was too widespread 
 to be natural. Many of us are in the habit of assuming 
 an indifference we do not always feel, others exaggerate 
 the same feeling ; but in none can such be universal. 
 Tyars made the mistake of being universally indifferent. 
 There was no subject except Muggins in which he evinced 
 the slightest continuous interest ; and the impression con- 
 veyed to an acute observer, such as Miss Winter (or Helen 
 Grace in a minor degree), was that in reality his mind 
 was possessed by one absorbing interest. For some 
 reason he wished to pass as a man possessing no particular 
 purpose in life, and his endeavors took the form of an 
 universal indifference which was too perfect to be human. 
 The impression he unconsciously conveyed was that 
 instead of being purposeless his life and being were ab- 
 sorbed by one unique interest to the exclusion of all else. 
 What this interest might be the two girls could not tell, 
 and over this question each speculated in her own way as 
 they mounted the softly-carpeted stairs in silence. 
 
 The drawing-room was now lighted by a large pink- 
 shaded lamp which cast its mellow glow downwards upon 
 a table artistically disorderly in its comfortable chaos of 
 literature and woman's dainty work. Despite her thirty 
 years Agnes Winter drew forward a low chair, and seated 
 herself beside the table in the full glow of the lamp ; 
 taking up an illustrated magazine, and turning the pages 
 idly. Helen went towards the piano, which was always 
 open in silent invitation. She did not seek any music, 
 but sat down and played snatches of anything that came 
 into her head, while her dainty foot pressed the soft pedal 
 continuously. This habit of making muffled music was 
 the outcome of her father's slumberous ways after dinner.
 
 A Reunion. 57 
 
 " Helen ! " 
 
 The girl did not answer at once, but continued her 
 rambling melody, while Miss Winter turned to the maga- 
 zine again. 
 
 " Yes," she said at length, making the music-stool 
 revolve. 
 
 " Why," asked Agnes Winter without looking up, 
 " did you not tell me that you had met Mr. Tyars before ? " 
 
 The girl appeared to have expected the question ; her 
 reply was quite ready, and almost forestalled the words. 
 
 " Why should I have thought of connecting the Mr. 
 Tyars of Trinity College, Cambridge, with the second 
 mate Tyars of the merchantman Martial? " 
 
 " No ... of course it was hardly likely. But you 
 recognized him at once, I suppose ? " 
 
 " Yes I think so." 
 
 " I do not remember," continued Miss Winter casually, 
 "that you ever mentioned having met him." 
 
 " No ? " 
 
 Helen turned again upon the revolving stool, and sought 
 the soft pedal. 
 
 " No ! " answered Miss Winter, leaning suddenly back, 
 and dropping her two hands into her lap. Her dark, in- 
 telligent eyes were raised thoughtfully towards the young 
 girl, who was now playing a minuet with great precision. 
 " No ; I think not." 
 
 Although Helen continued playing for some time Miss 
 Winter did not resume her book. She sat in the com- 
 fortable chair quite motionless, apparently buried in 
 thought. 
 
 It was Helen who at length broke the silence, rising 
 and coming into the rosy circle of lamplight. 
 
 " Agnes," she said, " I wonder why that man has . . . 
 taken to the sea ? "
 
 58 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 The elder lady allowed herself the luxury of some mo- 
 ments' thought. 
 
 " I don't know," she answered at length, altering her 
 posture smoothly; "and," she added lightly, "I don't 
 care." 
 
 They remained thus looking at each other. There was 
 a slight smile upon Miss Winter's face, her red lips were 
 parted pleasantly. After all, she did right in drawing her 
 chair close to the lamp she had nothing to fear from its 
 searching light. Her complexion was of that clean pink 
 and white which never alters, never burns in the summer 
 or grows rough in winter ; and her features were round 
 and pleasantly full. She was the sort of woman to look 
 well with gray hair fifteen years later than the period at 
 which Tyars met her. As a girl she probably gave 
 promise of future stoutness, as a woman she had failed to 
 keep the promise, and remained tolerably slim. The 
 small white hands and arms, dropped idly in her lap, had 
 a clever dexterous air with them. The majority of her 
 friends looked upon Agnes Winter as a woman who was 
 not likely to make an egregious error in life. 
 
 The slight smile with which she encountered her com- 
 panion's grave glance might have aggravated persons to 
 whom her character was superficially known. Its tenor 
 was almost ironical. Helen, however, continued gazing 
 gravely down at the pleasant whole without heeding the 
 irony of the eyes. 
 
 " Is he not peculiar ? " she said at length, with a little 
 backward jerk of the head. 
 
 " Very ! Most peculiar, I consider him. Nevertheless I 
 like him." 
 
 " He is very gentlemanly," suggested Helen, moving 
 away to clear a small table for the coffee-tray. 
 
 " Yes," murmured Miss Winter. " And I think he has
 
 A Reunion. 59 
 
 an object. ... He would like us to think that he has not 
 but I think he has." 
 
 " What sort of an object ? " 
 
 " An object in life, my dear." 
 
 Helen came forward carrying a small Chinese table. 
 
 " I suppose we all have that." 
 
 " Not all of us, Helen," corrected Miss Winter, with a 
 slight suspicion of bitterness. 
 
 " And what do you suppose Mr. Tyars' object in life 
 to be ? " 
 
 Miss Winter shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " I have not the slightest conception," she replied ; " no 
 doubt we shall find out in time. Men cannot conceal an 
 honest purpose for very long. It leaks out." 
 
 Helen took up her work, and presently found a comfort- 
 able chair which she brought forward beside the little 
 table. But she did not seem disposed to ply her needle 
 very steadily. After a few stitches her fingers became 
 idle. She raised her head, and although her eyes were 
 apparently fixed upon the upper part of the wall, she did 
 not give one the impression of seeing anything. Her gaze 
 had the appearance of penetrating the wall, piercing 
 through the thick vapors of earth, and soaring away into 
 ethereal depths unknown. At the same time she seemed 
 to be listening. Her face was like that of a child told by 
 her nurse to listen for the beat of an angel's wing. 
 
 Miss Winter glanced up, and immediately returned to 
 the perusal of her magazine. She knew that expression 
 of Helen's face, and had once laughingly told her that 
 when she thought deeply she seemed to expect the ideas 
 to come flying down from heaven, for she looked and 
 listened for them as if they were birds. 
 
 At length the girl stirred and gave forth a little short, 
 practical sigh.
 
 60 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 "Well," inquired Miss Winter, pleasantly, " what is 
 the result of that ? " 
 
 " Of what ? " 
 
 " Of that meditation." 
 
 Helen put in a few stitches before replying frankly 
 
 " I wish I knew his object." 
 
 " I do not Gupposc," said the older woman in a consola- 
 tory tone, " that it will prove very interesting. It is prob- 
 ably a very commonplace object the most commonplace 
 of all perhaps, money. After the age of thirty few of us 
 care for anything else, and I should set him down at 
 thirty -two." 
 
 Helen shook her head in gentle negation, but did not 
 make any further protest. She turned to her work again, 
 and sewed for a considerable time in silence. Once she 
 raised her head as if about to speak, but the words came 
 not forth. A second time she raised her head and spoke 
 slowly in such away that no interruption was permissible. 
 
 " I am interested," she said, " in the matter, because 
 I have a sort of feeling that whatever Mr. Tyars' object 
 in life may be, Oswin will be drawn into it sooner or later. 
 I don't know from whence I got the idea, but that is my 
 distinct impression. Did you notice the way in which he 
 looked at Oswin ? He seemed to be watching him, study- 
 ing him, drawing him out." 
 
 "As if," suggested Miss Winter, keenly, "he were 
 examining him for some special object." 
 
 " Yes. Then you noticed it ? " 
 
 Agnes Winter nodded her head gravely. 
 
 " I almost wish," said Helen, after a short pause in 
 which they had both recalled in silent thought the small 
 incidents of the evening ; " I almost wish, Agnes, that he 
 had not come." 
 
 This was greeted with a short laugh the fearless laugh
 
 A Reunion. 61 
 
 of a woman who knows her will to be stronger than the 
 average will of man. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because . . . because of his object. This purpose- 
 less man came here to-night not because he happened to 
 have nothing better to do, not because he was too indif- 
 ferent to refuse Oswin's invitation, but for some specific 
 reason." 
 
 " Now," observed Miss Winter, in a very matter-of- 
 fact voice, "you are exaggerating matters. There is no 
 greater mistake to be made than to assign motives indis- 
 criminately. Most people have no motives at all, some 
 of us have them occasionally, but nobody has a chronic 
 purpose." 
 
 " Mr. Tyars has a chronic purpose, that is why he is 
 different from other people," persisted Helen. 
 
 There was a pleasant confidence about Miss Winter. 
 Perhaps it was merely a conversational attribute of no 
 great influential power, but it frequently obtained for her 
 the credit of knowing more about her subject than was 
 really the case. 
 
 " No," she said calmly ; " he is different from other 
 people because his appearance is singular. His height is 
 decidedly above the average, and there is a peculiar solid 
 force about him which may mean great strength of will, 
 or it may be only a matter of physical bulk. He wears a 
 beard, and beards are not the fashion just now, even in 
 the navy. That, my dear, is why Mr. Tyars is different 
 from other people." 
 
 She stopped and seemed to await a reply, which, 
 however, was not forthcoming. Then suddenly she de- 
 scended to a feminine detail. 
 
 " I like his beard," she added, "it is trim and 
 manly."
 
 62 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 This observation Helen was pleased to ignore. She 
 was still meditating over the expression of Tyars' face 
 while he happened to be looking at her brother Oswin. 
 She could not explain it to herself, but there was some- 
 thing disquieting in the attention accorded by this man to 
 his new friend. It was not only, as she had explained to 
 Miss Winter, that Tyars was watching Oswin Grace, but 
 there was in the man's steady eyes a gleam of distinct 
 purpose. She had seen this on more than one occasion, 
 had caught it in transit, and in the momentary flash of 
 misapprehension had been quite unable to define its 
 meaning. 
 
 " I should think," she said at last, " that he is a man 
 of very strong will." 
 
 Miss Winter smiled meditatively. 
 
 " It is difficult," she answered, " to tell on such a short 
 acquaintance. Men are like bottles of wine. One should 
 not judge them from the appearance of the sawdust they 
 carry." 
 
 " Still, I think that on further acquaintance one would 
 find a strong will beneath Mr. Tyars' pleasant suavity." 
 
 " Perhaps so." 
 
 " I should be rather afraid to count upon the contrary," 
 said Helen. 
 
 Again Miss Winter smiled in a pleasant, indifferent way, 
 which in some degree made the conversation trivial in its 
 bearing. 
 
 " Oh no," she murmured, reassuringly ; " I think I 
 should not be afraid to match myself against Mr. 
 Ty . . ." 
 
 At this moment the door opened and Tyars came in, 
 followed by the admiral. They had come up the thickly- 
 carpeted stairs without speaking.
 
 Doubts. 63 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 DOUBTS. 
 
 MISS WINTER looked up with a smile and met Tyars* 
 smiling eyes. 
 
 There was no doubt whatever that he had heard. The 
 matter did not present itself to her mind in the light 
 of a question. She knew, and over this certainty she 
 was thinking with all the rapidity of her sex and kind. 
 Woman of the world as she was, she acted promptly: if 
 a placid inactivity can be prompt and may be so denom- 
 inated. It is dangerous to lay down a comprehensive rule 
 for anything or any crisis in life ; but it seems that calm- 
 ness is a great factor in human progress. One would 
 conclude in a small way, from small experience, that the 
 people who do good in the world and get on therein are 
 those who keep calm "when breezes blow," and do 
 almost nothing. Almost mind you not quite nothing ! 
 It is such as these who act rightly when the moment 
 comes. They are the reserve of our great human army, 
 and from a military point of view it is well to consider in 
 whose hands rests the command of the reserve. He 
 should be the best man upon the field. 
 
 " We have," said Tyars, pleasantly, addressing both 
 ladies at once, " been talking most unmitigated ' shop.' '' 
 
 " It seems to me," replied Miss Winter, " that gentle- 
 men always do. The seed that runs to waste in gossip 
 with us, sprouts into sturdy vegetable ' shop' with men."
 
 64 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 The admiral, who was at times a little testy after a 
 good dinner, lifted his white head and mentally measured 
 this youth who dared to place his own knowledge of 
 maritime matters upon a level with that of an old sea-dog 
 like himself who dared, moreover, to class the two 
 under the opprobrious term of " shop." 
 
 " Then," he said in a throaty voice as he seated him- 
 self, " I suppose you call yourself quite a sailor despite 
 your Cambridge honors." 
 
 " Not in your presence." 
 
 Helen looked up sharply over her coffee-tray. It was 
 impossible to tell whether there were irony or not in the 
 smile with which Tyars looked down at his host. The 
 old man took the remark as a compliment, in which spirit 
 it had to all appearances been made. 
 
 "The sea," he said in a pleasanter tone, "is like a 
 woman. Young men think they understand it, old men 
 know they don't ! " 
 
 "And," put in Miss Winter between sips of coffee, 
 "like us its mystery lies in its simplicity." . . . She 
 turned towards Tyars, who was standing over her with a 
 plate of biscuits. As she took one she looked up at him 
 for a moment. " In both cases," she said, "the superfi- 
 cial is honored by too small an attention. Men look too 
 much beneath the surface for events that come from 
 outside." 
 
 " I have been told," he answered, "that a good sailor 
 learns to take things as they come without seeking to 
 learn from whence they do so." 
 
 " Do you take sugar? " inquired Helen, in her down- 
 right way. 
 
 "Or," added Miss Winter, without looking up, " will 
 you take your coffee as it comes? " 
 
 Tyars had crossed the room towards Helen. He glanced
 
 Doubts. 65 
 
 back over his shoulder after having received his cup 
 from her steady white fingers. 
 
 " Seeing," he said to Miss Winter, "from whence it 
 comes, I think I will." 
 
 She laughed, and answered nothing. Perhaps she 
 was thinking of the words he had probably overheard on 
 entering the room. There was a pause and a silence 
 such as succeeds the whistle and the ring of steel when 
 two fencers lower their foils and breathe hard. At this 
 moment Oswin Grace entered the room carrying some 
 books, of which there had been a question at the table. 
 At his heels came Muggins, who, however, paused upon 
 the threshold and watched his master's face. 
 
 " Let him come in," said Helen to Tyars. 
 
 And so Muggins joined the party, and went from one 
 to the other with a calm ignorance of the undercurrents of 
 social intercourse. He was pleasant and courteous, as 
 was his invariable habit, and it is not for us to analyze 
 his motives or to insinuate that sweet biscuits are pleasant 
 fare after hard tack and rusty, warm water. He soon 
 discovered that Miss Winter failed to recognize his mani- 
 fold virtues, but this omission was repaired by Helen, 
 whose silk train was offered for his comfort. With that 
 air of philosophic surprise which is characteristic of his 
 kind he accepted the proffered seat, and, I regret to state, 
 snored rather loudly during the evening. 
 
 As the time went on, passing pleasantly enough in that 
 vague and general conversation which vanishes as soon 
 as intimacy begins, Miss Winter noticed how very little 
 Tyars spoke of himself. This reticence was almost a 
 fault, and it may as well be stated at once that so far from 
 possessing a motive was Tyars, that he was quite un- 
 aware of the peculiarity. It was a mere habit acquired 
 from a continuous intercourse with men below him in the 
 5
 
 66 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 moral and social scale. He had dropped into a way of 
 treating everything from an impersonal point of view, 
 which in time is calculated to aggravate the listener. 
 Discussions carried on in such a spirit are in reality des- 
 perately futile, because if we do not frankly take the 
 world from a personal point of view we shall not get much 
 instruction from it. Miss Winter went so far as to place 
 him once or twice in such a position that his own personal 
 opinion, or the result of individual experience, would have 
 been the simplest answer, but he invariably quoted from 
 the experience of some vague and unnamed acquaintance. 
 Admiral Grace was the only person who really succeeded 
 in getting a piece of personal information, and this by the 
 bluntest direct question. 
 
 "I once," said the old gentleman, "was on a com- 
 mittee with a west-country baronet of your name a Sir 
 Wilbert Tyars is he any relation of yours? " 
 
 "Yes," Tyars answered, with just sufficient interest 
 to prove his utter indifference. " Yes ; he is my uncle." 
 
 There was a short pause ; some further remark was 
 evidently expected. 
 
 " I have not seen him for many years," he added, clos- 
 ing the incident. 
 
 When Miss Winter's carriage was announced at a quarter 
 to eleven, Tyars rose and said good night with an un- 
 emotional ease which might equally have marked the be- 
 ginning of an intimacy or the consummation of a formal 
 social debt. 
 
 When Agnes Winter came down-stairs arrayed in a soft 
 diaphanous arrangement of Indian silk he was gone, and 
 the three young people, as they bade each other good 
 night in the hall, were conscious of a feeling of insufficiency. 
 None of the three attempted to define this sensation even 
 to themselves, but it was not mere curiosity not that
 
 Doubts. 67 
 
 vulgar curiosity which attracts all human beings to a 
 drawn curtain. It is worth noticing that Claud Tyars' 
 name was not mentioned again in the house after the 
 front-door had closed behind him. And yet every person 
 who had seen him that evening was thinking of him ; upon 
 them all the impress of his singular individuality had been 
 left. 
 
 "'Ain't wot I'd call a sailor man neither," muttered 
 old Salter, thoughtfully scratching his stubbly chin with a 
 two-shilling piece which happened to be in his hand as he 
 returned to the pantry after closing the front-door. " And 
 yet there's grit in him. Sort o' * bad weather ' man, I'm 
 thinking." 
 
 Oswin's reflections as he undressed and slowly pre- 
 pared for sleep were of a mixed character. He was not 
 quite sure that the visit of his late shipmate had been an 
 entire success. His own personal interest in the man had 
 in no way diminished, but the light of feminine eyes cast 
 upon their friendship had brought that difference which 
 always comes to our male acquaintances when we intro- 
 duce them to our women-folk. 
 
 Claud Tyars in flannel shirt and duck trousers on the 
 deck of the Martial was in Oswin Grace's estimation the 
 personification of all that is manly and brave ; but the 
 same individual in evening dress, treading soft carpets 
 instead of washed-out planks, talking in a smooth voice 
 instead of shouting orders, was quite a different man. He 
 admitted to himself that Tyars seemed to be as much at 
 home in the one place as in the other. And he failed 
 perhaps to see that the reason of this subtle feeling of 
 antagonism was not so deeply hidden after all. It lay in 
 the simple fact that that side of Claud Tyars' character 
 which can only be described as the dominant the uncon- 
 scious but arbitrary influence wielded by him was em-
 
 68 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 inently desirable on the quarter-deck, and distinctly out of 
 place in a drawing-room, presided over by a young lady. 
 Grace knew that his father had been prejudiced against 
 Tyars because he was a merchant sailor and a second 
 mate ; qualifications which are hardly recommendations in 
 a drawing-room. He suspected that Helen was not en- 
 tirely free from this same preconceived opinion, and prob- 
 ably Agnes Winter had been made a partner in the feel- 
 ing. Now prejudice is a hard foe to meet, because the 
 human mind, as we all know, is mighty skilful at twisting 
 facts and fancies into any shape but the right one. A 
 mistaken prejudice has before now lasted the lifetime of 
 its victim we see the work of prejudice around us every 
 day. Oswin Grace was a sufficiently close observer of hu- 
 man nature to know that Claud Tyars had come into his 
 father's house heavily handicapped. He was quite aware 
 that his late companion in peril had, up to seven o'clock 
 that evening, been looked upon by his father, his sister, 
 and Miss Agnes Winter as a person who was not quite a 
 gentleman. The question now was whether the last 
 four hours had made any difference in this opinion ; if so, 
 what difference ? He had intended to surprise his family 
 with the manifest fact that if any Englishman had a right 
 to the vague appellation, Claud Tyars was distinctly en- 
 titled to it. Of the conveyance of this impression Oswin 
 felt confident, but he was now wondering whether they 
 had found out what sort of gentleman he was. It takes a 
 good deal less than four hours to find out whether a person 
 is a gentleman or not. I imagine that it could be done in 
 four minutes, for this is a mere matter of instinct ; but it 
 is quite another task to judge a man from a critical point 
 of view to decide whether one likes him or not. Re- 
 specting his father's impressions Grace was not very anx- 
 ious ; but for some reason which he did not attempt to
 
 Doubts. 69 
 
 define, he was desirous of hearing what Miss Agnes 
 Winter thought of his friend Claud Tyars. He thought 
 that he had detected a peculiar mutual attraction between 
 these two. Tyars addressed his conversation more fre- 
 quently to Miss Winter than to any one else, although he 
 had in his manner recognized Helen as the only sister of his 
 friend. Miss Winter had allowed herself to be interested 
 in his remarks, and had even gone so far as to display 
 warmth in more than one argument in which he came out 
 the best. Oswin Grace had always looked upon Miss 
 Winter as a firm friend. She represented in his eyes all 
 that was perfect and fascinating in womanhood. His sis- 
 ter he looked upon as the incarnation of gentleness and 
 goodness ; for few of us, unfortunately, allow our sisters 
 the credit of being either perfect or fascinating. Although 
 he had never lost sight of the fact that Agnes Winter was 
 his senior by some years, his feelings towards her were 
 more akin to love than to anything else. Their mutual 
 relationship was one of those strange and dangerous anom- 
 alies that mislead men, and have misled them since the 
 days of Plato. It will not be recorded what the world had 
 to say about them, for that has remarkably little to do 
 with the case. The world is pleased to pass off opinions 
 as facts ; and in this case opinion carried no weight, while 
 the only fact of solid worth is that they were close friends. 
 Oswin Grace did not give one the impression that he was 
 suffering under blighted hopes ; he displayed none of those 
 petty jealousies, none of those airs of proprietorship, with 
 which lovers harass the footsteps of the young person 
 they admire. He had noticed this subtle sense of mutual 
 understanding between the two persons whom he con- 
 sidered at that moment to be his dearest friends upon 
 earth, and it is just possible that for the first time in his 
 life he felt a slight pang of jealousy.
 
 7o Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 At all events he realized that Miss Winter's judgment 
 of Claud Tyars was, of the three, the most likely to be 
 free from prejudice. If there was in his heart the slightest 
 feeling of jealousy he was too much of a gentleman, and 
 too loyal, to allow such thoughts to influence his friend- 
 ship for Tyars, whom he honestly considered to be a 
 better man than himself. 
 
 A German writer once made the remark that Prejudice 
 is a more dangerous enemy to Truth than Falsehood ; and 
 it was doubtless in partial knowledge of this fact that Os- 
 win Grace felt himself called upon to defend his friend. 
 Most of us, especially when we were young, have ex- 
 perienced that sense of helpless disappointment which al- 
 most inevitably follows upon the bringing together of two 
 dear friends hitherto unknown to each other. The fact of 
 possessing a mutual friend is not, after all, such a strong 
 and unexceptional tie as one would imagine. Grace was 
 disappointed by the utter want of enthusiasm displayed 
 by his sister and Miss Winter respecting the man whom 
 he admired enthusiastically himself. He had purposely 
 refrained from singing Tyars' praises because he felt con- 
 fident that the man was capable of winning instant ad- 
 miration without assistance. Perhaps he had uncon- 
 sciously allowed this prejudice to grow up against him in 
 his blind admiration for one whom he looked upon as 
 worthy of universal respect. The young sailor was now 
 burdened by unpleasant doubts as to whether Tyars had 
 come through the ordeal with flying colors. He ignored 
 the great difference in the circumstances of his own meet- 
 ing with Tyars and that of his family. 
 
 The peculiar position of making a man's acquaintance 
 by saving his life is one from which a cool and deliberate 
 criticism can hardly be made. From the very first he had 
 felt himself drawn towards the incongruous castaway
 
 Doubts. 71 
 
 whose calm reception of events was calculated to appeal 
 to the heart of every brave man. The friendship had 
 grown from this tiny germ into a strong tree upon which 
 mutual burdens might in years to come be hung. Tyars 
 had come into the Brook Street drawing-room under more 
 ordinary circumstances, and with no flourish of brave 
 trumpets. Altogether the circumstances of the first visit 
 were against him. 
 
 Oswin Grace was still meditating over these things 
 when sleep overtook him ; but he had in the mean time 
 fully made up his mind to see Agnes Winter the next 
 day.
 
 72 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE "ARGO." 
 
 IT was not yet nine o'clock the following morning when 
 Claud Tyars left the door of the quaint old-fashioned hotel 
 where he was staying in the very heart of London. The 
 usually busy streets were still comparatively empty. 
 Washed-out housemaids in washed-out cotton dresses 
 were dusting the front doorsteps of such old-world folks 
 as were content to continue living on the eastern precincts 
 of Tottenham Court Road. 
 
 As the young fellow walked briskly through some quiet 
 streets and finally emerged into Holborn he was smoking 
 a cigarette with evident enjoyment. In his dress there 
 was this morning a slight suggestion of the yachtsman, that 
 is to say, he was clad in blue serge, and his brown face 
 suggested the breezes of ocean. Beyond that there was 
 nothing to seize upon, no clue as to what this powerful 
 young man's calling or profession, tastes or habits, might 
 be. He stopped occasionally to look into the shop-win- 
 dows with the leisurely interest of a man who has an ap- 
 pointment and plenty of time upon his hands. Any one 
 taking the trouble to follow him would have been struck 
 with the singularity of his choice in the matter of shop- 
 windows. He appeared to take an interest in such estab- 
 lishments as a general dealer's warehouse. There is a 
 large grocer's shop on the left-hand side of Holborn, half- 
 way down, and here he stopped for a considerable time,
 
 The "Argo." 73 
 
 studying with great attention a brilliant array of American 
 tinned produce. A tobacconist's was treated with slight 
 heed, while the wares of a large optician appeared to be 
 of absorbing interest. 
 
 Thus he made his placid way eastward. At about nine 
 o'clock he was nearing the General Post-Office, and here 
 he called a hansom cab. Down Cheapside, Cornhill, 
 Gracechurch Street, into Eastcheap, and so on to Tower 
 Hill, the driver guided his evil-tempered horse. The doors 
 of St. Katherine's Dock had been open only a few min- 
 utes when Tyars passed through the building into the 
 London Dock. 
 
 On the quay, under an iron-roofed shed at the head of 
 the dock, a red-faced, red-bearded, clumsy man was walk- 
 ing slowly backwards and forwards with that idle pa- 
 tience which soon becomes second nature in men accus- 
 tomed to waiting for weather and tides. When he per- 
 ceived Tyars he lurched forward to meet him, expecto- 
 rating hurriedly and surreptitiously with the evident de- 
 sire of concealing from one side of his face the proceedings 
 of the other. 
 
 Tyars acknowledged his jerky salutation with a pleasant 
 nod, and they walked away together. This burly son of 
 the north was the man with whom Tyars had exchanged 
 a shake of the hand one evening in a London theater when 
 Miss Winter was seated close by. 
 
 They walked the whole length of the dock, avoiding 
 with an apparent ease, pitfalls in the way of ring-bolts, 
 steam-pipes, and hawsers. At the lower end of the basin, 
 moored to a buoy in mid-dock, lay a strange-looking little 
 steamer. Her chief characteristic was clumsiness clum- 
 siness of hull, clumsiness of spar, and general top-heavi- 
 ness. An initiated eye would account for it at once by 
 the fact that this was one of those rare anomalies in Eng-
 
 74 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 glish waters, a wooden steamer. Her bows were origin- 
 ally very bluff, and being now heavily encased in an outer 
 armor of thick timber the effect was the reverse of pretty. 
 She was rigged like a brig, and her tall, old-fashioned fun- 
 nel, rearing its white form between the masts, suggested 
 an enlarged galley chimney. 
 
 Altogether she was the strangest looking craft in the 
 docks, where many quaint old ships are slowly rotting to 
 this day. The London Dock is a sort of maritime home 
 for incurables. Here are to be found strange construc- 
 tions of oak and teak and pine ; experiments in iron, abor- 
 tions in steel. Commerce has almost left these waters 
 for more convenient quarters lower down the river, and 
 here vessels from all parts of the world, each and every 
 one with its past history clinging to its old-world spars, 
 humming through its hempen rigging here they find a 
 last resting-place on the still and slimy water ; here they 
 rock no more to the roll of ocean, fight no more against 
 adverse winds and foul weather. Their moldering decks 
 know not now the tread of quick bare feet, their bleached 
 ropes hang idle, for the fingers that grasped them are limp 
 and moldering. The grass is peeping up between the 
 stones of the quay, where in days gone by the ever-in- 
 creasing wonders of India oozed odorously between the 
 staves of their clumsy casks. The jaggery is washed out 
 from the crannies in the pavement, the plumbago has 
 vanished from the walls, and through the vast warehouses 
 reigns a solemn silence. 
 
 All things in this home for incurables suffer from the 
 same disease, and one for which there is alike no cure 
 and no mercy in these times. A deadly slowness per- 
 vades them all. It is the leprosy branded on the old sad 
 ships and written on the rusted chains of the old hand- 
 cranes, now utterly and hopelessly superseded by hy-
 
 The "Argo." 75 
 
 draulic power. The grim warehouses with their narrow 
 entrances, their inconvenient passages and awkward 
 doorways, tell the same tale. They lack the power of 
 speed ; when they were built rapidity was not a human 
 virtue. 
 
 In the midst of this Claud Tyars and his uncouth com- 
 panion stood gazing out into the middle of the basin to- 
 wards the ugly steamer. It was said among the dock- 
 laborers and custom-officers that the vessel had been built 
 at Trontheim in Norway for a steam-whaler ; that she 
 had been bought by an Englishman, and was now being 
 leisurely fitted out under the supervision of the red-haired 
 Scotchman who lived on board. Her destination was a pro- 
 found mystery. Some thought that she was to be a whaler, 
 specially fitted for the "north water"; others boldly 
 stated that she was destined to open up commerce with 
 China by the Northeast passage. But it was nobody's 
 business to inquire, and speculation is a form of conver- 
 sation much affected by persons who lounge about the 
 water's edge. The ship's account was regularly paid 
 by a West-end lawyer, and beyond that the Dock Com- 
 pany had no inclination to inquire. 
 
 "I think," said Tyars, critically, as he stood examin- 
 ing the little steamer, "that you have got on splendidly, 
 Peters. She looks almost ready for sea." 
 
 "Ay . . ." responded the red-faced man slowly. 
 
 He was no great conversationalist. With his great 
 head bent forward he stood beside the tall, straight man, 
 and in his attitude and demeanor there was a marked 
 resemblance to a shaggy, good-natured bear. His small 
 green eyes, deeply hidden beneath red-gray brows, 
 twinkled speculatively as he took in every rope and spar. 
 
 " You have got the new foremast up, I see. A good 
 bit of wood? "
 
 76 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 "Fine!" 
 
 He shook his head sadly from side to side at the mere 
 thought of that piece of wood. 
 
 " And the standing-rigging is all up ? " 
 
 "Ay . . ." 
 
 " And the running-rigging ready ? " 
 
 " Ay ; them riggers was fools." 
 
 Tyars smiled in an amused way and said nothing. 
 
 A boat now put off from the strange steamer and came 
 towards them. A small boy standing in the stern of it 
 with his legs apart and his back turned towards them, 
 propelled it rapidly with half an oar. Presently it came 
 alongside some slimy steps near to them, and the two 
 men stepped into it without speaking. There was some- 
 thing hereditary in the awkward manner in which the 
 boy jerked his hand up to his forehead by way of saluta- 
 tion. They all stood up in the boat, the older men sway- 
 ing uncomfortably from side to side at each frantic effort 
 of the boy with the half-oar. 
 
 When they reached the steamer Tyars clambered up 
 the side first, stepping on board with the air of a man 
 well acquainted with every corner of the ship. He looked 
 round him with an unconscious pride of possession, at 
 which a yachtsman would have laughed, for there was 
 no great merit in being the owner of such a ludicrous and 
 strange craft. Peters, the red-faced sailor, followed, and 
 a minute examination of the vessel began. Below, on 
 deck, and up aloft, the two men overhauled together 
 every foot of timber, every bolt and seizing. The taci- 
 turn old fellow followed his employer without vouchsaf- 
 ing a word in praise of his own handiwork. He did not 
 even deign to point out what had been done, but followed 
 with his head bent forward, his knotted fingers clasped 
 behind his back. As it happened there was no need to
 
 The "Argo." 77 
 
 draw attention to such details, for here again Tyars dis- 
 played the unerring powers of his singular memory. No 
 tiny alteration escaped him. There seemed to be in his 
 mind a minute inventory of the ship, for without effort he 
 recalled the exact state of everything at an earlier period, 
 vaguely designated as " before I went away." 
 
 No improvement however small escaped comment, and 
 yet the praise was very moderate. In this matter he 
 might well have allowed himself some license, for the 
 work was almost faultless. It was a marvelous record 
 of steady, untiring industry. From morning till night 
 through many months this ship's carpenter had toiled at 
 his labor of love. Unurged by any master beyond his 
 own conscience, he had worked while daylight lasted, 
 lying down to rest in the floating scene of his labors when 
 the day was done. He had been purposely allowed carte 
 blanche in the matter of materials, and a large limit re- 
 specting time. In this Tyars gave evidence of a deep 
 knowledge of men that instinctive knowledge without 
 which no commander, no leader of his fellows, ever yet 
 made his mark in the world. 
 
 When the inspection was finished the two men walked 
 slowly aft, and standing there beside the high, old-fash- 
 ioned wheel they gazed forward, taking in slowly and 
 deliberately every detail of rigging and deck. 
 
 " I believe," said Tyars at length, "that I have found 
 the man I want my first mate." 
 
 The twinkling green eyes sought the speaker's face 
 unobtrusively. 
 
 " Ay," said the old fellow in a non-committing voice. 
 
 " A royal navy man." 
 
 There was the faintest whistle audible in the stillness 
 of the deserted dock. Tyars looked down at his com- 
 panion, whose gaze was steadily riveted on the foretop-
 
 78 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 gallant mast. The whistle was not repeated, but the 
 straightforward sailor disdained to alter the form of his 
 twisted lips. 
 
 "I had," continued Tyars, calmly, "another very 
 good man cook and steward but he died of yellow 
 fever." 
 
 Peters turned slowly and contemplated his employer's 
 face before answering 
 
 "Ay . . ." 
 
 It was a marvelous monosyllable. In its limited com- 
 pass he managed to convey his knowledge of Tyars' late 
 exploit his entire approval of the same and his regret 
 that the good cook and steward should have been called to 
 another sphere while there was, humanly speaking, still 
 work for him to do here below. 
 
 Then he stood stock-still with his misshapen lips pressed 
 close together. His grizzled mustache and short beard 
 (of which each individual hair seemed to be distorted 
 with a laudable endeavor to outcurl its neighbor) were 
 somewhat discolored by tobacco smoking and the indul- 
 gence of another evil habit connected with consumption 
 of the same weed. Tyars glanced at him, and saw in 
 every curve of his powerful frame, every line of his scar- 
 ified face, a stubborn, ruthless contempt for all wearers 
 of her Majesty's uniform at sea. The old sea-dog had no 
 patience with the drawing-room manners observed (and 
 necessarily observed) on the decks of her Majesty's ships. 
 He was displeased that Tyars should have become ac- 
 quainted with a naval man to whom he thought of en- 
 trusting a post of importance, but true to his stubborn 
 habits of silence he would not speak of it. Tyars knew 
 well enough the thoughts that were passing through the 
 mind of his companion. He ignored however the naval 
 man, and went on to talk of the steward last mentioned.
 
 The "Argo." 79 
 
 "This fellow," he said, "was just the sort of chap I 
 want. Plenty of hard work in him, and always cheerful. 
 Sort of man to die laughing, which in fact he did. The 
 last sound that passed his lips was a laugh." 
 
 Peters nodded his head in a large and comprehensive 
 way. At times he was desperately literal, but there were 
 occasions when he could follow a thought only half ex- 
 pressed. His lips parted, but no sound came from them. 
 In any case I think it would only have been the weighty 
 monosyllable with which this ancient mariner attempted 
 to work off his conversational liabilities. 
 
 As they were standing there, Peters the younger 
 emerged from the small galley amidships, bearing a tin 
 filled with potato-peelings which he proceeded to throw 
 overboard. Seeing this, the proud father eyed his em- 
 ployer keenly, and moved from one sturdy leg to the 
 other. He clasped and unclasped his hands, while his 
 jaw made a slight motion as if to bestow more conveni- 
 ently some object located in the cheek. All these symp- 
 toms denoted a great effort on the part of the ship's car- 
 penter. He was, in fact, about to make a remark. At 
 last he threw up his head boldly. 
 
 " And the lad ? " he said, with some abruptness. 
 
 Tyars looked critically at the youth, momentarily en- 
 gaged in expelling the last few pieces of potato-skin ad- 
 hering to the tin, and made no answer. His face har- 
 dened in some indescribable way, and from the movement 
 of mustache and beard it seemed as if he were biting his 
 lip. 
 
 "There's plenty o' work in him an' he's cheerful," 
 almost pleaded the man. 
 
 Tyars shook his head firmly. Had Miss Winter seen 
 his face then, she would have admitted readily enough 
 that he was a man with a purpose.
 
 8o Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " He is too young, Peters." 
 
 The carpenter shuffled awkwardly to the rail, and hav- 
 ing expectorated viciously, returned with his dogged lips 
 close pressed. 
 
 " Have ye thowt on it ? " he inquired. 
 
 Tyars nodded. 
 
 " I'd give five years o' my life to have the lad wi' us," 
 he muttered. 
 
 " Can't do it, Peters." 
 
 " Then I winna go without him," said Peters, sud- 
 denly. He thrust his hands into his trousers-pockets and 
 stood looking down at his own misshapen boots. 
 
 The faintest shadow of a smile flickered through Tyars' 
 eyes. He turned and looked at his companion. Without 
 the slightest attempt at overbearance he said pleasantly 
 
 "Yes, you will . . . and some day you will thank God 
 that the boy was left behind." 
 
 Peters shrugged his shoulders and made no answer. 
 For the first time in his life he had met a will equal to 
 his own in stubbornness, in purpose. And it was perhaps 
 easier to give in to it because in method it differed so 
 entirely from his own. It is possible that in the mere 
 matter of strength Peters was a mental match for his 
 employer, but Tyars had the inestimable advantage of 
 education. What, after all, is human intercourse but one 
 long struggle for mastery ? Is there any one of us who is 
 not consciously or unconsciously seeking to get the better 
 of his neighbor ? and in this struggle the cultivated in- 
 tellect is bound to win. Neither equality, nor fraternity, 
 nor liberty can stand against education. 
 
 Admiral Grace in taunting Tyars with his Cambridge 
 honors had unwittingly laid his finger upon the weakness of 
 his entire generation. In his time a scientific sailor had 
 been unknown. Tyars belonged to a later class of sea-
 
 The "Argo." 81 
 
 men, as indeed did his friend Oswin Grace, and both 
 men were conscious of their own superiority in seamanship 
 over the sailors of Admiral Grace's day, though they were 
 too wise to betray their knowledge. 
 
 It was this reserve of knowledge which rendered the 
 result of a struggle between the stubborn Scotchman and 
 his employer a foregone conclusion. And as Tyars clam- 
 bered nimbly down the side of the little wooden steamer, 
 the carpenter was vaguely conscious of defeat. 
 
 The little boat was urged to the shore in the usual 
 jerky manner, while the clumsy, red-faced sailor stood 
 watching from the deck. He noted how Tyars was talk- 
 ing to the boy, who laughed at times in a cheery way. 
 
 " Ay," muttered Peters, with a short, almost bitter 
 laugh, "there's some that is born to command." 
 
 As Tyars passed out of one gate of the London and 
 Saint Katharine's Dock, a lady entered the premises by 
 another. They passed each other unconsciously within 
 a few yards. Had either been a moment earlier or a 
 moment later they would have met. 
 
 The imposing gate-keeper touched his hat respectfully 
 to the lady, who was Miss Agnes Winter. 
 6
 
 82 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 IN THE CITY. 
 
 CLAUD TYARS walked through the narrow streets, 
 westwards, without noticeable haste. His gait was 
 neither that of the busy city merchant nor the easy lounge 
 of the sailor out of work. On Tower Hill and in Trinity 
 Square these two classes almost monopolize the pave- 
 ment. He was therefore somewhat remarkable, and 
 more than one sailor turned back to look at the keen-eyed 
 man, who had honored him with such an obvious glance 
 of interest ; for Claud Tyars had a habit of looking at his 
 fellows in the peculiar gauging manner which Miss Grace 
 had detected. 
 
 It was not an offensive habit, but still somewhat notice- 
 able. We have all seen artists look at the sky or the sea 
 or a landscape with a skilled analyzing glance. In like 
 manner the botanist examines growing things, or the 
 jockey his horse. It was in this way that Claud Tyars 
 looked at some men, notably at sailors. Some of them, 
 especially those in search of a ship, almost touched their 
 hats in response. To a certain extent they were justified, 
 because Tyars seemed almost to be seeking some one. 
 
 When he reached the broader streets and fuller thorough- 
 fares of the city proper, his eyes grew more restful. The 
 man or men he sought were evidently innocent of a silk 
 hat. He passed through Eastcheap and up Gracechurch 
 Street, failing to take advantage of certain small passages
 
 In the City. 83 
 
 and time-saving thoroughfares in a manner which be- 
 trayed his ignorance of his whereabouts. He looked about 
 him inquiringly, but made no attempt to ask his way. 
 Presently he seemed to recognize some familiar landmark, 
 for he went on, crossed Cornhill, and proceeded up Bish- 
 opsgate Street. He turned suddenly up a narrow pas- 
 sage on the left-hand side of the street, and pushing open 
 a swing-glass door, climbed a flight of lead-covered steps. 
 On the second floor he stopped before a door bearing on a 
 small brass plate the name, M. M. Easton. Without knock- 
 ing he opened the door, and on his entrance an elderly 
 man rose from his seat at a low table, and after a quick 
 glance lowered his colorless gray eyes, bowing gravely. 
 Tyars returned the salutation with a short nod. 
 
 The elderly man then turned to go into a room beyond 
 the small bare office, and the most casual observer could 
 hardly have failed to notice a singularity in the contrast 
 thus afforded. When he turned his back, this city clerk 
 was no longer elderly. His back was that of a young man. 
 Addressing himself to some unseen person in the inner 
 room, he uttered two words only the name of the Eng- 
 lishman waiting in the outer office without prefix or 
 comment. 
 
 " Come in, Tyars ! " called out a cheerful tenor voice 
 immediately, and the clerk turning, and turning, so to 
 speak, into an old man again, stepped aside to let the 
 visitor pass through the doorway. 
 
 The man who rose to greet Tyars, holding out a thin 
 hand across the table at which he had been seated, was 
 singularly slight. His narrow shoulders sloped at a larger 
 angle from the lines of his sinewy neck than is usually to 
 be found in men of the Anglo-Saxon race. The hand held 
 out was unsteady, very white and long, while the forma- 
 tion of each joint and bone was traceable. The face was
 
 84 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 narrow and extremely small ; at school Matthew Mark 
 Easton had been nicknamed " Monkey " Easton. Despite 
 his youthful appearance, it was some years since he had 
 left school, and indeed men of his year at Harvard were 
 mostly married and elderly while Easton still retained his 
 youth. In addition to this enviable possession there was 
 still noticeable in his appearance that slight resemblance 
 to a monkey by which he had acquired a nickname singu- 
 larly appropriate. It was not only in the small intel- 
 ligent face, the keen anxious eyes and thin lips, that this 
 resemblance made itself discernible, but in quickness of 
 glance and movement, in that refined and nervous tension 
 of habit which is only found in monkeys of all the lower 
 animals. 
 
 By way of greeting, this man whistled two or three 
 bars of "See the Conquering Hero comes," softly through 
 his teeth, and pointed to a chair. 
 
 " Smith/' he said, raising his voice, "you may as well 
 go to the bank now with those checks." 
 
 There came no answer to this suggestion, but presently 
 the door of the outer office closed quietly. 
 
 " I call him Smith," continued Easton, in a thin and 
 pleasant voice spiced by a distinct American accent, which 
 to Anglo-Saxon ears lent humor to observations of an 
 ordinary and non-humorous character, " because his name 
 is Pavloski. There is a good honest English ring in the 
 name of Smith which does not seem so much out of place 
 when he has his hat on as you might imagine. That un- 
 fortunately luxuriant crop of gray hair standing straight 
 up gives him a foreign appearance, which the name of 
 Pavloski would seem to confirm. Besides, it takes such 
 a long time to say Pavloski." 
 
 While he was speaking, Easton's face had remained 
 quite grave and consequently very sad. Such faces as
 
 In the City. 85 
 
 his know no medium, they are either intensely humorous 
 or intensely sad, and in either phase I think they are 
 more fascinating than the majority of human visages. 
 He spoke lightly, and seemed to be giving very little real 
 attention to what he was saying. On the other hand his 
 small brown eyes were singularly restless, they moved 
 from one part of his companion's person to another as if 
 seeking some change which was not visible. 
 
 There was a short silence. Both had much to say, and 
 they appeared to be thinking and searching for a suitable 
 beginning. Easton spoke first. 
 
 "I see," he said, "that you are trim and taut, and 
 ready as usual. The executive keeps up to the mark." 
 
 Although he spoke with businesslike terseness his 
 accents were almost irresponsible, like those of a woman. 
 For most women pass through life without ever incurring 
 a full responsibility. They usually lay half the burden 
 on the shoulders of some man in their proximity. 
 
 " Yes," replied Tyars, " my department is in working 
 order. The ship is getting on well, and I have found my 
 first officer." 
 
 The slight delicate man looked at his companion's large 
 limbs and half suppressed a sigh. His wistful little face 
 contracted into a grave smile, and he nodded his head. 
 
 " I dislike you," he said, in his peculiarly humorous 
 way, " when you talk like that. It seems to imply an 
 evil sense of exultation in your physical superiority, 
 which, after all, is fleeting. You are only dust, you know. 
 But but it is rather poor fun staying at home and pulling 
 strings feebly." 
 
 "It has its advantages," said Tyars, in an uncon- 
 sciously thoughtful tone, which brought the restless eyes 
 to his face at once. "Besides," he added more lightly, 
 " you do not pull feebly. The tugs are pretty strong,
 
 86 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 and the strings you must remember reach a good dis- 
 tance." 
 
 " Ye es ! " Matthew Mark Easton had a singular habit 
 of elongating the little word into several syllables, as if in 
 order to gain time for thought. He would say " y e 
 e s," and fix his eyes on one in a far-off way which was 
 at times rather aggravating. One felt that he was men- 
 tally wondering all the time why one wore such an ugly 
 scarf-pin, or tied one's tie in such a shapeless heap. 
 
 "Ye es ! I suppose it has. But," he said, rousing 
 himself, " I have not been idle. That is to say, Smith 
 Pavloski Smith, you know ! He has been working ter- 
 rifically hard. Poor devil ! His wife is out there at 
 Kara." 
 
 " Yes I know. You told me," interrupted Tyars, and 
 his manner unconsciously implied that a fact once im- 
 parted to him was never forgotten. " Has he heard 
 from, or of, her yet? " 
 
 " No ; not for two years ! He believes she is alive still, 
 and a report came from Riga that she has been sent to 
 Kara." 
 
 The Englishman listened without comment. His strong 
 bearded face was not pleasant to look upon just then, for 
 the massive jaw was thrust forward, and there was a 
 peculiar dull glow in his placid eyes. 
 
 " There was a child, you know," continued the Ameri- 
 can, watching the effect of his words, "to be born in 
 prison in a Siberian prison, where the attendants are the 
 riff-raff of the Russian army more brutes than men. 
 That would probably be a year ago." 
 
 He paused, his thin voice lowering towards the end of 
 the sentence in a way that rendered his American accent 
 singularly impressive in its simple narrative. 
 
 " I wonder," he continued, " what has become of that
 
 In the City. 87 
 
 refined lady and that helpless infant now. It brings the 
 thing before one, Tyars, in rather a bright light, to think 
 that that man Sm Pavloski, who comes here at half-past 
 nine every morning, goes out to lunch in a small eating- 
 house next door, and goes home to his Pentonville lodging 
 at five o'clock that that man has a wife in a Siberian 
 prison. A wife a woman whom he has lived with every 
 day day after day ; whose every tone, every little ges- 
 ture, every thought, is familiar to him. I surmise that it 
 must be worse than being in a Siberian prison oneself ! " 
 
 It is easy to set down the words, but to render the slight 
 twang, the wonderful power of expressing pathos that lay 
 hidden in this man's tongue, is a task beyond any pen. 
 In most voices there lies a speciality. No one can go to 
 a theater, upon the stage of which a language comprehen- 
 sible to him is spoken, without hearing this. Some there 
 are possessing a peculiar ring which tells of passion, others 
 a light tone which is full of natural humor. Each may 
 play through his part indifferently until a few lines come 
 which enable him to show his speciality, and after that, 
 until the fall of the curtain, he seems a different man. 
 He has proved his right to be upon the stage. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton probably knew the powers of his 
 own voice. His quick eyes could not fail to see it written 
 upon the immovable features of the big cold-blooded Eng- 
 lishman opposite to him. Doubtless this was by no 
 means the first time that ordinary every-day words had 
 gained something from his enunciation of them. Doubt- 
 less Claud Tyars was not the first strong man that this 
 small American had fascinated and turned according to 
 his own caprice. 
 
 " I suppose," he continued, in his slow, thoughtful way, 
 "that most of us outsiders, English, Americans, and 
 Frenchmen, are in the habit of laughing a little at these
 
 88 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 fellows these so-called Nihilists, Terrorists, Propagan- 
 dists. We think them too high-flown, too dramatic, too 
 mysterious. But lately I have begun to suspect that 
 there is a good deal of realism in it all. Smith why, 
 
 d n it, man Smith is painfully real. There is no 
 
 humbug about Smith. And most of them all the men 
 and women I have had to deal with are in the same boat 
 as he." 
 
 Tyars stopped him with a quick gesture of the head, as 
 if to intimate that all this was no news to him. 
 
 " Why," he asked curtly, " are you showering all this 
 upon me ? Do you think that I am the sort of fellow to 
 turn back ? " 
 
 Easton laughed nervously. 
 
 " Oh no ! " he answered, in an altered tone. Then he 
 turned in his chair, and unlocking a drawer in the pedes- 
 tal of his writing-table, he drew forth several leather-bound 
 books, which he set upon the table in front of him. " Oh 
 no!" he said, turning the pages. "Only you seemed 
 to be of opinion just now that the pastime of staying at 
 home and pulling strings had its advantages." 
 
 " So it has," was the cool reply ; " but that in no way 
 alters the case as far as I am concerned." 
 
 " Then I apologize," said Easton, raising his eyes with- 
 out moving his head; "I thought . . . perhaps well, 
 never mind ! " 
 
 " What did you think ? " 
 
 " I had a sort of notion that some other interest had 
 sprung up that you were getting sick of all this long 
 preparation." 
 
 " And wished to back out ? " suggested Tyars, in his 
 high-bred indifference. 
 
 As he spoke he looked up, and their eyes met. A 
 strong contrast these two pairs of eyes. The one, large,
 
 In the City. 89 
 
 placid, intensely English ; the other quick, keen, and rest- 
 less. Although Easton's gaze did not lower or flinch, his 
 eyes were not still ; they seemed to search from corner 
 to corner of the large glance that met his own. 
 
 " I am afraid," he said, ignoring the question, "that I 
 am getting a trifle skeptical. I have had more than one 
 disappointment. Our doctor Philippi, you know has 
 been appointed sanitary inspector to the town of Lille, or 
 something equally exciting. He has intimated that while 
 fully sympathizing with our noble scheme, he can only 
 help us now with his purse and his prayers. I do not 
 know much about his purse, but the practical value of his 
 prayers will, I suspect, be small. I do not imagine that 
 his devotions offered up at his bedside in Lille will assist 
 you materially to steer through the ice on a dark night in 
 the sea of Kara." 
 
 Tyars did not take up the question of the efficacy of 
 prayer in this case or in general. As has been intimated, 
 he was one of those Englishmen who, in their cultivation 
 of the virtue of independence, almost reduce it to a vice. 
 Upon most matters and most questions he held decided 
 views, which, however, he felt in no way moved to im- 
 part to others. He was utterly without kith or kin in the 
 world, a fact of which the recognition greatly influenced 
 his whole life, and being a lone man he was one of those 
 who never see the necessity of opening his soul to others. 
 
 " It comes, no doubt," he said, half apologizing for the 
 French doctor's treachery, "from his failure to realize 
 the whole thing. The nation took up the question of the 
 slave-trade without a moment's hesitation, and that was 
 one upon which there were undoubtedly arguments upon 
 both sides, of equal weight. We are not sure now that 
 the comparatively small proportion of the human race vic- 
 timized .by the slave-trade has really benefited (at least
 
 9o Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 so a man connected with its suppression has told me) by 
 the action of England. Upon this question there can be 
 no doubt whatever. The state of Russia and her system 
 of government is a disgrace to the whole world yet the 
 whole world closes its eyes to the fact. The Siberian 
 exiles, in my estimation, call for more sympathy than 
 those thick-skinned, dense-brained niggers." 
 
 Easton said nothing. His father had been a slave- 
 owner, but the fact was unknown to Tyars, and he did 
 not think it necessary to mention it. In America a man 
 stands upon his own legs. Ancestral glory is of much less 
 importance than in the old country, and consequently the 
 possession of forefathers is a blessing held cheap. In 
 this matter Easton had no reason to fear investigation, for 
 his family was of ancient standing in the South, but he 
 never mentioned his forefathers, immediate or remote, be- 
 cause the subject had in his eyes no importance. He was 
 an American, and followed the custom of his country. 
 Had the slave-trade never been suppressed Matthew Mark 
 Easton would have been one of the richest men in Amer- 
 ica. As it was, he sat daily in this little office in the city 
 of London conducting to all outward appearance a small 
 and struggling commission agent's business. It was some- 
 what characteristic of the man and his country that Claud 
 Tyars should be allowed to remain in ignorance of these 
 matters. 
 
 Easton now turned to the leather-bound books, and the 
 two men sat far into the day discussing questions strictly 
 technical and strictly confined to the fitting out of the 
 small vessel lying in the London Dock, for an expedition 
 to the Arctic Seas. Even in the discussion of these de- 
 tails each man retained his characteristic manner of treat- 
 ing outward things. Easton was irresponsible, gay and 
 light, while beneath the airy touch there lurked a truer,
 
 In the City. 91 
 
 firmer grasp of detail than is possessed by the majority of 
 men. His queer little face was never quite grave, even 
 while speaking of the most serious matters. His manner 
 was, throughout, suggestive of the forced attention of a 
 schoolboy, ready to be led aside at the slightest interrup- 
 tion, while the relation of hard facts and the detailing of 
 long statistics ran from his glib tongue without the least 
 sign of effort. 
 
 Claud Tyars listened for the most part, but here and 
 there he put in a suggestion or recalled a fact in a quiet 
 skilful way, which betrayed a mind singularly capable of 
 grasping and retaining details in such widespread variety 
 that greater things could hardly fail to be influenced by 
 such a mass of stored-up knowledge. Without formulat- 
 ing any theory, this man seemed to take human life more 
 as a huge conglomeration of details than a comprehensible 
 whole. There can be little doubt that such men are riptit 
 
 o 
 
 in their estimate of human existence, for it is these and 
 such as these who make a mark upon the historical records 
 of the world. The ladder of fame has crumbled centuries 
 ago. To that high bourn there is no ladder now, but 
 those who wish to climb there will find beneath their feet 
 a huge misshapen rubbish-heap. This heap is the accu- 
 mulation of centuries. Generation after generation has 
 shot its rubbish there, and for us of later days there is 
 nothing left but a hook and basket with which to rummage 
 and dig for good things hidden beneath the mass of gar- 
 bage wherewith to build a base to work upon.
 
 92 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 SEVEN MEN. 
 
 MORE conspiracies have failed from impecuniosity than 
 from treachery. If a man have money in sufficient 
 quantity, secrecy is easily purchased. Even if he have 
 enough to buy a respectable coat he is already on the high- 
 road to success. If the conspirators assemble in swallow- 
 tail coats and white ties they are almost free from danger. 
 Suspicion fixes herself upon the impecunious, the unfor- 
 tunate, the low in station. She haunts the area-steps and 
 flies at the luxurious sound of carriage wheels. She never 
 enters the front-door, but if she wishes to reach the upper 
 floors, creepeth up the back stairs. Under the respectable 
 shade of a silk hat, gloved and washed, any of us may 
 trespass where he with but a shabby coat and forlorn 
 boots will call down ignominy on his head. Well dressed 
 we may steal horses, shabbily clad we must not even look 
 over walls. 
 
 There was in the temperament of Matthew Mark Easton 
 that small seed of aggressive courage which makes con- 
 spirators, agitators, and rebels of sensible men. He pos- 
 sessed all the non-conservative energy of his countrymen, 
 with more than their usual thoughtfulness. Although he 
 had at different periods of his life studied more than one 
 grave social question, he had not yet learnt to recognize 
 that the solution of all such is not in the hands of individ- 
 uals or even nations. The seed must indeed be sown
 
 Seven Men. 93 
 
 by individuals, but its growth, its welfare or fall is beyond 
 the influence of man. 
 
 During the record that follows, of a great scheme con- 
 ceived six years ago, it may be patent to the understand- 
 ing of many that Matthew Mark Easton was not the man 
 for the position in which he found himself placed ; that 
 he was in fact a very round peg in a geometrically square 
 hole. But do we not see such pegs in such holes all 
 around us ? Are we not, most of us, in positions for 
 which we are unsuited ? Have not the majority of us at 
 times a conviction that we are fit for something better ? 
 Who has not traveled in a first-class carriage with five 
 prime ministers ? What sailor has not hauled on the 
 slack of the weather-brace behind nine ship-captains ? 
 
 Had Easton been told that he was destined to play an 
 important part in a great conspiracy, he would have laughed 
 his informant to scorn, and in this he would have been no 
 better or worse than the majority of us. He was not by 
 any means conspicuously possessed of organizing powers, 
 but was merely a clear-headed, cool American, with a fair 
 sense of enjoyment, and a good capacity for looking on 
 the brighter side of things before the world if not in his 
 inmost heart. A thin, slightly-built man with hollow 
 cheeks is never an optimist, but he may incline to the 
 brighter side while contemplating life with considerable 
 discrimination. 
 
 Under the influence of such men as Claud Tyars and 
 Pavloski, he was capable of developing great energy, and 
 there is little doubt that these two, unconsciously working 
 together, forced the American to assume a gradually in- 
 creasing weight of responsibility, to the dimensions of 
 which he remained partially ignorant. 
 
 In persuading Tyars to espouse a cause of which the 
 particulars will be hereafter narrated, Easton had, some
 
 94 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 years previously, unwittingly cast his own lot with that 
 cause to a greater and fuller extent than his easy-going 
 nature would ever knowingly have allowed. He had set 
 the torch to a brand of which the flames soon enveloped 
 him. Meeting Tyars at an international aquatic competi- 
 tion, a friendship had sprung up between them, both being 
 lonely men with no sisters or cousins to admire their 
 prowess. Keen searchers into human motives might be 
 inclined to aver that the fact of their being by no means 
 rivals had something to do with the formation of this sud- 
 den friendship between two reserved men. Tyars was 
 entered to row in the competition, while Easton had 
 brought his sailing canoe. 
 
 It is just possible that Easton was to some extent carried 
 nway by his own peculiar eloquence, which lay as much 
 in intonation as in words. For no man can speak earnestly 
 without feeling what he speaks. This is not the first 
 time, I deem it, that a man of action has been roused by a 
 man of words, and in his action has carried the talker off 
 his feet. 
 
 These slight retrogressive explanations will serve per- 
 haps to make clear the position of Matthew Mark Easton 
 with regard to Claud Tyars in the events that follow. To 
 some extent the outcome of these past incidents was a 
 dinner-party given by the American one November even- 
 ing, six years ago, in his spacious rooms on the first floor 
 of No. 176 Gordon Street, Russell Square. Of those 
 assembled some are living to this day, but others though 
 young in years are now dead, leaving to the survivors 
 the memory of a brave example, the unanswered question 
 of a useless life, livea and lost without apparent benefit to 
 any concerned. 
 
 There was nothing singular or remarkable about the 
 fare provided. It was in fact supplied "all hot" by a
 
 Seven Men. 95 
 
 neighboring confectioner ; but the guests formed as unique 
 a collection of feasters as could well be found even in the 
 metropolis of England. 
 
 Among the first to arrive was Smith " P. Smith," as 
 Easton playfully called him. The old young clerk of the 
 little office in the city, Pavloski Smith, was dressed in 
 irreproachable swallow-tail coat and white tie. His shirt- 
 studs, however, were larger than usually worn in the 
 best circles, and the precious stone of which they were 
 formed was amethyst, which in some degree stamped him 
 as a foreigner who had not lived long in England. 
 
 He shook hands with Easton, bowing his gray head in 
 a peculiar jerky manner, as if they had not parted at the 
 office two hours before. They were on different terms 
 here ; one could see that at once. 
 
 After him came at intervals three men ; the first elderly 
 and stout, the other two younger ; but all alike had that 
 peculiar repose of manner which was especially noticeable 
 in the man called Pavloski. They were evidently for- 
 eigners, these men, but it was not easy to say whether 
 they were of one nationality. They spoke English re- 
 markably well, and made few mistakes in grammar. The 
 linguistic fault possessed by all alike was a certain labial 
 effort, which savored neither of the heavy deliberation 
 of the German, nor of the carelessness of the Gaul. 
 Their tongues and lips seemed always to be on the tra- 
 peze, and a series of tours deforce was the result. Their 
 English was too colloquial in contrast to their accent and 
 tone of voice. 
 
 Easton received them with a few words of wel- 
 come. 
 
 " Tyars," he said to each in turn, " has found a gentle- 
 man who will serve as first officer. He brings him to- 
 night."
 
 96 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 "Is," inquired the stout man, who was of a somewhat 
 ceremonious habit, " is Mr. Tyars well ? " 
 
 " Quite well, thanks; at least I surmise so," was the 
 answer. 
 
 The two younger men heard the news without comment. 
 
 Without awaiting an invitation, Pavloski drew a chair 
 forward to the hearthrug and sat directly in front of the 
 fire, holding his two hands out towards the warmth. In 
 this position it became evident that he was a contemporary 
 of the two younger men, who presently moved towards 
 the fire, and stood talking together in their peculiar Eng- 
 lish, while Easton and the stout gentleman exchanged 
 meaningless platitudes. 
 
 The three younger men had thus grouped themselves 
 together, and when placed in proximity there was some 
 subtle point of resemblance between them which could 
 not at first sight be defined. It lay only in the eyes, for 
 in build and complexion there was no striking likeness. 
 Each of these three men had a singularly slow glance. 
 They raised their eyes to one's face rather after the man- 
 ner of a whipped dog, and when looking up there was 
 noticeable a droop of the lower lid which left a space of 
 white below the pupil of the eye. It may be seen in 
 men and women who have passed through great hardship 
 or an unspeakable sorrow. Such eyes as these speak for 
 themselves. One can tell at once that they have at one 
 time or other looked upon something very unpleasant. 
 
 It was not yet seven o'clock, but Easton appeared in 
 no way surprised or disconcerted at the early arrival of 
 his guests. He was apparently acquainted with the 
 etiquette of the nation to which they belonged. Presently 
 a servant entered the room bearing a tray upon which 
 were bottles containing liqueurs, and a few small plates 
 of biscuits. This was set down upon a side-table and
 
 Seven Men. 97 
 
 each guest in turn helped himself without invitation. 
 They did this quite naturally. In Russia hospitality is 
 differently understood and dispensed. 
 
 While this preliminary course was under discussion, 
 the door was thrown open, and Tyars entered the room, 
 closely followed by Oswin Grace. 
 
 Strange to say an introduction was necessary between 
 Grace and the American. Guest and host met for the 
 first time. Then followed a general introduction, and it 
 is worthy of note that the three younger foreigners in- 
 stantly grouped themselves round the young officer. 
 Their taciturnity was at once laid aside, and they chatted 
 cheerfully and intelligently with the stranger until dinner 
 was announced. 
 
 There were thus seven partakers of the good things 
 provided by a neighboring confectioner four Russians, 
 two Englishmen, and an American. There had been no 
 secrecy about their coming; no mysterious taps at the 
 door, no strange-sounding passwords. Moreover, the 
 conversation was of a simple, straightforward nature, 
 without dramatic relief in the way of ambiguous and ir- 
 relevant remarks respecting the length of some allegorical 
 night and the approach of a symbolic dawn. Some astute 
 reader has no doubt been on the alert for pages back, look- 
 ing for these inevitable signs of a Nihilistic novel. But 
 this is no such novel, and these seven gentlemen were 
 not Nihilists. If the motive that brought them together 
 had nothing in common with the maintenance of law, the 
 fault lay in the utter futility of the law, and not in their 
 desire to frustrate it. 
 
 It has already been noted that Oswin Grace had not 
 
 previously made the acquaintance of Easton, his host on 
 
 this occasion, and the additional statement is worthy of 
 
 attention that Claud Tyars had in no way influenced the 
 
 7
 
 98 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 young sailor. He had merely handed him the formal in- 
 vitation, adding that the dinner was an excuse for calling 
 together a certain number of men for the purpose of lay- 
 ing before them the details of a great scheme. He further 
 represented that an acceptance of the invitation was in no 
 way binding as to future movements, and in no degree 
 a committal to enter into the scheme propounded. 
 
 Upon this footing Oswin Grace accepted the invitation. 
 It may appear that he was inveigled into a wild scheme 
 by foul means, but to this construction both Easton and 
 Tyars were deliberately blind. Claud Tyars had settled 
 in his own mind that the naval officer was a fit and good 
 man for his purpose, and that appeared to be sufficient 
 salve for his own conscience. A man who is fully ab- 
 sorbed in some great plan and throws himself wholly and 
 entirely into it, must be held free from blame if he drag 
 others with him. Failure comes to some, of course, and 
 we often know not why ; but most of us have perforce to 
 shut our eyes to the possibility of its advent all through 
 life. The fear of responsibility is the greatest drag upon 
 human ambition that exists, and those men who suffer 
 from it never make a forward step in the world, never 
 rise above the dense level of mediocrity, never leave the 
 ranks of those human cattle who are content to be dumb 
 and driven all their lives. 
 
 Call these seven men conspirators if you will. Denom- 
 inate their meeting a conspiracy ! I can only repeat 
 that they came in dress clothes, drove up to the door in 
 hansom cabs, and met openly. 
 
 After dinner, when cigarettes had been produced, Eas- 
 ton at last condescended to explanation. Chairs had 
 been drawn round the fire ; the cigarette-box stood upon 
 the mantelpiece, wine-glasses and decanters on the table 
 behind. While he spoke, the American kept his eyes
 
 Seven Men. 99 
 
 fixed upon the fire. He smoked several cigarettes during 
 the course of his remarks, and at times he moved his 
 limbs nervously, after the manner of one who is more 
 highly strung than muscular. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, in his peculiar slow drawl, and 
 an immediate silence followed. " Gentlemen, I asked 
 you to come here to-night for a special purpose, and not 
 from the warmth of my own heart." He paused, and 
 his six listeners continued smoking in a contemplative 
 way which promised little interruption. "What I am 
 going to tell you cannot be quite new to some, while to 
 others I surmise that it will be very new. I won't apolo- 
 gize for talking about myself, because it is a thing I 
 always do. 
 
 " There is a country in the map called the Dark Con- 
 tinent, but during the last few years it has come under 
 my notice that Africa is as light as the heavenly paths 
 compared to another land nearer to this old country. I 
 mean Siberia. Now, I am not going to talk about Siberia, 
 because there are four men in this room who know more 
 than I do. In fact they know too much, and it would not 
 be a gentlemanly action to try and touch the feelings of 
 some to the discomfort of others. Before I go on I will 
 explain for a spell who we all are. Four of us are Rus- 
 sians. Of these four, one has a wife living in the Siber- 
 ian mines, condemned by mistake ; a second has a father 
 living in a convict prison, almost on the edge of an Arctic 
 sea ; a third has been there himself. These three under- 
 take what may be called the desperate part of our scheme. 
 The fourth Russian is a gentleman who has the doubtful 
 privilege of being allowed to live in Petersburg. His task 
 is difficult and dangerous, but not desperate. Two of us 
 are Englishmen one has given up the ease and luxury 
 of the life of a monied British sportsman ; has, in fact,
 
 ioo Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 become a sailor for the deliberate purpose of placing his 
 skill at our disposal. In addition to that he has opened 
 his purse in a thoughtless and generous way which is not 
 to be met with in my own country. Why he has done 
 these things I cannot say. In Mr. Tyars' position I cer- 
 tainly should not have done so myself. His is the only 
 name I mention, because I have seen portraits of him in 
 the illustrated papers, and there is no disguising who he 
 is. The rest of us have names entirely unknown, or 
 known only to the wrong people. Some of the Russian 
 names, besides possessing this unfortunate notoriety, are 
 quite beyond my powers to pronounce. The second 
 Englishman is a naval officer who, having shared con- 
 siderable danger with Mr. Tyars on one occasion, may or 
 may not think fit to throw in his lot with him again. His 
 decision, while being a matter of great interest to us, lies 
 entirely in his own hands. He is as free when he leaves 
 this room as when he entered it. Lastly comes my- 
 self" 
 
 The little face was very wistful while the thin lips 
 moved and changed incessantly from gaiety to a great 
 gravity. The man's hollow cheeks were singularly 
 flushed in a patchy, unnatural way. 
 
 "I," he continued, with a little laugh, " I, well I am 
 afraid I stay at home. I have here a doctor's certificate 
 showing that I would be utterly useless in any but a tem- 
 perate climate. I am consumptive." 
 
 He produced a paper from his pocket and held it in his 
 hand upon his knee, not daring to offer it to any one in 
 particular. There was a painful silence. No one reached 
 out his hand for the certificate, and no one seemed to be 
 able to think of something to say. 
 
 At last the stout gentleman rose from his chair with a 
 grunt.
 
 Seven Men. 101 
 
 " I too stay at home, gentlemen," he said, breathlessly, 
 "and I have no certificate." 
 
 He crossed the hearthrug, and taking the paper from 
 Easton's hand he deliberately threw it into the fire. 
 
 "There," he grunted; "the devil take your certifi- 
 cate." 
 
 Then he sat down again, adjusting his large waistcoat > 
 which had become somewhat rucked up, and attempted 
 to smooth his crumpled shirt, while the paper burnt slowly 
 on the glowing coals. 
 
 " I only wished," said Easton, after a pause, "to ex- 
 plain why I stay at home. It is no good sending second- 
 rate men out to work like this." 
 
 He paused and looked round. There was something 
 critical in the atmosphere of the room, and all the seven 
 men assembled looked at each other in turn. Long and 
 searchingly each looked into the other's face. If Easton 
 had set down the rule that second-rate men were of no 
 avail, he had certainly held closely to it. These were at 
 all events first-rate men. Not talkers, but actors ; no 
 blusterers, but full of courage ; determined, ready, and 
 fearless. The slight barrier raised by the speaking of a 
 different tongue, the thinking of different thoughts, seemed 
 to have crumbled away, and they were as brothers. 
 
 There was no seeking after dramatic effect, no oath of 
 affiliation. All was conducted with reserve and calm- 
 ness. All things spoken were said simply. They sat 
 there in their immaculate evening dress, smoking their 
 dainty cigarettes, sipping their wine as dangerous a 
 group of men as a tyrant ever had to fear. 
 
 " Our plans," said Easton, " are simple. We fit out a 
 ship to sail in the spring, ostensibly to attempt the North- 
 east passage to China. Her real object will be the rescue 
 of a large number of Russian political exiles and prisoners.
 
 IO2 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 The three younger Russians go to Siberia overland. 
 Theirs is the most dangerous task of all, the largest, the 
 most important. The fourth remains in Petersburg to 
 keep up communication, to forward money, food, disguises, 
 and arms. Mr. Tyars takes command of the steamer, 
 which is now almost ready for sea, and forces his way 
 through the ice God willing to the Yana river." 
 
 Easton stopped speaking. He rose and helped himself 
 to a fresh cigarette. As he returned to his seat he glanced 
 inquiringly towards Oswin Grace, whose eyes had fol- 
 lowed him. 
 
 Grace removed the cigarette from his lips. 
 
 " Of course, gentlemen," he said, glancing comprehen- 
 sively round the group, " I go with Mr. Tyars." 
 
 " Thanks ! " muttered Claud Tyars shortly.
 
 Misgivings. 103 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 MISGIVINGS. 
 
 " OSWIN," said Helen Grace in her gently convincing 
 way, " has changed." 
 
 Miss Agnes Winter, to whom this remark was ad- 
 dressed, appeared somewhat inclined towards contradic- 
 tion, but failed to carry her impulse into practise. 
 
 The two ladies were seated in a comfortable drawing- 
 room not far from Brook Street; the drawing-room of 
 Miss Winter, who had not yet decided upon giving up the 
 house in which her father had so recently died. At least 
 she said that she had not yet decided, a statement which 
 her more intimate friends were pleased to receive with 
 caution. She was not the sort of person, you must under- 
 stand, to hover long between two opinions ; and when she 
 said that her future movements were not yet decided, her 
 keener-sighted friends knew that she was in reality desirous 
 of withholding her decision from public comment. Although 
 no longer a girl, she was hardly yet of an age to keep a 
 house of her own and live without an older companion. 
 She was too beautiful for that, perhaps, for beautiful 
 women cannot be so independent as their plainer sisters. 
 All distinctions carry with them their own responsibilities ,* 
 of these, the chief are beauty and riches. Far above 
 genius, or purity, or goodness, or mere harmlessness are 
 these two possessions in human eyes. Therefore the 
 beautiful and the rich should be very careful. The old
 
 104 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 proverb which says that noblesse oblige is now extinct ; its 
 place taken by the tacitly acknowledged truism that 
 richesse oblige. 
 
 Miss Winter did not reply at all. She read her com- 
 panion's statement less as an implied question than as a 
 text to a train of thought. Into thought she now there- 
 fore lapsed, her clever eyes half closed, her graceful, 
 rounded form reclining very comfortably in a low chair. 
 
 " Agnes," said Helen Grace again, with some sharp- 
 ness, " I think Oswin has changed." 
 
 " Do you, my dear ? " 
 
 Each of us is, of course, a hammer or an anvil, and 
 in friendships, in mutual work or common sport, in love and 
 in marriage, each seeks out the other. There is always 
 one who talks and one who listens, one who gives confi- 
 dences and one who receives. A Frenchman has said that 
 there is always one who loves and one who submits to 
 love, but I will not go so far as that. We understand the 
 little word differently on this side of the Channel. There 
 are some people who go through the world sowing the 
 seeds of sympathy on all sides, gaining the love of their 
 fellows, earning the hatred perhaps of others, without lift- 
 ing the veil of their individuality. Sometimes this exclu- 
 siveness is unconscious ; sometimes, and more often with 
 men, it is a mere habit resulting from expediency. Miss 
 Agnes Winter was, in a sense, one of these persons. 
 Dearly as she loved her young friend, her love did not 
 take the form of many confidences, merely because she 
 was strong enough to bear her joys and sorrows unaided. 
 
 "Yes," continued Helen idly turning the pages of an 
 illustrated paper that lay on the table near her. " He is 
 different towards us all more especially, perhaps, towards 
 you." 
 
 Miss Winter's smooth cheeks changed color slightly.
 
 Misgivings. 105 
 
 She raised her eyes and looked at her companion, until 
 she in turn looked up and their glances met. 
 
 " Do you not think so ? " inquired Helen, quite na- 
 turally. 
 
 " No I think not ; I have not noticed it. We have al- 
 ways been very good friends, you know. We are good 
 friends still. There cannot well be much difference. 
 People at our age do not drop old friendships or make new 
 ones so suddenly as that." 
 
 Helen returned to her illustrated paper. 
 
 " I think, you know," she hazarded lightly, " that 
 Oswin is not very strong. I mean ... he is rather im- 
 pressionable ; rather apt to be carried away by an im- 
 pulse conceived on the spur of the moment." 
 
 The sun was shining in through one of the tall windows, 
 in a yellow autumnal way directly on to the fire, and 
 Miss Winter rose to lower the blind. Then she went to 
 the fire, and spent a few moments with the hearth- 
 brush. 
 
 " Oswin is not weak," she said ; " you are wrong there. 
 As men and women go, he is strong. But Claud Tyars 
 is stronger. Mr. Tyars is very strong, Helen. He is 
 one of those men who almost invariably influence all the 
 lives that come in contact with their own. They are the 
 leaven of humanity." 
 
 " Then you like him ? " 
 
 Miss Winter shrugged her shoulders in a manner indi- 
 cating that her life, at all events, was out of Tyars' influ- 
 ence. 
 
 " I like men to be strong morally. Great physical 
 strength generally finds itself accompanied by density. 
 
 Then Claud Tyars was allowed to drop. His character 
 was not further discussed, although both women thought 
 of him again ; Helen because of his undoubted influence
 
 io6 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 over her brother ; Miss Winter because, as she had said, 
 she liked men to be strong. 
 
 The fact was that neither came near to the comprehen- 
 sion of his nature. Neither had hitherto met a man en- 
 tirely absorbed in one idea, shaping his life daily and 
 hourly towards the accomplishment of one ambition. 
 Indeed, few of us have met such men. They are rare, 
 and consequently dilettantism sometimes makes a name. 
 Jack-of-all-trades are occasionally looked upon as masters 
 of one, because there are so few of us ready to put our 
 hands to the plow and look continuously forward. We 
 seek to manipulate the pen and the plow-handle, the 
 brush and the sword ; and amidst many small ambitions no 
 great one can thrive. Of course there are many Don Quix- 
 otes in the world, but even in our Quixotism we are wax- 
 ing insincere. Better be Quixote than Panza ! Better 
 have one aim, even if it be a foolish one, and strive man- 
 fully to reach it, than many that are not worth attaining. 
 
 I do not maintain that Claud Tyars was a man to be ad- 
 mired. I do not set him up as a hero. In the pages that 
 follow, his doings and his words are recorded more mi- 
 nutely than the doings and words of those brought into con- 
 tact with him, but it is not because he is deemed more 
 worthy of notice, not because he is intended as an exam- 
 ple to others. The reason of it is merely that he is 
 more interesting that to some extent his individuality 
 occupied a center place in the stage upon which one more 
 act was played of the great drama slowly working itself 
 out in the Muscovite world a drama of which few of us 
 will live to see the final act. I confess that I would fain 
 do so. I would wish to be here when the great crash 
 comes. There are certain decades of the world's history 
 during which it must have been exciting even to have 
 existed. When Julius Cassar was in power, when Col-
 
 Misgivings. 107 
 
 umbus discovered a new world, or even the first decade 
 of the present century, when the marvelous Napoleon 
 seemed to be on the verge of binding up the history of 
 Europe in one volume. And in looking into the future, 
 any man knowing aught of the vast country of Russia 
 cannot fail to be impressed with the sure conviction that 
 in Eastern Europe some great change must supervene. 
 Something must happen soon. Things cannot go on as 
 they are going at present. It is impossible to govern a 
 country throughout the twentieth century with the cruel 
 machinery of the seventeenth. A tyrannical government 
 may stem the flow of literary knowledge, may persecute 
 newspapers, banish enlightened men and women, and 
 crush the seeds of learning ; but there is one progress 
 which it cannot stem, and that is the progress of the hu- 
 man mind. The little grains of knowledge are bound to 
 fall year by year, day by day ; they float in the atmos- 
 phere like the seeds of the earth, and find a resting-place 
 ultimately. It may only be with years ; generations may 
 only gather a little as they pass away, but the grains 
 will pile up in time, and knowledge will at last have 
 weight and a specific gravity of her own. For what is 
 knowledge but a deduction drawn here, an observation 
 made there, a chance discovery, or a mere coincident ? 
 And we go on from day to day drawing these deductions, 
 making those discoveries, unconsciously storing up knowl- 
 edge. While life lasts the mind must progress ; while 
 generations pass away they leave a little of their experi- 
 ence behind. 
 
 No one can tell when the great crash will come. Claud 
 Tyars at this time thought it very near, and in this opin- 
 ion he was not alone. But that was five years ago. At 
 that time there were in Russia signs enough to justify the 
 common prediction of a change impending. Five years
 
 io8 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 have gone, and with them many good workers, but the 
 crisis is still delayed. Indeed, it seems farther off than 
 ever. 
 
 Despite this period of rapid progress, the internal affairs 
 of the Russian Empire excited at that time no greater in- 
 terest in England than they do to-day. There were then, 
 as there are to-day, a few persons who watched events 
 from afar, but the majority was as ignorant of Russia] as 
 of Corinth. 
 
 These two English ladies were slowly becoming con- 
 scious of an influence in their surroundings. There was 
 a sense of purpose in the air. Since his sudden return 
 home Oswin Grace had been constantly with his new- 
 found friend. No explanation had been vouchsafed. 
 Their mutual interest or occupation, or whatever it might 
 be, had never been fully identified, although it was under- 
 stood to be connected with maritime matters, presumably 
 with the wonderful voyage of the Martial. 
 
 Both ladies were aware of the change that had come 
 over the young sailor, though Miss Winter refused to di- 
 late upon the subject. Both had noticed the disappear- 
 ance of a certain light-hearted irresponsibility, which was 
 partly constitutional, and partly the outcome of governmen- 
 tal service. This sense of irresponsibility is usually no- 
 ticeable in such as are in receipt of a certain stipend in re- 
 turn for the performance of certain duties rendered to the 
 government. The state of mind of such persons bears no 
 resemblance to that of a man whose existence is constituted 
 of so many annual balances ; whose daily butter, so to 
 speak, varies in thickness according to the state of trade, of 
 shipping, or of the sugar-cane. I in no manner wish to 
 cast disparaging glances towards the occupants of govern- 
 ment offices, or the holders of government appointments, 
 but merely state in brotherly calmness that they are to be
 
 Misgivings. 109 
 
 envied. The depression in trade is a godsend to them, 
 because it seems that the most depressed commodities are 
 socks and shirts, and other masculine habiliments. In by- 
 gone years, a gentleman in receipt of his five hundred per 
 annum gave four shillings a pair for his socks now he 
 can procure a durable article for one and six. These little 
 things (facts, not socks) make up human life, and it is to 
 this cause that the invariable cheerfulness of government 
 officials, ex-office hours, must be attributed. 
 
 Oswin's pre-occupation could in no way be assigned to 
 professional matters. He had influence at headquarters, 
 and a very fair intelligence of his own. With these two, 
 and a somewhat exceptional record of service, there was 
 no cause for anxiety as to the future. While the two 
 ladies were thinking over these things, the object of their 
 thoughts happened to be standing on the pavement oppo- 
 site to the drawing-room window, near which Miss 
 Winter was seated. When at length she turned her head, 
 she unconsciously betrayed her thoughts. 
 
 " There is Oswin," she said, and her surprise seemed 
 greater than the occasion demanded. 
 
 " Is he coming in ? " inquired Helen, without moving. 
 
 " Well, I suppose so. At present he is talking to two 
 men, one of whom is Mr. Tyars . . . Helen." 
 
 Then Helen rose from her chair and approached the 
 window, work in hand. 
 
 " Do not let them see you," interposed Miss Winter, 
 stretching out her hand to prevent the girl's further prog- 
 ress. 
 
 Helen stopped, and after a glance down into the street 
 continued working quietly. She did not, however, quit 
 her post of observation. 
 
 " Why not let them see me, Agnes? " she inquired with- 
 out much interest.
 
 no Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " Because Oswin is sure to lo k up, and if he looks up 
 Mr. Tyars will do the same. Then our mysterious friend 
 will take off his hat, and he might be constrained to come 
 in." 
 
 "And," suggested Helen, lightly, "you do not want 
 him to come in. Why not? " 
 
 Miss Winter laughed, and then looked gravely into the 
 fire for some moments before replying. 
 
 "Not yet. I do not want him to come in yet," she 
 said. " Because I like him. Despite a slight feeling of 
 resentment which I cannot get rid of, I like Mr. Tyars, 
 and I suppose he is destined to become one of our circle. 
 If that is the case there is plenty of time. He means to 
 do it, and he will do it without help from us. My ex- 
 perience leads me to distrust friendships of rapid growth. 
 They invariably come to an untimely end." 
 
 Helen allowed her hands to drop, and ceased working. 
 She looked down at the three men, more especially at 
 Tyars, as if seeking a solution to the questions suggested 
 by Miss Winter. 
 
 "Why should he want to become one of our circle ?" 
 she inquired innocently ; and the question caused Miss 
 Winter to raise those clever eyes of hers at last. 
 
 "My dear," replied the elder woman, "I do not 
 know." 
 
 There was a certain ring in her voice which seemed 
 to promise that the ignorance just acknowledged was not 
 likely to be of long duration. What she really meant 
 was, that at the moment she did not know, but that she 
 was fully determined to find out. 
 
 Of course she suspected. She would not have been 
 human had she not done so. She suspected that Claud 
 Tyars was determined to become one of their circle pre- 
 paratory to becoming the husband of Helen Grace. The
 
 Misgivings. 1 1 1 
 
 details of their former meeting at Oxford had lately come 
 to her knowledge. Small enough details in their way, 
 but not too insignificant for the attention of a woman of 
 the world. A ball, a picnic, a flower-show ; a few words 
 exchanged at each are of course trivial matters. But such 
 trifles have before now influenced many a carefully-shaped 
 scheme of life, have undermined the loftiest ambitions, 
 have turned gloomy fame into sunny insignificance. 
 There are many of us who fully intended to make a name 
 in the world many of us who nursed in younger days 
 high aspirations, noble ambitions. And now behold ! we 
 are commonplace ; hopelessly commonplace, and hope- 
 lessly contented. This, young man, is woman's work ! 
 Each latent genius among us has been taken in hand by 
 one woman ; shaped, turned, twisted, petted, scolded, 
 spoilt. And now we all think in our inmost hearts : 
 " Oh, bother Fame, avaunt Ambition." I wonder if any 
 other person has made the statement that " Contentment 
 is the chief est foe of Fame " if not I beg to apply for 
 copyright. 
 
 Miss Winter had lived to see many of her contempo- 
 raries pass through this stage. Many of her girl friends 
 had suddenly ceased to crave for artistic and literary 
 fame. Among the sterner contemporaries there were a 
 number now who appeared to be quite content with re- 
 munerative commercial occupations and easy government 
 offices. In face of this experience it was only natural to 
 class Claud Tyars among the rest, to mentally specify 
 him as a man in possession of certain faculties above the 
 average, and consequently as one who at an early period 
 had cherished ambitions. These, like all youthful aspira- 
 tions, were now fleeing before the practical thoughtfulness 
 of middle age. They were giving place to a comfortable 
 desire for contentment and ease.
 
 U2 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 This was Miss Winter's estimate of Claud Tyars. 
 The thing, she argued to herself, lay in a nut-shell. The 
 memory of Helen Grace had never quite left him. It had 
 survived his young ambitions, and chance had done the 
 rest. Tyars' peculiar friendship for Oswin was a mere 
 means towards the end. But this practical young woman 
 was far too astute to set down Claud Tyars as an ordinary 
 man. There was something about him which she could 
 not understand. It could not be only his supposed love 
 for Helen that gave him his singular air of purpose. Had 
 he been a boy his whole being might thus have been ab- 
 sorbed in a first love, but he was unquestionably over 
 thirty years of age, and men of such years are dignified 
 even in love. 
 
 Agnes Winter had given greater thought to this man 
 than she was quite aware of. She was a quick thinker, 
 and while her steady white fingers were employed in 
 work her busy brain wandered far afield. She had sought 
 right and left for a motive in Claud Tyars' existence. 
 He was not of a literary mind, she knew that. He had 
 not roamed about the world looking for something or 
 somebody to write about, as many of us do. He was no 
 modern knight-errant seeking adventure by sea and land. 
 His life now was on the surface that of a well-to-do idle 
 man of the world. He set up his booth in Vanity Fair as 
 a lounger, and sought to impose upon the world. The 
 more Miss Winter meditated the stronger grew her con- 
 viction that the idleness of Claud Tyars was a gigantic 
 fraud, and when she informed Helen that she would rather 
 that he did not come in, she knew in her heart that she 
 had diverged slightly from the paths of Truth.
 
 On the Track. 113 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 ON THE TRACK. 
 
 IN the meantime the three men showed signs of a move. 
 Oswin stepped a little towards the edge of the pavement, 
 and in doing so exposed the face and form of the third 
 man to the view of the two ladies. This third person was 
 Matthew Mark Easton, as yet a stranger to Miss Winter 
 and Helen. 
 
 " What a peculiar-looking man ! " said Helen at once. 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 Miss Winter did not know. She said so indifferently, 
 and then accorded him her full attention for some mo- 
 ments. 
 
 " A friend of Mr. Tyars, I suppose," she said at length. 
 " He is like a very gentlemanly monkey." 
 
 Oswin was evidently persuading Tyars to come with 
 him to call on Miss Winter, and Tyars was with equal evi- 
 dence refusing. Muggins, the dog, stood a little apart 
 looking up to his master's face with visible impatience. 
 
 " Come," he seemed to say, " let us go on. This is 
 not like us to dawdle away our time in vain disputings." 
 
 Then he turned and walked on a little with great dignity, 
 as if there could be no question about his master following 
 meekly. 
 
 At length Oswin gave up persuading, and with a nod 
 left the two men to continue their way. 
 
 Helen and Miss Winter had watched this pantomime
 
 H4 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 without comment, and its issue called forth no remark. 
 They merely drew back into the room and recommenced 
 their work. 
 
 Oswin Grace was shown in a moment later. He shook 
 hands with Miss Winter and accorded to his sister a little 
 nod, which seemed to indicate that her presence had been 
 expected. 
 
 " It is nice/' he said, rubbing his brown hands cheerily, 
 "to see a fire. Outside it is simply suicidal. Such 
 weather almost justifies the laying of violent hands upon 
 oneself just about this time in the afternoon. I should 
 do it myself were I deprived of this fire, your society, and 
 the anticipation of tea." 
 
 " Ring the bell then," replied Miss Winter, " and your 
 anticipation shall be realized." 
 
 The young sailor obeyed, and returned to his station upon 
 the hearthrug with that breezy energy which can only be 
 tolerated in small men. A large, energetic man is a nui- 
 sance and an anomaly. 
 
 " I have," he said, " just left Tyars." 
 
 It was a pity that he involuntarily glanced towards the 
 window, because both ladies saw it, and the action be- 
 trayed the small fact that his failure to mention the pres- 
 ence of a third person was intentional. We all make 
 these little mistakes at times, even the most diplomatic of 
 us. We are apt to take it for granted that our neighbors 
 see just as much as we wish them to see, and no more. 
 
 Of course this suppression was fatal. It had the nat- 
 ural effect of arousing the curiosity of both women, and 
 the curiosity of a woman of the world is a thing of which 
 I, for one, am most reprehensively afraid. 
 
 In her own mind Miss Winter pigeon-holed the gentle- 
 manly little man of unprepossessing exterior as a person 
 to be investigated. She promptly leapt to the conclusion
 
 On the Track. 115 
 
 that this man was in some way connected with Claud 
 Tyars and Claud Tyars' possible purpose in life. 
 
 " When," she asked, innocently, " is Mr. Tyars going 
 to sea again ? " 
 
 Oswin Grace changed color. The brown sunburn had 
 vanished to a certain extent during the gloom of the last 
 few weeks, and beneath it the little sailor's skin was soft 
 and delicate ; the sort of skin that blushes easily. 
 
 " Do you know," he said, with forced gaiety, " I have 
 never asked him. One is apt to forget that he ever was 
 a sailor when he has a frock-coat, a top-hat, and 
 gloves." 
 
 " I do not believe that he ever was a real sailor," said 
 Miss Winter, casually. " He may have navigated a ship, 
 and boxed the compass, or taken in the weather-brace, or 
 whatever sailors do at sea, but I do not call him a 
 sailor." 
 
 Oswin Grace laughed and murmured 
 
 " Perhaps not! " Then he changed the subject with 
 evident relief. " Ah, here is tea. Since I came home I 
 have taken to tea and thin bread-and-butter like a music- 
 master." 
 
 Miss Winter dispensed the luxuries just mentioned with 
 deft celerity, and then she returned to the original ques- 
 tion with the calm assurance of one knowing herself to 
 have no diplomatic rival to fear. 
 
 "I should say," she observed, cunningly, "that you 
 are an infinitely better sailor than Mr. Tyars." 
 
 Oswin rose to the gaudy bait at once, with that same 
 eagerness which you, my brother, and I display when a 
 pretty woman flatters our vanity. 
 
 "Oh no," replied he, unguardedly; "I do not think 
 so. He is one of the boldest sailors I have ever met with ; 
 no man carries on like Tyars, but . . ."
 
 n6 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " Carries on ! " interrupted Miss Winter, with a laugh. 
 " I should not have taken him for that sort of man." 
 
 " Carries sail at night, I mean," explained the young 
 fellow. 
 
 " Ah, I see. Will you have some more tea ? " 
 
 After she had poured out a fresh cup she returned to the 
 charge, casting a quick glance towards Helen, who was 
 working with extraordinary enthusiasm. 
 
 " You said 'but' just now," she observed. "What 
 was the sequence of that suggestive ' but' ? " 
 
 Oswin Grace appeared quite willing to talk now. His 
 reserve was not proof against Miss Winter's unscrupulous 
 approaches. 
 
 " Well," he answered slowly, as if considering his re- 
 marks, " I think it is that he has not known failure. He 
 appears to have been invariably successful." 
 
 "More people," said Miss Winter, in her decisive way, 
 " have come to grief through success than through fail- 
 ure." 
 
 " At any rate," corrected Helen, without looking up, 
 " more have come to grief after success than after failure." 
 
 " Not that I think that Tyars will come to grief at all," 
 said Oswin, hastily and unguardedly. He stopped short, 
 and there was an awkward pause for a moment. Both 
 ladies were working with a suspicious indifference to the 
 conversation. 
 
 "I mean," he continued, more calmly, "that he will 
 probably succeed all through life in whatever he under- 
 takes. To me his tactics seemed a trifle too bold, but 
 then they invariably proved successful. I suppose the 
 truth is that I am not a genius, while Tyars is. Tyars is 
 distinctly a genius ; he has a most wonderful power of 
 organization. Have you ever noticed his memory ? " 
 
 "Ye es," acquiesced Miss Winter, threading her
 
 On the Track. 117 
 
 needle. " It is a singular memory ; and I suppose mem- 
 ory is a gift which cannot lie fallow like others like sing- 
 ing, or writing, or painting. It must be always at work, 
 and one never knows when it may come to the fore." 
 
 Oswin Grace had no taste for the deeper researches of 
 human science. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I suppose so. As for me, I have no 
 memory at all. In fact, all my gifts lie fallow ; they are 
 of the unobtrusive kind, so unobtrusive, in fact, that their 
 presence is not even suspected of the multitude." 
 
 There are some people who shirk the responsibility laid 
 upon us so explicitly in the parable of a certain steward. 
 They think to disarm investigation by denying the pos- 
 session of talents. Of course, if one is without talents 
 there you are ! What can be expected ? One cannot be 
 blamed for the abuse of talents which one is deprived of. 
 The trick is a simple one confess honestly and frankly 
 that you are a stupid person, without gifts, without intellect. 
 The general world will think none the worse of you, and 
 confession naturally entails absolution. You are absolved 
 from all responsibility or blame ; your petty vices are laugh- 
 ingly forgiven, and you are considered to be a nice, natural, 
 human person very human. No one asks you to become 
 his executor ; trusteeships are not forced upon you, and 
 your female relatives never ask your advice respecting their 
 investments. You jog along very comfortably, avoiding the 
 rougher side of the road, while people make room for you 
 in smoother places because, forsooth, you are a fool. 
 For the same reason your aged aunt leaves you her little 
 all. Your want of wit calls down charity from all sides, 
 and you live very comfortably on the proceeds without 
 recognizing the humiliation of it. 
 
 Of course this is the strongest view of the case. It re- 
 quires very clever foolishness to get on so well in the
 
 n8 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 world, and Oswin Grace had neither the power nor the 
 inclination to reach such an ultimatum. He was far back 
 in the rear-rank, but in his small way he shirked much, 
 and received much absolution by freely confessing to faults 
 that were in part imaginary. 
 
 In his intercourse with Miss Winter this engaging frank- 
 ness respecting his own merits had always had a place. 
 There was none of that subtle self-laudation with which 
 most of us seek to attract the esteem or love of the fair 
 sex. The knights did it of old. They must have done 
 so, else had there been no record of doughty deeds, of 
 knights and servitors cleft to the shoulder. This is a cer- 
 tainty, and if any one wish to prove it, let him put his 
 head inside a cask. He will soon discover that through 
 steel bars one can see remarkably little of one's neigh- 
 bor's doings. 
 
 We sing our own praises to-day in the same manner. 
 Does any one of us confess to his partner at a ball that he 
 cannot row, or ride, or play lawn-tennis ? No ; we ac- 
 knowledge modestly that we are adepts at all manly sports 
 and pastimes ; we insinuate that we are dead shots, and 
 allow it to be gathered that in the hunting-field we lead 
 the way. The worst of it is that our fair listeners gener- 
 ally believe us, especially if we interlard our statements 
 with more or less plainly expressed assurances that all 
 these manly accomplishments are slaves to their bright 
 eyes. 
 
 Wherever he may have warbled his own praises, 
 Oswin Grace never did so for the edification of Miss 
 Winter. Their relationship was not of that description. 
 She was rather older than he, and between two young 
 people a difference of this sort goes on increasing its influ- 
 ence as they advance in years. 
 
 As Helen had told her friend plainly, there was a dif-
 
 On the Track. 119 
 
 ference in Oswin's manner, but this difference was not 
 openly investigated. There could, however, be only one 
 explanation of it, and both women seized upon this un- 
 hestitatingly. 
 
 The youthful infatuation had given place to a maturer 
 affection, which in no way savored of love. Whatever 
 place Agnes Winter had at one time occupied in the heart 
 of the young sailor, she was now naught else but a friend. 
 And for this alteration he had sufficient excuse as ex- 
 cuses go. It was really the wisest thing he could have 
 done to acknowledge thus at once the difference brought 
 about by a few years' absence. These years had ren- 
 dered more obvious the fact that Agnes Winter was con- 
 siderably his senior, and to his more experienced eyes 
 this discrepancy now assumed its rightful significance. 
 So argued each lady in turn to herself, while Oswin 
 Grace chattered gaily first to one and then to the other. 
 
 Helen was not subtle enough to attach importance to a 
 small detail which had almost vanished from her memory. 
 She had detected at the first meeting of Claud Tyars and 
 Miss Winter signs of jealousy on the part of her brother. 
 These the young sailor had suppressed as well as he could, 
 but the gentle scrutiny of his sister had penetrated through 
 the veil of his reserve. This jealousy was now conspic- 
 uously absent. Oswin seemed to find pleasure in talk- 
 ing of Tyars to Miss Winter. 
 
 Now jealousy is a passion that never dies. While the 
 cause of it is at hand, it lives and thrives. Helen noticed 
 this absence, and it served in some degree to confirm her 
 conviction that her brother had ceased to love Miss Winter. 
 She did not know that dead love or dying love is un- 
 touched by jealousy. She did not know that jealousy 
 must assuredly die long before love, and not shortly be- 
 fore. She did not know that a youthful infatuation, under
 
 I2O Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 its more dignified name of a first love, is a thing that 
 perishes more often in proximity than in absence. 
 
 Miss Winter might have known more about these mat- 
 ters had she been able to take note of them from Helen's 
 point of view. She was, however, the object of Oswin's 
 short-lived jealousy, and had therefore failed to notice it. 
 She was too experienced, possessed too much self-respect, 
 to allow any person to guess that she also detected a dif- 
 ference in Oswin's manner towards herself. This fact 
 alone betrayed that she assigned the same reason to the 
 change as that assigned by Helen Grace. 
 
 She made no sign whatever ; no slightest difference in 
 her treatment of Oswin. Whether there had been pleas- 
 ure for her in the knowledge of this man's silent love, or 
 mere indifference, it is hard to say. Women of thirty 
 who have lived every year, every day of their life since 
 twenty, hold different views of the great universal human 
 Motive than those held by young girls. There is a cer- 
 tain independence, a confidence in the possession of the 
 power of inspiring love, in beautiful girls, which is never 
 found in beautiful women. Hence if the latter are desir- 
 ous of still exercising this great feminine pleasure and 
 delight, they are, as a rule, not only pathetic objects, but 
 disagreeable ones to contemplate. Thus it is that a plain 
 woman of thirty to forty is a pleasanter companion, a 
 better woman, and a more profitable study than one who 
 is or has been beautiful. 
 
 But the better women those who make life into an 
 unconscious happiness have, by the age of thirty, for 
 one reason or another, laid aside that instinctive desire 
 to inspire love which leads us sterner creatures such a 
 dance. Or if they have not laid it quite aside, they have 
 learnt to control it, and thus render it harmless to those 
 around them.
 
 On the Track. 121 
 
 Miss Winter had reached that age at which both men 
 and women begin to wonder less acutely whether their 
 life is endowed with an object. She was therefore a con- 
 tented creature ; contented with small pleasures and 
 trivial occupations ; unharassed by great ambitions, un- 
 disturbed by envy, untouched by jealousy. No outward 
 influence seemed capable of affecting her gentle serenity. 
 Admiration caused no flutter within her heart. She had 
 tasted it too often, drinking it deeply. She was only 
 thirty, and when she wished she could make herself look 
 much younger, for her figure, though smoothly rounded, 
 was lithe, and her cheeks were still soft and full. But, 
 as I have said, she had lived every day of the last ten 
 years. She had never been a thoughtless coquette ; the 
 pleasures of a pleasure-seeking existence had been soberly 
 accomplished. There may have been a reason for it I 
 find there is a reason for most things in the world. Per- 
 haps she had made some great mistake at the very out- 
 set, moving onward subsequently dazed and hesitating. 
 It may be that the serenity of her heart was only that 
 forced calm which is ordered for invalids. But this I can- 
 not say. The foregoing ten years have no place here. 
 We must take Agnes Winter as we find her. A cheery 
 woman of the world, terribly practical, sometimes almost 
 cynical, quite unassailable behind her smooth, bright 
 armor of worldly serenity.
 
 122 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 
 CARTE AND TIERCE. 
 
 IT was almost a month later that Matthew Mark Easton 
 stepped fairly into the circle of which Miss Winter was 
 to a certain extent the leading spirit. This lady had not 
 been five minutes in the brilliantly-lighted rooms of a huge 
 picture gallery in Pall Mall, before she singled out the 
 little American. He happened to be talking to another 
 insignificant, unobstrusive man, who tugged nervously 
 at a gray mustache while he listened. This was one of 
 the ablest envoys ever accredited to the Court of St. 
 James by the United States. 
 
 Miss Winter knew most of the faces in the room, and 
 among others that of the American Minister. Moreover, 
 she recollected perfectly the form and features of Matthew 
 Mark Easton. 
 
 The occasion was a vast assembly of the fashionable, 
 diplomatic, artistic, and literary worlds for the collection 
 of money and ideas towards the solution of a social problem 
 now happily almost forgotten. That the majority of those 
 assembled did not care a rap for the social problem was 
 nothing surprising. In this they were only symbolic of 
 the rest of mankind. Very few of us do trouble our 
 heads about social problems. We leave them to those 
 acrimonious and long-winded gentlemen who write for 
 the reviews. The tickets were a guinea each ; there were 
 choice refreshments at a stated and ruinous price ; soft
 
 Carte and Tierce. 123 
 
 carpets, an exhibition of pictures, and the same of dresses. 
 I believe also that several gentlemen read papers on the 
 subject under discussion, but that was in the small room 
 at the end where no one ever went. 
 
 Claud Tyars was there of course. During the last 
 month or two he had been going out so much that one 
 almost expected to meet him, just as one expects to meet 
 certain well-known faces at every assembly. Miss Winter 
 saw him immediately after noticing Matthew Mark Easton, 
 and before long he began to make his way across the room 
 towards her. Wherever they had met during the last few 
 weeks, Tyars had invariably succeeded in exchanging a 
 few words with Miss Winter, seeking her out with equal 
 persistence, whether Helen Grace were with her or no. 
 If, as the lady opined, he was determined to become one 
 of their intimate friends, he displayed no indecent haste, 
 no undue eagerness ; and in so doing he was perhaps 
 following the surest method. He had not hitherto showed 
 the slightest desire to cross the line which separates ac- 
 quaintanceship from friendship. 
 
 There was a mutual attraction existing between these 
 two capable, practical people, who met to-night as they 
 usually did with that high-toned nonchalance which almost 
 amounts to indifference. There was a vacant seat, for a 
 wonder, beside Miss Winter which Tyars promptly ap- 
 propriated. 
 
 "Who," she asked, after a few conventionalities had 
 been exchanged, " is that gentleman talking to the Amer- 
 ican Minister, and apparently making him laugh, which is, 
 I should think, no easy matter ? " 
 
 " He is generally making some one laugh," replied 
 Tyars. " His name is Easton Matthew Mark Easton. 
 The sort of name that sticks in the wheel-work of one's 
 memory. A name one does not forget."
 
 124 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " And," added Miss Winter, lightly, "a face that one 
 does not forget. He interests me a little." 
 
 Tyars laughed atthe qualification implied by the addition 
 of the last two words. 
 
 " That is always something," he said. " A small 
 mercy. He is one of my greatest friends may I intro- 
 duce him ? " 
 
 " Certainly," murmured the lady, with a little bow of 
 the head, and then she changed the subject at once. 
 
 " Helen," she said, " is not here to-night." 
 
 Tyars looked befittingly disappointed. 
 
 "She does not always care to leave the admiral, and 
 he objects to dissipation on a large scale. Is that not 
 so? " he suggested. 
 
 " Yes. That is the case to-night." 
 
 She wondered a little at his intimate knowledge of 
 Helen's thoughts, but said nothing. It was probable that 
 he had heard this from Oswin, and his singular memory 
 had retained it. 
 
 "Miss Grace," said Tyars, presently, " has a strong 
 sense of duty, and is unconscious of it. An unconscious 
 sense of duty is one of the best of human motives. At 
 least it seems so to me." 
 
 Although Agnes Winter was bowing and smiling to an 
 old lady near at hand, she had followed him perfectly. 
 
 " Well," she answered, " a sense of duty of any de- 
 scription is not a bad thing in these times. Indeed," she 
 added, turning suddenly towards him, " a motive is in 
 itself rather rare. Not many of us have motives." 
 
 Her manner implied as plainly as if she had spoken it : 
 " We are not, all of us, like you." 
 
 There was something in the expression of his eyes that 
 recalled suddenly their first meeting atthe precise moment 
 when he, entering the drawing-room, overheard a remark
 
 Carte and Tierce. 125 
 
 of hers respecting himself. It was not an unpleasant ex- 
 pression, but it led one to feel instinctively that this man 
 might under some circumstances be, what is tersely called 
 in France, difficult. It was merely a suggestion, cloaked 
 beneath his high-class repose of manner, but she had 
 known many men of his class, some of whom had made a 
 name in their several callings, and this same suggestion of 
 stubbornness had come beneath her quick, fleeting notice 
 before. 
 
 He looked gravely round the room, as if seeking to pen- 
 etrate beneath the smiles and vapid affectation. 
 
 " Oh," he said, placidly, " I am not so sure. There are 
 a good many people who pride themselves upon steering a 
 clear course. The prevailing motive to-night is perhaps 
 a desire to prove a superiority over one's neighbors, but 
 it is still a motive." 
 
 Miss Winter looked at him critically. 
 
 " Remember," she said, warningly, " that this is my 
 element. The motives of all these people are my mo- 
 tives their pleasures, my pleasures their life, my life." 
 
 " Apparently so," he replied, ambiguously. 
 
 "So that," she pursued, " I am indicted of the crime 
 of endeavoring to prove my superiority over my neigh- 
 bors." 
 
 He laughed in an abrupt way. 
 
 " No more than myself." 
 
 " That is mere prevarication," she persisted gaily. 
 " Tell me, please, in what particular this coveted supe- 
 riority lies." 
 
 " In a desire to appear more aimless than you are," he 
 returned gravely. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " I deny that. I plead not guilty," she said. " I am 
 a person of many motives, but the many receive their life
 
 126 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 from one source. That one source is an earnest endeavor 
 to please myself in all things, to crowd as much pleasure 
 and as much excitement into a lifetime as it will hold." 
 
 " Then," he said after a pause, " you are only one of 
 the crowd after all." 
 
 " That is all, Mr. Tyars. Did you ever suspect me of 
 being anything else ?" 
 
 " I believe I did," he replied, with a more direct gaze 
 than is allowed by the dictates of polite society. 
 
 She returned the gaze with serenity. 
 
 " Then please get rid of the idea," she said signifi- 
 cantly. 
 
 There was a short pause, but it was not the silence of 
 people who have nothing more to say to each other. It 
 was too tense, too restless for that. 
 
 "Shall I, " inquired Tyars, rising suddenly, "go and 
 find Easton ? I should like you to know him." 
 
 " I shall be most happy," she said, with one of her 
 gracious little bows. As he moved away, she called 
 him back almost as if she were loth to let him go, as if 
 there were something still left unsaid between them. 
 
 " Tell me," she said, in a gaily confidential tone, " be- 
 fore you go, what is his speciality. I always like 
 to know a stranger's chief characteristic, or if he has 
 no characteristics, his particular hobby whether, I mean, 
 he is a botanist or a yachtsman, a fisherman or a politician. 
 It is so much more convenient, you understand, to know 
 beforehand upon what topics one must conceal one's 
 ignorance." 
 
 She finished with a little laugh, and looked up into his 
 face with keen worldliness. 
 
 The meaning of the glance was obvious, and he met 
 her gaze with significant coolness. 
 
 " No, Miss Winter," he said deliberately ; " you
 
 Carte and Tierce. 127 
 
 have not found out my particular hobby or my chief char- 
 acteristic yet." 
 
 She laughed without embarrassment. 
 
 "Not yet," she admitted. 
 
 Then he returned to the original question. 
 
 " I think," he said, " that Easton has no hobbies. His 
 speciality is eloquence. He could almost persuade a cer- 
 tain stubborn quadruped to part with its hind legs. He 
 was destined by the positive department of Providence 
 for an orator, but the negative department, with its usual 
 discrimination, gave him a weak chest, and therefore he 
 is nothing." 
 
 " Absolutely nothing ? " 
 
 "Well," answered Tyars, "he is an American mer- 
 chant." 
 
 She nodded her head in a practical way. 
 
 "Thank you," she said. " Now I know something of 
 him. I have to conceal beneath wreathed smiles the fact 
 that I know absolutely nothing of American commerce, 
 American politics, or oratory. I wonder," she added as 
 an afterthought, " whether there is anything he can per- 
 suade me into doing." 
 
 " He might," suggested Tyars, " persuade you into 
 the cultivation of a motive." 
 
 Then he turned and left her. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton saw him approaching, and broke 
 off rather suddenly a waning conversation with his Min- 
 ister. 
 
 " Easton," said Tyars, " come here. I want to intro- 
 duce you to Miss Winter." 
 
 "Miss Winter," returned the American; "ominous 
 name. Who is she ? " 
 
 " She is a person of considerable influence in the Grace 
 household. Do you understand ?"
 
 128 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " No," replied Easton, pleasantly, " I don't." 
 
 " It is in Miss Winter's power to deprive us of Oswin 
 Grace," explained Tyars, " if she cares to exercise that 
 power." 
 
 Easton's face expressed somewhat ludicrously a passing 
 consternation. 
 
 " Hang these women !" he muttered. "Does she," 
 he inquired, " suspect something ? " 
 
 " I think so," was the reply, " and, moreover, she is a 
 clever woman ; so be careful." 
 
 Easton laughed reassuringly. He was not afraid of 
 clever women. Miss Winter must almost have heard the 
 laugh, while there was still a smile on his face as he bowed 
 before her. 
 
 " I have never," he said, as he seated himself, " been 
 at an entertainment of this description before. I am only 
 a beginner. In our country we manage things differently ; 
 and I cannot yet understand how so much talking and so 
 little action can benefit any cause." 
 
 " But," said Miss Winter, " you are not new to Eng- 
 land. There is nothing about you to lead one to that 
 conclusion." 
 
 " Thank you," he replied, gravely. " My clawham- 
 mer coat was made in Piccadilly, so I suppose it is all 
 right." 
 
 He looked down at the garment in question, and dusted 
 the sleeve lightly with a perfectly gloved hand. 
 
 " Do you like it ?" he inquired, simply. 
 
 Miss Winter was becoming interested. She therefore 
 quelled a sudden desire to laugh, and answered 
 
 " Yes ; it is a very nice coat." 
 
 " I am not," he said, after a pause, " new to England, 
 but I have not moved 1 think you call it much in Lon- 
 don society. I suppose the men do all the moving in your
 
 Carte and Tierce. 129 
 
 society ? they seem to. The women sit mostly still and 
 wait till the men come to them. With us it is different." 
 
 "The women," replied this womanly lady, "are be- 
 ginning to move with us, and from what I have seen of 
 the result, I rather incline towards the old policy of sit- 
 ting still." 
 
 He turned and looked at her with a little nod. There 
 was in his queer restless eyes a distinct glance of ap- 
 proval. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " yes. So I should surmise. Our 
 ladies are very fascinating, and very clever, and all that, 
 but but the young men do not seem to make such a 
 pretty show of loving them as we read of in olden times. 
 At all events they do not continue to show them that re- 
 gard which, I remember, my father showed towards my 
 mother." 
 
 " I myself am a humble admirer of the womanly 
 school." 
 
 " And I," added Easton. " Now," he continued, after 
 a pause, "do tell me. What do all these good people 
 think they are doing here to-night ? " 
 
 " They think firstly," replied Miss Winter, " that they 
 are getting their names into the fashionable society pa- 
 pers. Secondly, that their natural or artificial adornment 
 is creating a distinct impression. Thirdly, and lastly, 
 that they are assisting in some indefinite way towards the 
 solution of a problem of which the rudiments are entirely 
 unknown." 
 
 "Then in England, as well as in my own country, 
 charity is a recognized plaything of society," suggested 
 Easton. 
 
 "Yes. We take it up in late autumn and winter, 
 when there are no races, nor regattas, nor lawn-tennis 
 parties." 
 9
 
 130 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " Ah, then," said the American, " society is very much 
 the same here as elsewhere." 
 
 At this moment Oswin Grace passed within earshot of 
 them. He heard the remark, and recognized the voice. 
 When he turned, his surprise at seeing Miss Winter and 
 Easton together was so marked as to cause a little frown 
 to pass across the queer, wistful face of the American. 
 He returned the young Englishman's comprehensive bow, 
 however, with perfect equanimity. 
 
 " You know Oswin Grace ? " inquired Miss Winter. 
 
 " Oh yes," was the cool reply, " Tyars brought him 
 to my rooms one evening." 
 
 Miss Winter skilfully concealed her eagerness. 
 
 " They are great friends," she said, lightly. 
 
 " Ye es. Yes. Tyars constantly talks of him." 
 
 "I suppose," continued Miss Winter, in the same in- 
 differently conversational way, " that they have many 
 interests in common ; both being sailors. At least, I 
 believe Claud Tyars considers himself a sailor now." 
 
 This was clever, and the wary little man paused. He 
 felt convinced that Miss Winter knew less of the past life 
 of Tyars than she would have him believe. Moreover, he 
 suspected that she had never hitherto called him Claud 
 Tyars. The implied familiarity was a trap, womanly, 
 clever, and subtle ; but Easton avoided it with equal skill. 
 He maintained an easy silence. Immediately afterwards, 
 however, he made a blunder. 
 
 " Oswin," said Miss Winter, " is a great friend of 
 mine, and I think Helen is my greatest friend." 
 
 " A sister ? " inquired Easton, rashly. 
 
 " Yes. Mr. Tyars has not spoken of her then ? " 
 
 " No. Tyars did not tell me that Grace had a sister." 
 
 There was a short pause. Perhaps the American 
 heard the little sigh of relief given by his companion,
 
 Carte and Tierce. 131 
 
 marking, as it were, the relaxation of an effort. Such a 
 sigh as an athlete gives when he has scored a success and 
 his weary muscles fall into repose. He became instantly 
 conscious of his blunder. He had been outwitted by this 
 pleasant woman. He Matthew Mark Easton a born 
 intriguer, a man with real genius for conspiracy. 
 
 " Ah ! " reflected Miss Winter, " why has Mr. Tyars 
 omitted to make mention of Helen's existence ? " And 
 with feminine intuition she made a hasty mental note .of 
 this important item/ 
 
 " So/' mused Easton, during the same pause, " there is 
 a Miss Grace, and Tyars never mentioned her. I must be 
 very careful. Seems to me that there are two men at 
 stake here, not one ; and I cannot afford to lose two 
 sailors such as these." 
 
 Miss Winter was now drawn into a vortex of light- 
 hearted idlers, bent upon a systematic inspection of the 
 pictures ; and from their ranks Easton took the first op- 
 portunity of dropping away unobserved. They did not 
 speak again during the evening ; but the little seed was 
 sown the little seed of mutual esteem or mutual dislike, 
 as the case may be, which under either circumstance seems 
 to draw some people together here in life ; to spread its 
 subtle tendrils, intertwined and knit together, until their 
 united strength is a thing undreamt of. 
 
 " I seem," reflected Easton, subsequently, over a very 
 good cigar, "to have met that little English lady some- 
 where before. Her way of speaking, and her method of 
 expressing herself in a cheery way, as if nothing mattered 
 very much, are familiar to me. I certainly have not seen 
 her before in this vale of sorrow, as the lady writers call 
 it. I wonder where I have met her." 
 
 It happened to fall to the lot of Claud Tyars to shut the 
 door of Miss Winter's comfortable brougham ; while
 
 132 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Grace, who had helped her in, stood back and nodded a 
 good night. 
 
 The lady leant back against the soft cushions, and drew 
 her cloak more snugly round her. The flashing light of 
 street-lamp or carriage showed her face to be grave and 
 thoughtful. She was realizing that Claud Tyars was 
 something more than a mere lover of intrigue, making a 
 mystery out of a very ordinary love affair. She was rec- 
 ognizing now that matters were more serious than she 
 had at first considered them.
 
 A Meeting. 133 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 A MEETING. 
 
 SOCIAL questions are of very slow growth. We fondly 
 imagine that, in our days, that vague movement which 
 we call Progress (with a capital letter if you please) is 
 making greater strides than hitherto. But if we judge 
 from results it would seem evident that the world moves 
 on at the same steady pace which marked its progress in 
 olden times. 
 
 The greatest movement of the generation, at least the 
 movement which has attracted the greatest amount of 
 attention, has undoubtedly been the education of women. 
 They demanded the same privileges as possessed by their 
 sterner competitors. These have to all intents and pur- 
 poses been granted them, and what is the result ? George 
 Eliots are no more numerous. The old Masters in Art 
 and Music sleep on securely, for their fame is not yet 
 dimmed by the productions of women who have had the 
 incentive of their example to assist them. 
 
 Woman's voice is heard more frequently to-day, but 
 her work is less perceptible. It is easy to say that this is 
 the beginning the first step towards emancipation. If it 
 is so, it is a very bad beginning. The unsexing of woman 
 cannot well lead to her glorification, for her womanliness 
 will always secure a higher esteem than her shrewdness. 
 Although women talk more now it is a question whether 
 they are really progressing so rapidly as the enthusiasts
 
 134 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 imagine. It is a very doubtful question whether they are 
 urged by any higher or superior aspirations than those 
 that prompted a woman to deceive an old man with such 
 clumsy devices as a covering of goatskin and a savory 
 dish. It is likely that men and women were very much 
 the same before the Flood as they are now. When Noah 
 was busy building the Ark, one cannot but believe that 
 social problems were being discussed by his neighbors. 
 It is probable that women were seeking to emancipate 
 themselves then ; that is to say, a certain number of 
 them, and in very much the same proportion as to-day. 
 
 It has always been a feminine characteristic to betray 
 a certain estimable thirst for knowledge ; to know some- 
 thing of which she is better left in ignorance. It began 
 with a desire to taste a forbidden fruit, and after a con- 
 siderable lapse of time it has come to matters of medicine 
 and law. 
 
 Of course there is the other side of the question. The 
 lamentable fact that there are a certain number of women 
 (and this number has existed in other generations as well 
 as in our own) who are endowed with intellect and deprived 
 of charm women who will never marry, or at all events 
 will never marry happily. It would never do to put for- 
 ward here the Oriental creed, that woman's first duty is 
 to be lovely, her second to be charming. It is not our 
 creed, of course ; but we cannot blind ourselves to the 
 fact that the charming women and the lovely women have 
 the best time of it here below. And I would beg to point 
 out to the plain unwed who have fallen back upon intellect 
 or good works, that they have not a monopoly of these. 
 Goodness is often linked with beauty, a little intelligence 
 is needed to complete loveliness, and without intellect 
 there is no charm. These intellectual women clamor for 
 work. Let them make work, let them make their posi-
 
 A Meeting. 135 
 
 tion ! If they cannot make it they can never occupy it 
 to the exclusion of men. Let them learn to be nonentities 
 as we men have to do. A high place in the world is not 
 gained by talking of it, but by working first and talking 
 after. The plain and intellectual are, after all is said (a 
 good deal) and done (a very little), but a minority, and a 
 small one. By the bye, all this has very little to do 
 with us. 
 
 Miss Winter sometimes fell a victim to these longings 
 for labor ; that is the meaning of the foregoing prelude. 
 She sometimes felt useless, and looked beyond the work 
 that lay at hand for heavier labor. When she heard of 
 good works done by women, she longed to do something 
 also. And one hears a great deal of such good works. 
 The bushel is not a feminine vessel, except, indeed, to 
 place inversely and stand the light upon the top for greater 
 elevation. Your Grace Darlings, and your Florence 
 Nightingales, and your Sister Doras are at times a trifle 
 wearying. They are examples which should be carefully 
 suppressed. They did a little passing good, and any amount 
 of permanent evil, because every girl who has no lover 
 thinks she can emulate them. 
 
 But it was only at times that Miss Winter gave way to 
 this weakness, and she was very quiet about it. When 
 the paroxysm was upon her she put on a thick veil, her 
 quietest dress, and took the omnibus to Tower Hill. 
 
 She was too well acquainted with the world to go 
 empty-handed and to make those trivial mistakes by 
 which many well-meaning women reduce charity to the 
 ludicrous. She had an old bag specially devoted to this 
 secret vice, for one cannot carry half-pounds of butter, 
 packets of tea, and pounds of raw sausages in one's best 
 hand-bag. 
 
 The recipients of her charity were a race of men over-
 
 136 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 looked by Charity Organizations, ignored by those bland 
 distributors of leaflet literature who call themselves the 
 Sailor's Friend. Very few people find themselves by ac- 
 cident in the London Dock or the St. ^Catherine's Dock ; 
 in fact -both these basins are rather difficult to find. Very 
 few, therefore, know that there is such a being as the 
 ship-keeper. There are many idlers by the river-side, 
 on London Bridge, or the Custom House Quay, but in 
 the docks there are none. These are places where only 
 such as have business to transact are in the habit of re- 
 sorting. This is easily explained by a note of the fact 
 that all the docks are private property, and therefore 
 closed to the general public. 
 
 The ship-keeper is a strange, amphibious creature. 
 His calling is afloat, his business on the waters, and yet 
 he is no sailor. In busier times he rarely spent more 
 than two months on board of one ship ; now there are 
 men living week after week, month after month, year 
 after year on the same vessel. Many of them never set 
 foot outside the dock-gates ; some there are who remain 
 afloat always. There are vessels lying out in the middle 
 of the basins of which the decks have known no other 
 tread for years than that of the aged hermit living in their 
 forecastles. Most of these ships have a history, but 
 others are merely waiting waiting, if you please, for 
 better times. As if they could afford it ; as if they could 
 afford to wait for better times any more than you or I. 
 For ships have but one life even as men, and if they are 
 too slow, too clumsy, too heavy well, they are failures, 
 just as many of us are from the same cause. And a 
 failure is a failure despite sophistry and in face of smooth 
 phrases. We talk gravely or gaily of waiting for better 
 times, but most of us are only waiting for an end of some 
 sort.
 
 A Meeting. 137 
 
 Miss Winter had heard of these ships, and from dif- 
 ferent sources she gradually learnt that there were men 
 living on board of them ; men whose lives were almost 
 as solitary as that of a sailor cast upon some desert island. 
 It seems strange that within the roar of London life, al- 
 most within stone's throw of the crowded East End streets, 
 there should be men living day after day without speak- 
 ing a word to their fellow-creatures. For if they do not 
 choose to come ashore, certainly no one will trouble to go 
 on board and see them. The butcher makes his daily 
 round of the dock with barrow and knife like a cat's-meat 
 man, but on twelve shillings a week one does not expect 
 meat every day. 
 
 In course of time she evolved the idea of going to the 
 docks to see if it was difficult to get on board these ships, 
 and there she discovered that there was nothing easier. 
 It was merely a matter of paying, as it is in every other 
 part of the world. 
 
 At first her advances caused consternation, but woman- 
 like she gradually made her way, never being guilty of 
 one retrograde step. A few distrusted her motives, some 
 thought she was merely a fool, others concluded she had 
 "got religion." These latter were the first to welcome 
 her. The explanation was so simple, and it had served 
 to account for stranger conduct than this. They had, in 
 their time, come across the malady in a more virulent 
 form. 
 
 One and all appreciated the butter and the sausages. 
 Some made use of the soap, and a few read the news- 
 papers she brought them. 
 
 Soon Miss Winter found that her advent was looked 
 for. The responsibilities of beneficence began to make 
 themselves felt. She commenced to know personally 
 these quaint old hermits, and found that there were sin-
 
 138 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 cere and insincere ship-keepers ship-keepers who were 
 interesting and others who were mere nonentities. On 
 the whole she gave preference to those who took the 
 butter and the sausages and left the soap. These latter 
 were old fellows who had never washed, and did not see 
 the good of changing their habits in old age. This con- 
 servatism indicated a character worthy of admiration, 
 and superior to that of such as asked for more soap and 
 hinted at tracts. 
 
 She became more and more interested in this work, 
 and lapsed into the habit of going to the docks once a 
 week at least. As Claud Tyars frequented the same 
 spot with an equal regularity, their meeting was only a 
 question of time. 
 
 They had missed each other several times by the 
 merest chance, but at last they came face to face in a 
 most undeniable manner. The morning was rather foggy, 
 and in consequence the dock was more silent and sleepier 
 than usual. Miss Winter having just left a boat, was 
 mounting the steep wet steps from the edge of the slimy 
 water when a tall man, emerging from the fog, came to 
 the top of the stairs and hailed the boat. 
 
 " Wait a minute," he said ; " I want you." 
 
 He came down a step or two and stood to one 
 side to let Miss Winter pass. In doing so he looked at 
 her, and she, glancing up to thank him, gave a little 
 start. 
 
 " Ah ! " she exclaimed. " You here Mr. Tyars ? '" 
 
 He raised his hat without betraying any surprise. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, " of course. The docks have a 
 natural attraction for me a sailor." 
 
 " I forgot," she said, looking calmly at him, "that you 
 were a sailor." 
 
 She had been betrayed into surprise, but in a moment
 
 A Meeting. 139 
 
 her usual alertness returned to her. She passed on, and 
 he followed her. 
 
 " Are you alone ? " he inquired. 
 
 " Oh yes," she replied, lightly. " I am quite at home 
 here. I come nearly every week and interrupt the medi- 
 tations of the ship-keepers. I look after their temporal 
 welfare. It is quite my own idea, and I assure you that 
 I have no connection with any philanthropic society." 
 
 " Tracts ? " he inquired, shortly. 
 
 "No; no tracts," she replied. "Sausages, butter, 
 and soap essentially of this world." 
 
 He was walking beside her, suiting his step to hers with 
 an implied sense of protection, almost of approbation which 
 annoyed her. 
 
 " There may be," he suggested, half-ironically, " a hid- 
 den motive in the soap." 
 
 " But there is not," she replied, sharply. " I advo- 
 cate cleanliness only. Personally I prefer the dirty 
 ones." 
 
 " Probably," he said, " you do a great deal of good. 
 These poor fellows lead a very lonely life. You must 
 seem to them like a being from another world." 
 
 "So I am, Mr. Tyars," she said, still upholding her 
 work. " Quite another world." 
 
 Then she suddenly laid aside her gravity with that 
 strange inconsequence which is one of the many impor- 
 tant differences between the male and female mind. 
 
 "You speak feelingly," she continued, in thinly-veiled 
 mockery. " Perhaps you have been a ship-keeper your- 
 self ! You seem to have been a good many things." 
 
 " Yes," was his calm reply, " I have. I was once a 
 ship-keeper in the Southern Atlantic." 
 
 She was silenced. The details of his terrible experience 
 on board the fever-stricken merchantman had never been
 
 140 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 vouchsafed, but it was not difficult to imagine them from 
 the official account he had been forced to publish. 
 
 Suddenly this cheerful little lady had realized the pet- 
 tiness of her own existence, the futility of her own small 
 caprice. She glanced up at him almost meditating an 
 apology. Observant and analytical as she was, she had 
 not yet noticed a fact of which Tyars was fully aware ; 
 she had not noticed that in her intercourse with Claud 
 Tyars she invariably began in an antagonistic vein, and 
 that with equal monotony this antagonism melted after a 
 few moments. 
 
 In one respect Tyars was a commonplace "man. He 
 possessed the genius of command, which is the genius 
 most often encountered in the world. It is merely a genius 
 of adaptation, not of creation. Its chief characteristic is 
 a close but unconscious observation of human nature. He 
 understood all who came in contact with him much better 
 than any one of them understood him. Miss Winter was 
 conscious of a reserve in this man's mind which was ir- 
 revocably closed to her. He casually glanced into her 
 character in passing ; if there were an inner motive be- 
 yond his fathom, he- remained indifferent to its presence. 
 When their paths crossed he was pleased to meet her, 
 but she never flattered herself that he would go far out of 
 his way to hear her opinion upon any subject. Had she 
 been a young girl, this knowledge would have shown itself 
 in a thousand little coquetries, or a petulant curiosity ; but 
 she had arrived at an age when it is frequently realized, 
 even by the most beautiful, that Man has other interests in 
 the world than Woman. 
 
 "If," she said, " I cared for horrors, I should ask you 
 some day to tell me about . . . about those days your 
 ship-keeping days ; but I hate horrors." 
 
 He laughed.
 
 A Meeting. 141 
 
 " I am glad," he said, with evident relief. " I hate 
 horrors, too, and should not make a picturesque story 
 of it." 
 
 They walked on in silence, feeling rather more friendly 
 towards each other every moment. It was necessary to 
 pass beneath a crane of which the greasy chain hung 
 loosely right across their path. Tyars stepped forward, 
 and with a quick turn of the winch-handle drew the chaio 
 taut, and consequently out of her way. It was a mere 
 incident, trivial in its way ; but women note these triviali- 
 ties, and piece them together with a skill and sequence 
 which men cannot rival or even imitate. Tyars' action 
 showed an intimate knowledge with the smallest details of 
 the calling he had chosen to follow. A landsman would 
 have attempted to hold the chain back with hand or stick, 
 running the risk of failing to do so, and incurring the 
 certainty of covering himself with black oil. Tyars 
 overcame the difficulty with seamanlike promptness, and 
 although Miss Winter accorded to the action its full signifi- 
 cance, she merely acknowledged the politeness that 
 prompted it by a gracious little nod. 
 
 " If," said Tyars, presently, " you were my sister, or 
 if I were fortunate enough to possess a right to comment 
 upon your actions, I should be strongly tempted to throw 
 cold water upon your charity." 
 
 " Of course you would," she replied. " Nine men out 
 of ten would do the same." 
 
 " I hope so." 
 
 " I am sure of it, Mr. Tyars ; and, moreover, I do not 
 defend myself. It is very difficult to find a channel for 
 charitable motives to run in. At any rate, I do no harm 
 to these old men." 
 
 " I have no doubt you do them a great deal of good," 
 he said, rather bluntly ; " but you are hardly the person
 
 142 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 to do it. This is not the place for a lady to wander about 
 in alone. Wait twenty years." 
 
 She laughed, and stepped aside to hold out her arms in 
 expostulation. 
 
 " I'm not a girl," she said ; " and look at me. A thick 
 veil and a clumsy old ulster without a waist to it. I think, 
 indeed, it is foolish of me to ask you to look." 
 
 He did look, gravely, from the top of her simple hat to 
 the toes of her small boots peeping out beneath the ulster. 
 
 " It is no use," he said ; " you cannot disguise yourself. 
 No woman," he added, "with your . . . ad vantages can." 
 
 He was quite right. Plainness is easier to conceal than 
 beauty. There is nothing more difficult to hide than a 
 pretty face and a graceful figure. They walked on again. 
 
 "If," she said, " we waited for men to tell us what we 
 can do and what we cannot, a great deal of good would 
 remain undone." 
 
 He would not argue ; and his silence softened her humor, 
 for it betrayed a determination to interfere no farther. 
 
 "It is not," she said, continuing her defense with 
 womanlike persistence, " as if I dragged other people 
 into it. I do not, for instance, bring Helen here." 
 
 As she said this she glanced up at him. 
 
 " No," he answered calmly, returning her gaze. 
 
 They were now at the dock-gates, and the constable on 
 duty touched the brim of his helmet in double recognition. 
 
 " May I call a hansom ? " inquired Tyars. 
 
 " Thank you," she replied. " There is one coming." 
 
 While waiting for the cab she spoke again. 
 
 "Ifeel," she said, lightly, "like a runaway school- 
 girl. Will you please tell no tales out of school ? " 
 
 " You can trust me, Miss Winter," he said, as he helped 
 her into the cab, "to hold my tongue. It is one of the 
 few accomplishments I possess."
 
 Brother and Sister. 143 
 
 CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 BROTHER AND SISTER. 
 
 ADMIRAL GRACE rather prided himself on his dinner- 
 parties. Like most elderly men he gave place to no one 
 in the matter of port wine. The rest he left to Helen, in 
 which he showed great wisdom, for she had inherited the 
 power of making things run smoothly which had been 
 transmitted also by a clever mother to Oswin. 
 
 There was question of a big dinner-party in the early 
 weeks of December, and the admiral took a lively interest 
 in the proceedings. As Oswin was at home it had been 
 decided that a younger element should be introduced. 
 Helen had never thought of complaining on her own ac- 
 count, but when it was a question of a naval lieutenant 
 at table with old salts she spoke up. Miss Winter was 
 invited, of course. Helen would face nothing without her. 
 The old sailors had wives, one of them possessed a 
 daughter. These living arguments led to the thoughts of 
 suitable men to meet them. The question was opened at 
 the breakfast-table one morning, and it struck Oswin that 
 his sister was singularly devoid of ideas. She could not 
 think of one man suitable for the occasion. The sug- 
 gestion lay with Oswin. He said at once that he had 
 two men both friends of Miss Winter's both friends 
 of his own. 
 
 Helen busied herself with the under-structure of a 
 small kettle simmering over a spirit-lamp.
 
 144 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " Claud Tyars," said Oswin, calmly, " and a man 
 called Easton an American." 
 
 " An American," echoed the admiral, looking as it were 
 into the recesses of his memory. " If he is a gentleman 
 let us have him. I like Americans. I was once at Wash- 
 ington in an official capacity, and I may say that I never 
 encountered a rude word or an evil glance, although the 
 old country was not very popular then. What is this 
 man ? " 
 
 Oswin hesitated. 
 
 " Well," he said, " I cannot exactly tell you. He is 
 like many Americans, having many tastes, and following 
 them all possessing many talents, and making good use 
 of none expert in many callings, and following each in 
 turn. He is what is called a litterateur. He writes 
 when the spirit moves him. He has some sort of an ap- 
 pointment in London. He has a great many irons in the 
 fire, but no one iron is pushed home." 
 
 " Is he educated ? " inquired Helen. " So few Amer- 
 icans are." 
 
 " Harvard," replied Oswin, tersely, "and languages, 
 
 French, German, and Ru " He stopped himself just 
 
 in time, and went on quickly with some presence of mind. 
 " He is a bit of an athlete too a sailing-canoe champion, 
 and a proverbial cox. Little man." 
 
 Helen thought of the small man she and Miss Winter 
 had watched from that lady's drawing-room window. 
 
 " Let us have him by all means," she said. " And 
 what about another man ? " 
 
 Again the spirit-lamp beneath the silver kettle was out 
 of order. 
 
 "Claud Tyars," said Oswin, decisively, reaching the 
 butter. 
 
 " I rather like that young fellow," said the admiral,
 
 Brother and Sister. 145 
 
 after a pause of some length, during which Oswin had 
 munched toast in a dogged way. " He and Agnes Win- 
 ter seemed to get on very well together. Let us have 
 him too." 
 
 " I will write to them," said Oswin, and the matter 
 was settled. 
 
 When the admiral grumbled off with his newspaper to 
 the den he called his study, the brother and sister remained 
 at the table without reason. Neither was eating, and 
 neither spoke for some time. At length Oswin rose and 
 took up his station upon the hearthrug, where instead of 
 standing, he walked backwards and forwards with a pecu- 
 liar action which might have suggested a caged animal to 
 such persons as were unacquainted with the narrow deck 
 of a slave-catcher. 
 
 " It must have been," he said, oracularly, " frightfully 
 slow for you during the last two years. I suppose you 
 had no one under sixty years of age in the house . . . 
 except of course Agnes Winter ?" 
 
 Helen laughed with that tolerance which seems 
 to forsake women as they grow older as they begin 
 to recognize that life, as lived day by day, is really a 
 mortal permanency, and not a period leading to better 
 things. 
 
 "Well," she answered, "we have scarcely been gay 
 at home ; but then I have been out a great deal, and 
 Agnes has always plenty of people about her." 
 
 Oswin was trying experiments on the burning coals 
 with the toe of his boot. 
 
 " Ah ! What sort of people ? " he inquired, in a dull 
 voice. 
 
 Helen raised her head and directed a quick glance to- 
 wards the broad back of her brother. 
 
 " Oh," she answered, indifferently, " her old school- 
 10
 
 146 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 friends, who are mostly married, and some of their hus- 
 bands not all." 
 
 "Is she," inquired the sailor, abruptly, "going to live 
 on in that house alone ? " 
 
 " In the meantime. She is unsettled still. It is not so 
 very long since her father died." 
 
 " Has she no relations," pursued Oswin, " except 
 those west-country people who are half Quakers ? " 
 
 " No near relations," answered Helen ; " no one with 
 any right to advise or interfere." 
 
 There was a short silence during which Helen continued 
 to sit sideways on her chair near the table, gazing ab- 
 stractedly at her brother's sturdy form. Suddenly he 
 wheeled round and encountered her glance. 
 
 " Why does she not marry ? " he asked, slowly. 
 
 The girl shrugged her shoulders, and with that reply 
 he was forced to content himself. 
 
 " She is," he continued, "just the person for matri- 
 mony. She has money and a very nice house. It would 
 be so convenient." 
 
 " I do not suppose that Agnes would relinquish her lib- 
 erty for the sake of convenience," said Helen, rising and 
 taking up a newspaper which had just come in. Her 
 brother watched her attentively. 
 
 "It is a pity," he said at length, quietly, "that she 
 does not marry." 
 
 The paper crackled as if held in unsteady hands. Helen 
 turned a page, murmuring vaguely, " Yes." 
 
 When she had looked all through the journal she 
 glanced up and said 
 
 "Who is Mr. Easton ?" 
 
 It was rather a singular coincidence, this mention of 
 Easton's name immediately after a conversation respect- 
 ing Agnes Winter. Helen remembered it a long time
 
 Brother and Sister. 147 
 
 afterwards, when her brother was not by her side to share 
 the recollection. 
 
 He did not answer the question directly. 
 
 "I want," he said, "to make things a little more 
 cheerful for you. Therefore I bring my friends. It is 
 not good for you to associate with none but old fogies 
 especially old naval fogies. You will like Easton ; he is 
 amusing and original." 
 
 " But is he all right? You know how particular papa 
 is." 
 
 "Oh, he is all right; you need not be afraid of that. 
 The guv'nor thinks that no man can be a gentleman un- 
 less he has worn the Queen's uniform, and is at least 
 sixty years of age. Easton is a friend of Tyars." 
 
 At this point Helen changed the subject somewhat 
 hastily, and other details of the approaching festivities 
 were discussed. 
 
 It is not always easy to discover the sequence of one's 
 thoughts. From the first mention of the name Helen had 
 no doubts of the identity of Matthew Mark Easton. She 
 divined at once, and by no process of reasoning, but by 
 unconscious intuition, that the American was no other 
 than the third person in the short colloquy which she had 
 witnessed from her friend's window. Whatever the girl's 
 thoughts may have been respecting the extension of her 
 father's hospitality to Claud Tyars, whether these were 
 of pleasure or distrust, they were for the time set in the 
 background by the reappearance of a man whom she had 
 only seen once for a few moments at a considerable dis- 
 tance. 
 
 There are sensations working in our hearts, flitting 
 through our brains, which we never have time to put into 
 definite shape in our own thoughts. .We are barely con- 
 scious of them, and although their influence is sometimes
 
 148 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 to be detected by others in glance and action, we frequently 
 pass on our way unaware of this influence ignorant of 
 its immediate consequence, and unsuspicious of its possible 
 results. Thus a personal dislike is sometimes known to 
 others, and even suspected by its object, before the feel- 
 ing is fully developed in our own thoughts, before it has a 
 definite place in our brain. This does not apply to a 
 feeling of sympathy or affection, for these are of slower 
 growth. Our likes develop slowly, our dislikes spring 
 into life at one bound. A wise man would not care to be 
 loved at first sight. Such a love may be poetic, romantic, 
 and interesting, but human life is in reality none of these 
 three its sorrows have no poetry, its joys no romance. 
 It is a great mistake to attempt making human life into 
 anything else than a work-a-day, hard and fast span of 
 years ; and to be in keeping our joys must be common- 
 place prosaic. Of course there is a beginning to sym- 
 pathy, though it be less tangible than the first sense of 
 antipathy. We can usually look back to the commence- 
 ment of a friendship and detect the sequence of the links 
 ultimately woven into chain. 
 
 When Helen had stood beside Miss Winter, looking 
 down into the street, her first sight of Matthew Mark 
 Easton was in some degree an event. She felt indefinitely 
 then that this little man was destined to enter into the 
 radius of her existence. This feeling is difficult to define, 
 but most of us have felt it for ourselves ; most of us have 
 given way to the momentary weakness of admitting 
 that there is some influence at work among us which draws 
 some souls together and erects a barrier between others. 
 All our neighbors (using the word in its broadest sense) 
 may be divided into two classes those who interest us, 
 and those to whom we are indifferent. These two classes 
 are independent of personal affection or dislike. Some
 
 Brother and Sister. 149 
 
 we love without interest ; others whom we dislike interest 
 us despite ourselves. 
 
 Helen was interested in Matthew Mark Easton without 
 knowing whether her feeling was one of pure curiosity 
 or of sympathy. Doubtless she felt that there were new 
 influences at work upon her brother's life, and in all 
 probability she, as well as Miss Winter, suspected the 
 American to be the fountain-head from whence these 
 influences flowed. Very few women are moral cowards. 
 The best of them the typical English girl in fact is 
 afraid of very few things ; she has a superb faith in her 
 own steadfastness of purpose, and in her own sense of 
 right and wrong. If Matthew Mark Easton was a common 
 adventurer, Helen Grace would sooner have trusted her- 
 self into his clutches than her brother. This is a 
 mistake very often made by young girls. It was there- 
 fore with a certain thrill of pleasure that she looked 
 forward to meeting a man whose influence upon her 
 brother was not yet measurable or comprehensible, 
 although she was certain enough of its existence. 
 
 Oswin aroused her from these meditations by a ques- 
 tion repeated for the third time. 
 
 " Helen," he said, " what do you think of Claud 
 Tyars ? " 
 
 She looked at him with a frankly puzzled smile. 
 
 " I do not know," she answered ; " I have not got any- 
 where near him yet." 
 
 " Then," persisted her brother, " what do you think of 
 him from a distance ? " 
 
 She nimbly avoided the question. 
 
 " Is he," she asked, " a professional mystery ? " 
 
 The inquiry was made in good enough faith. In the 
 course of her one or two seasons in London she had met 
 more than one professional mystery men who were
 
 150 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 nothing else than ball-room hacks, ready to accept invita- 
 tions here, there, and everywhere ; nineteenth-century 
 soldiers of fortune, living by their toes, the cheap perfec- 
 tion of their dress, and the cheaper currency of a shallow 
 politeness. 
 
 Oswin knew what she meant, and resented the insinua- 
 tion. He was under the influence of a true maritime con- 
 tempt for all carpet-knights. 
 
 " No," he answered, " he is certainly not that. The 
 log-book of the Martial could prove as much, and besides, 
 I have another proof. Tyars has never called since he 
 dined here two months ago." 
 
 " No," murmured Helen, " he has not." 
 
 " A man who envelopes himself in mystery for the pur- 
 pose of exciting interest in the fair sex would have called 
 before this, just to keep up the interest." 
 
 " But we have met him at other houses in theaters, 
 and at concerts." 
 
 " None of the meetings," argued Oswin, " were of his 
 own seeking." 
 
 "Then you think," said Helen, "that the mystery is 
 merely indifference ? " 
 
 " Well, not exactly indifference, but a diversity of 
 interest. Our friends do not interest him, our world is 
 not his world. He is not a ladies' man ; but I see nothing 
 mysterious about him. Where does the mystery come 
 in ? " 
 
 Helen laughed, and when she spoke her tone was 
 lighter. This matter was evidently not worthy of serious 
 discussion. 
 
 '.'Only in his reserve," she answered. " He is one 
 of the few young men 1 have met who can talk of other 
 things than their own individuality. I expect it is the 
 rarity that strikes me as so peculiar."
 
 Brother and Sister. 151 
 
 " He does not volunteer much information about him- 
 self," admitted Oswin. 
 
 " My dear boy, he volunteers absolutely nothing." 
 
 Oswin seemed to pull himself up. 
 
 " I do not see," he said, rather constrainedly, "that 
 we need trouble about that. After all, his own affairs 
 concern himself alone. It is not our business." 
 
 " No-o-o," said Helen, vaguely. She was watching 
 her brother very keenly with that unobtrusive watchful- 
 ness of which some of us are conscious by our own fire- 
 sides. These wives and mothers and sisters of ours 
 bless them ! there is no escaping their gentle grasp. 
 When we are in bodily pain no smile deceives them, no 
 feeble joke turns aside their scrutiny ; and when we at- 
 tempt to hold something from them, they scent out its 
 presence. The best of them refrain from mere inquisi- 
 tion, but they all alike know that there is something which 
 we are clumsily attempting to screen. When a man is 
 not absolutely cleverer than a woman he has no chance ; 
 with equal intellectual power the balance sways unerr- 
 ingly in favor of the woman. 
 
 Oswin Grace was a good sailor an exceptionally good 
 sailor but in intellectual power, in subtlety of mind, he 
 was no match for his sister. Helen knew well enough 
 that there was some factor in this friendship between her 
 brother, Claud Tyars, and Matthew Mark Easton which 
 was being carefully withheld from her by all three men. 
 It was moreover only owing to his sister's scruples that 
 Oswin succeeded in preserving so profound a secrecy. 
 Helen thought it her duty to refrain from meddling in any 
 way with her brother's affairs. Miss Winter was not so 
 scrupulous few women of her years suffer from an over- 
 sensitive conscience.
 
 152 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XV. 
 
 TYARS PAYS A CALL. 
 
 CLAUD TYARS had taken up his abode in a residential 
 club in London. This change had been dictated by mo- 
 tives of economy. He said that he found chambers in 
 the Albany toe expensive for a man who was seldom in 
 London. No one to whom he made this statement was 
 posted as to the extent of his income, and the excuse 
 passed readily enough. 
 
 He was certainly freer in his new quarters free to come 
 and go when the spirit moved him, and to some extent he 
 took advantage of his newly-established liberty. His ab- 
 sences were frequent, but he was seldom away from Lon- 
 don for more than a night or two. He frequently ran 
 down to Glasgow, and once to Peterhead, where he spent 
 two nights. 
 
 One morning in early December he was partaking of a 
 very hearty breakfast at the wanderers' club, where he 
 had temporarily taken rooms, when Matthew Mark Easton 
 was shown in. The American was also a member of this 
 club, which was singularly enough composed of members 
 of some University or another, duly qualified by the power 
 and means to satisfy the cravings of a roaming spirit. 
 
 There was usually something original in the manner of 
 Easton's arrival or departure. In this case, as in many 
 others, he came straight to the point without palaver or 
 explanation. He had a way of letting one know at once
 
 Tyars Pays a Call. 153 
 
 in what way one could be useful to him, which was at 
 times (if candid) almost startling. 
 
 Without a word he threw down upon the breakfast- 
 table a letter of which the envelope had been torn. Tyars 
 was quite equal to the American in quickness of thought. 
 Preserving the same stoic silence he tossed across the table 
 another envelope identical in every way, and addressed 
 by the same hand. Then he continued his breakfast. 
 
 Easton assured himself that his cigar was still alight, and 
 spoke the two words 
 
 " Wednesday week ? " 
 
 " Yes ; Wednesday week." 
 
 "The night," said Easton, "that we fixed for Guy 
 Fawkes." 
 
 " Yes. We must have the meeting on Tuesday night. 
 We must go to this." 
 
 Tyars laid his hand on the letter. The American's quick 
 little eyes were dancing over his whole person, even to 
 the tips of the quiescent brown fingers. 
 
 " Must we ? " he inquired. 
 
 Tyars looked up sharply. 
 
 'I do not believe," he said, " that you appreciate the 
 importance of Oswin Grace." 
 
 " Good sailor man ! " answered the American, " but 
 too many women-folk. They will give us trouble." 
 
 " Grace is worth it. He is something more than a good 
 sailor." 
 
 Easton screwed up his quaint little face into the picture 
 of interrogation. 
 
 "What?" he inquired. 
 
 " I don't know," answered Tyars, in the calm tone of 
 a man who is not accustomed to hesitation. " I cannot 
 define it, but he has something which makes him just the 
 man I want."
 
 154 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Easton was silent. He had a great respect for this big 
 calm Englishman ; the sort of respect that one has for any- 
 thing larger than oneself in the way of an animal. Stand- 
 ing, for instance, beside an elephant, we cannot help feel- 
 ing that within such a vast cranium there must be a brain 
 four or five times the size of our own that brain must be 
 doing something. The elephant is thinking of us while we 
 are contemplating him, and one cannot help wondering 
 what he is thinking about. Easton's feelings towards this 
 man, who supplied all that there was of Force in the hu- 
 man combination of which he, himself, was the founder 
 and chief, was one of respect untinged by fear, but slightly 
 flavored with wonder. He was by nature a voluble man, 
 although he kept a certain hold upon himself a hold which 
 had for result a telegraphic form of conversation. The 
 desire to talk was there, but a check was put upon it by 
 limiting the supply of pronouns and other conversational 
 adjuncts. Tyars was, on the contrary, a reserved man 
 little given to moments of expansion. This was a neces- 
 sary part of his character. One never hears of a voluble 
 commander. It is the silent men to whom one renders 
 homage. 
 
 Easton was ostensibly the leader in the undertaking 
 which had brought these two men together, and as the 
 plot thickened he rose to the occasion with characteristic 
 elasticity, but (as has been mentioned elsewhere) he was 
 not a born leader of men. He occupied cheerfully and 
 readily the position forced on him by circumstances, but 
 such men as Claud Tyars and Sergius Pavloski are not to 
 be led. Easton felt rather like one who is driving a pair 
 of powerful horses down a long hill without a brake to his 
 vehicle. He was perched up on the box and held the 
 reins, but the limit of his control was very doubtful. 
 
 But if he lacked the genius of command he possessed a
 
 Tyars Pays a Call. 155 
 
 very excellent substitute ; namely, tact. By tact a weak 
 man may sometimes direct the mind of a stronger than 
 himself. Although he was not fully satisfied that Oswin 
 Grace was exactly the man required for the post, he re- 
 frained from saying anything more, and never subse- 
 quently raised the question. 
 
 "Well then," he said, "we will go. I shall call the 
 meeting on Tuesday week at my rooms as before. It is 
 the last full meeting we shall ever have. I think I shall 
 stand champagne and an oyster or so ; they lighten the 
 heart." 
 
 With that he rose and held out his hand. 
 
 When he was gone Claud Tyars turned to his break- 
 fast again. There was a calm method in his deportment. 
 He propped up his newspaper against the cruet-stand and 
 read while he finished a singularly hearty repast. It is 
 to be regretted that he failed to soliloquize aloud, and 
 addressed no far-reaching questions as to the desirability 
 or otherwise of human life to the toast-rack. This is to 
 be regretted, because no one is more fully aware than 
 the novel writer that the modern hero always soliloquizes 
 aloud, and that the said soliloquies should be reported 
 verbatim. It is such a simple method of taking the pa- 
 tient reader straightway inside the hero's mind. We all 
 must confess to having accompanied the modern lady- 
 novelist inside many an heroic mind, and when there 
 have looked with due edification, of course. The reader 
 of these lines will however be compelled to find his way 
 into Claud Tyars' mind alone, because the recorder has 
 never been there himself, and cannot undertake to guide 
 others. 
 
 It is not such an easy matter, you must understand, to 
 make one's way into the secret mental chambers of a 
 man like this. He never, as Helen Grace told her brother,
 
 156 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 volunteered anything, and he was a strongly character- 
 istic specimen of the typical modern British aristocrat. 
 That is to say, a man who cultivates (ad nauseam al- 
 most) the art of minding his own business, and at the 
 same time teaches other people most plainly to mind theirs. 
 
 His actions and his words as serving to indicate the 
 workings of his mind may be studied. From the narra- 
 tion of these the intelligent reader will no doubt gather as 
 much edification as he has humbly gathered in the foot- 
 steps of the modern lady-novelist, trotting meekly after her 
 through mazes most extraordinary, until the fact that 
 this medley was the mind of a fellow-man seemed totally 
 incredible. Such men may exist, but it does not fall to 
 the lot of us poor males to meet them, though indeed 
 we should scarcely appreciate them if we did. 
 
 Nor would it materially assist matters if the immediate 
 environments of Claud Tyars were minutely described. 
 There was nothing singular about the room he occupied 
 merely a comfortable club-like room with a few papers 
 lying about, heavily furnished, scrupulously clean. The 
 only personal object to be seen was a square tin-box, 
 technically called a deed-box, and in this were secured 
 sundry documents and letters. A man with a memory 
 like a ledger requires neither pigeon-holes nor note-books. 
 in direct defiance of precedent I shall omit to record 
 whether Tyars helped himself to marmalade with a spoon 
 or with his buttery knife ; moreover, posterity must eke 
 out its existence without the knowledge of what he had 
 for breakfast. 
 
 When he rose from the table and lighted a cigarette, 
 his first care was to collect his letters and throw them all 
 into the fire. This was a daily custom. He seemed to 
 take a delight in heaping fresh responsibilities upon his 
 memory.
 
 Tyars Pays a Call. 157 
 
 He spent the morning at the docks, and in the after- 
 noon returned to his rooms tired and rather dirty. In a 
 few minutes all signs of fatigue and work were removed, 
 and he set off on foot to call at Brook Street, one of the 
 best-dressed men in Piccadilly. 
 
 There was a sailor-like frankness in the way in which 
 Salter, the admiral's butler, opened the door when the 
 visitor was fortunate enough to find any one at home. 
 The formal threshold question was dispensed with by the 
 genial welcome or the heartfelt sorrow expressed by the 
 man's brown and furrowed face. 
 
 He welcomed Tyars with a special grin and an ill-con- 
 cealed desire to grab at a forelock now brushed scrupu- 
 lously back. Salter had always endeavored through life 
 to adapt himself ungrudgingly to circumstances, and he 
 succeeded fairly well in remembering on most occa- 
 sions that he was a butler, but his love for all mariners 
 was a thing he never fully managed to conceal. Land- 
 lubbers he tolerated now, and he liked a soldier, but his 
 honest doglike heart went out to all who like himself 
 loved a breeze of wind and the sweet keen smell of spray. 
 There is a bond in mutual love, whether it be of dog or 
 horse, of sport or work, of land or sea, and Tyars always 
 felt an inclination to shake honest John Salter by the hand 
 when he saw him. 
 
 To these feelings of sympathy must be attributed the 
 fact that Tyars forgot to inquire whether the admiral 
 were at home. That some one was to be found up-stairs 
 in the drawing-room was obvious enough from Salter's 
 beaming countenance, but the maritime butler omitted 
 to give particulars. 
 
 Thus it happened that the surprise was mutual when 
 Tyars and Helen Grace found themselves face to face 
 alone in the drawing-room.
 
 158 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 She had been seated at a small table near the window, 
 and she rose to receive him, without however moving 
 towards the door. 
 
 He came forward without appearing to notice a slight 
 movement of embarrassment on her part, and shook 
 hands. Most men would have launched into unnecessary 
 explanations respecting his presence, his motive for com- 
 ing, and his firm resolve to leave again at once. But 
 Claud Tyars occasionally took it upon himself to ignore 
 the usages of his fellows. 
 
 " I have much pleasure," he said, with grave jocularity, 
 " in accepting your kind invitation to dine on Wednesday 
 week ; and I am yours truly, Claud Tyars." 
 
 Helen laughingly expressed her pleasure that he was 
 able to come, and returned to her chair beside the little 
 table. She was quite her gentle, contained self again. 
 The signs of embarrassment, if such they were, had quite 
 disappeared, and she asked him to find a chair for him- 
 self with just that modicum of familiarity which one allows 
 oneself towards the intimate friend of a brother or sister. 
 This he did, frankly bringing a seat nearer to the small 
 table. 
 
 "If," he continued, "it will be any satisfaction to 
 your hospitable mind, I will disclose the fact that my 
 friend Easton is also able to avail himself of your kind- 
 ness." 
 
 "I am glad," she said, glancing across at him with 
 those gravely questioning eyes of hers, which somehow 
 conjured up thoughts of olden times, of quieter days when 
 there was time to think and live and love. They pos- 
 sessed the directness of gaze noticed in Oswin Grace, but 
 softened to a great degree, and this very softness was 
 misleading. It disarmed one, for we all judge too freely 
 from a mere turn of eyelid. It has been my own expe-
 
 Tyars Pays a Call. 159 
 
 riencethat mild and gentle eyes see just as much as those 
 smaller orbs of which the upper and lower lid would lead 
 one to look for great keenness of observation. 
 
 Miss Winter would perhaps have been surprised to learn 
 that Claud Tyars and Oswin also Matthew Mark Easton 
 later on dreaded the glance and question of Helen Grace 
 infinitely more than the inquisition of such an expe- 
 rienced woman of the world as herself. We all know the 
 difference between outwitting a keen diplomatist and de- 
 ceiving a harmless, unsuspecting young girl. There is an 
 unpleasant and pathetic self-reproach in worsting a foe 
 unworthy of one's steel. Claud Tyars enjoyed a spar 
 with Miss Winter, while he quailed inwardly before 
 Helen's soft eyes. Providence has placed in the hands 
 of the guileless, defensive arms of which those possessing 
 the knowledge of good and evil have no suspicion. 
 
 Miss Winter began by suspecting Claud Tyars of some 
 secret purpose, and in her intercourse with him this sus- 
 picion would have been obvious to a much less observant 
 man. The trifling gestures, glances, words that betrayed 
 this feeling would have been retained in an ordinary mind, 
 while to a memory like his the links of the chain were 
 each one evident. Miss Winter treated him as a con- 
 spirator and as a possible enemy ; Helen took an infinitely 
 cleverer course she treated him frankly as a friend. 
 
 To us who watch these people from one side it cannot 
 be otherwise than manifest that this treatment was hard 
 to cope with. Whatever Claud Tyars might be at heart, 
 villain or hero (and I set him up as neither), this girl's 
 method of taking him as she found him, namely, as a 
 friend, could not fail to touch the best and manliest in- 
 stincts of his heart. 
 
 If any of us, and doubly so if a young and lovely 
 maiden, persistently and methodically treat a traitor as a
 
 160 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 friend, the chances are very much against the survival of 
 treachery. However subtle, however deep may be the 
 traitor's villainy, human nature lives somewhere in his 
 black heart, and that one touch which is said to make the 
 whole world kin can only be imparted by the hand of 
 Faith. The way to make men trustworthy is to trust in 
 them. And Helen Grace, in giving way to the intuition 
 that drew her towards this self-contained gentleman, as- 
 sumed at one bound a power over him far and away 
 stronger than that possessed by any other man or woman. 
 After her words of politeness there was a short silence, 
 and as she looked at her companion across the little table 
 a glow slowly rose over her throat and face. Then, as if 
 giving way to a sudden impulse, she spoke.
 
 An Explanation. 161 
 
 CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 AN EXPLANATION. 
 
 " MR. TYARS," she said, " I have an apology to make 
 to you." 
 
 He looked at her without speaking for some moments. 
 In another man one would almost have suspected a desire 
 to prolong the contemplation of a very lovely, shamed 
 face. 
 
 " For what ? " he said, at length. 
 
 "For disliking you I mean for beginning to dislike 
 you. I don't I that was at first." 
 
 " I wonder," he said with quick mercy, " if you know 
 why you began by disliking me." 
 
 "I think I do." 
 
 He smiled and turned away his eyes rather suddenly. 
 There was a paper-knife lying on the table, and he took 
 it up, subsequently balancing it on his finger, while she 
 watched him with vague and mechanical interest. 
 
 " Tell me," he said. 
 
 " Jealousy." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 He glanced almost furtively towards her, and caught 
 a passing smile. It was now his turn to look ill at ease. 
 She maintained silence in a determined way which some- 
 how threw the onus of the pause on to his shoulders. 
 
 At last he threw the paper-knife down on to the table 
 with a clatter. 
 zx
 
 1 6.2 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " You are right," he said, almost humbly. " I have 
 acted like a coward." 
 
 " And you are not a coward ? " 
 
 He raised his eyebrows. The glance of her eyes as 
 they rested on his great stalwart frame cancelled the in- 
 terrogation. 
 
 " I have never thought so until now." 
 
 She shook her head with rather a wistful smile. 
 
 " Then I have reason," she said, "to be jealous. You 
 are drawing Oswin away from me ? " 
 
 Before replying he rose, and during the rest of their 
 conversation he never took a seat again, but continued 
 moving about the room with a certain strange restlessness 
 which is very uncommon in big men. Its presence may 
 generally be taken to denote an unusual energy an 
 energy of that description which leads to great deeds of 
 some sort or another. There was a little carpeted space 
 between the fireplace and the window, and here he paced 
 backwards and forwards, sometimes stopping at the 
 window, sometimes on the hearthrug. The action so 
 reminded Helen of her father and brother (both sailors) 
 that it seemed to conjure up a new familiarity between 
 these two young people. 
 
 " It is," he said, " a long story. Are you prepared for 
 a chapter of egotism ? It is all about myself." 
 
 She allowed her work and hands to fall upon her lap, 
 and looked towards him with an evident interest and 
 curiosity of which she did not know the danger. 
 
 "Yes," she said. " Tell me. I want to be told." 
 
 " I belong," he said, "to such a quarrelsome family 
 that I have practically no relations in the world. When 
 my father married, his brothers and sisters turned their 
 backs upon him. When he died they quarreled over his 
 dead body ; when my mother followed him they quar-
 
 An Explanation. 163 
 
 reled again. I was a little chap then, but I told them 
 never to interfere with me again, and they have not for- 
 gotten it. I am practically alone in the world, with no 
 one to rejoice over my success or weep over my failures. 
 The position is eminently satisfactory. Being pig-headed, 
 I overruled my guardians, and had practical control over 
 my own income at college. Of course unlimited means 
 at one of the Universities usually leads to a rapid descent 
 to the dogs. After a year, I found I was no nearer the 
 dogs, than I had been at first, and, strange to say, had no 
 desire for further progress. I began to find that I was 
 different from my contemporaries, inasmuch as they all 
 had relatives and most of them possessed prospects of 
 some sort. Many had livings, or commissions, or appoint- 
 ments waiting for them. I had nothing. All this caused 
 me to wonder why I had been created, and what I should 
 do with myself in the world. A sort of superstition crept 
 into my mind. I began to attach an importance to out- 
 ward circumstances. In my conceit I imagined that Provi- 
 dence had gone out of her way to create me for some 
 special purpose. I was athletic, and was considered one 
 of the soundest human animals at Cambridge. There 
 was not a flaw anywhere ; I have never had anything 
 worse than a headache all my life. You see, I had health, 
 wealth, strength, and perfect independence. I looked 
 round and saw that I was almost alone in this position, 
 and my blessings grew into a sort of responsibility. I 
 felt that I ought to do something, that I had no right to 
 hoard up the capital Providence had given me." 
 
 Here he paused, half-way between the window and the 
 fireplace. 
 
 " Then," he said, looking at her for the first time, " I 
 met Matthew Mark Easton ! " 
 
 She gave a little nod as if urging him to continue his
 
 164 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 narrative. Her eyes were following him with much more 
 interest than prudent young women should show in mem- 
 bers of the opposite sex ; for men being deprived of open 
 flattery are ready enough to imagine it for themselves. 
 
 " He is," continued Tyars, "the very opposite to me 
 from a physical point of view. He has hardly an organ 
 in full working order, and consequently his brain works 
 harder. He is a cleverer man than I. I am strong, but 
 I am not clever, Miss Grace. Easton is an originator, 
 and he is an orator. He showed me what there was for 
 me to do in the world. I recognized the truth of his 
 arguments and took up my mission." 
 
 " What is your mission ? " she asked. 
 
 Again he stopped. He stood before her with his strong 
 arms hanging motionless, his great brown hands half closed 
 and quite still, as they always were unless actually at 
 work. He certainly was a picture of strength, a per- 
 fect specimen of the human animal as he had called him- 
 self. But with it all he was not dense. Perhaps he judged 
 himself from other big men when he told Helen Grace 
 that his muscular force was greater than his brain power. 
 If so his estimate was unnecessarily humble, ignoring as 
 it did his wonderful memory, carrying with it quite a le- 
 gion of such qualities as are required for every-day com- 
 petition with our fellow-men. It is probable that he was 
 quite unconscious of the possession of another power, 
 namely, that of managing his neighbors. It was the genius 
 of command, and he wielded it without recognition. This 
 same genius is often found in strange places ; some small 
 and fragile women have it, and that is why many big hus- 
 bands are bullied. 
 
 " Arctic exploration," he answered. " I mean to reach 
 the North Pole some day." 
 
 It happened that Helen knew a good deal about Arctic
 
 " What is your mission ? '' Page 164.
 
 An Explanation. 165 
 
 matters. The admiral had been bitten by the strange 
 craze in his younger days. Like many others he had 
 for a time given way to the spirit of exploration which is 
 hidden somewhere in every Englishman's heart. Every 
 book of Arctic travel yet printed was to be found 
 in his smoke-scented den, and Helen had read most of 
 them. 
 
 She knew therefore what the end would be. To hear 
 a man say that he intends to reach the North Pole is one 
 thing, to know what he is talking about and believe in his 
 intention is quite another. To Helen Grace the fuller 
 knowledge was given, and she sat looking at Claud Tyars 
 with a dull anguish in her eyes. 
 
 " And you want Oswin ? " she whispered. 
 
 He did not answer, but turned away as from something 
 that he could not face, and stood by the window looking 
 down into the street. 
 
 He was what is vaguely called a gentleman. There 
 are certain points of honor which we Englishmen learn 
 at school, and there are, thank heaven ! not many of us 
 who find pleasure in deceiving one who is weaker than 
 ourselves. Could he have explained all, it would have 
 been so different. Naturally slow of speech as he was, he 
 felt then that he could have pleaded to this girl a cause 
 which he honestly thought a true and righteous one. His 
 mind reverted to Matthew Mark Easton ; he thought of 
 the quaint little American with his strange eloquence, and 
 felt that he at all events would have carried all before 
 him with the sister of Oswin Grace. But they were all 
 three tongue-tied. They could not appeal to her, point- 
 ing out that she had not grudged her brother for a service 
 of great humanity, and that this was only a greater sacri- 
 fice for a greater cause. This is no place to draw com- 
 parisons between the two great blots upon this fair earth.
 
 1 66 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 There is, however, no comparison. Siberia is a nearer 
 approach to hell on earth than Africa. 
 
 Helen Grace naturally argued that she was called upon 
 to give up her only brother, indeed almost the only con- 
 temporary relative she possessed, in order to further the 
 ambition of one man. And this man had come to her 
 coolly announcing his demand. 
 
 He stood beside the window not moving a muscle. All 
 this had been thought out. This interview had been fore- 
 seen. Oswin had asked that he might break the news 
 to his sister and father, but Tyars had claimed the right 
 himself. His was the onus, and his must be the blame. 
 There was no desire to shirk responsibility ; indeed he 
 seemed to court it. Helen Grace must be deceived it 
 was a contemptible thing to do, a dirty task and he would 
 have none other but himself. He stubbornly took it all 
 upon his own shoulders. 
 
 "I suppose," said Helen, at last, "that he wants to 
 
 go." 
 
 " Of course," was the answer. " What English sailor 
 would not ? But I persuaded him the fault is all 
 mine." 
 
 She looked up sharply. 
 
 " And Mr. Easton ? " she inquired, with keen logic. 
 
 "Yes . . . yes. But I chose your brother. The mat- 
 ter rests with me, and . . . the blame." 
 
 "What has Mr. Easton to do with it?" she asked, 
 and he knew that she was already prejudiced against the 
 American. 
 
 " He is getting up the expedition the first one." 
 
 " And he goes with you ? " 
 
 " No," replied Tyars, " 1 have already told you he is 
 physically incapacitated." 
 
 She gave a little laugh a very unpleasant laugh for a
 
 An Explanation. 167 
 
 man to hear from the lips of a woman. Fortunately 
 Matthew Mark Easton was spared the cruelty of hearing 
 it. Then she relapsed into silence again, and they re- 
 mained thus for some moments. 
 
 At last she spoke, without looking towards him. 
 
 " I like you," she said, "for telling me. There were 
 so many other ways of doing it so many easier ways for 
 you but you chose to tell me yourself." 
 
 To this he said nothing. Despite his capable air, de- 
 spite an unusual rapidity of thought which took the form 
 of action in emergencies, he was not able to reel off glib 
 phrases at the proper moment. 
 
 Suddenly her proud self-restraint seemed to give way. 
 
 "I suppose," she said, softly, almost pleading, "that 
 nothing will deter you ? " 
 
 He turned and came towards her. 
 
 " One word from you would deter me," he said, " but 
 I do not think that you will say it." 
 
 " No," she answered with a smile ; " I am not going to 
 ask you to let my brother off." 
 
 "I did not know how he was circumstanced when I 
 first met him," said Tyars in self-excuse, " I did not know, 
 of your existence." 
 
 " Of course," she said, with a little shrug of the 
 shoulders, " I am not going to be silly and stand in my 
 brother's way. Only it would have been so much better 
 could you have found some one like yourself without 
 brother or sister, or any one to care much for him. It is 
 not only for myself . . ." 
 
 She stopped suddenly. There was a moment of tense 
 silence. Then he slowly approached her until the little 
 table alone separated them. 
 
 " Miss Grace," he said, slowly, " what do you mean ? " 
 
 She was not the kind of woman to resort to subterfuge
 
 1 68 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 or useless denial, and she therefore held her tongue. At 
 the same time she began to feel very helpless. With Os- 
 win, with her father, and with all men whom she had 
 hitherto known, she could hold her own, but with Claud 
 Tyars it was different. There was in his presence a force 
 which did not take the form of words. He merely stood 
 still, and his silence was stronger than any words she had 
 yet heard. Then he spoke slowly and quite gently 
 
 " You must tell me," he said, "what you mean." 
 
 She glanced up at him appealingly beneath her lashes, 
 at bay and yet almost mastered. 
 
 He softened a little. 
 
 " Unless," he added, " it would be a breach of confi- 
 dence." 
 
 " No," she answered, " it is not that ; for no one has 
 confided in me. But I think ..." 
 
 " You are not sure ? " he interrupted eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, Mr. Tyars, I am sure." 
 
 He turned away again and went towards the window. 
 She mechanically took up her work, and for some time 
 both were fully occupied with their own thoughts. 
 
 As stated previously, Helen Grace knew as much about 
 Arctic matters as any one who had not been over the 
 frozen threshold could well know. It is not given to us all 
 to pass that threshold, to step into the great silent North, 
 where all things seem to be waiting. Waiting for what ? 
 none can tell ; but that is undoubtedly the sense im- 
 parted by the atmosphere of the Arctic circle. In the cold 
 black rocks, in the lapping of the dead waves round the 
 ice-floes ; in the very creak of the restless ice itself there 
 is a great expectancy. The gray birds as they wheel 
 slowly in the gray sky seem to say, " We are waiting." 
 And the seal says it, and the long-legged hare running 
 noiselessly, as if fearing to disturb God's great silence.
 
 An Explanation. 169 
 
 The prowling wolf, the shambling bear, all confess to an 
 incompleteness. If any man say that the world is com- 
 plete, that all things are finished, that the end is near, let 
 him go to the frozen North. If he have eyes to see, and ears 
 to hear, he cannot fail to recognize that there is yet some- 
 thing to be done. In all parts of the habitable earth nature 
 is complete, self-sufficing, independent ; but in the twilit 
 zone there is something still to be accomplished ; some- 
 thing wrong something to be evolved in God's good time. 
 a few lives have been thrown away a few bones are 
 lying yonder ; but it is only the matter of a mile or two 
 for which we compete. Some are allowed to reach a 
 greater latitude than others, some sail in clear water where 
 others have been crushed in midsummer. Some penetrate 
 far across the border, while the majority of us turn back 
 at the very threshold ; but we all bring away in our hearts 
 the same conviction, whether we speak of it or no, namely, 
 that man was never meant to go there yet. 
 
 The short winter day was drawing in before Claud 
 Tyars left Brook Street. As he shook hands with Helen 
 he said 
 
 " I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Winter the other 
 evening." 
 
 " Yes," replied Helen ; " she told me." 
 
 That was all, but they understood each other. A stress 
 upon a single word, a glance, a little hesitation, will say 
 so much that cannot be set down in print. The unfinished 
 conversation was terminated. Claud Tyars knew that 
 there was some one else to watch and wait for Oswin 
 Grace if he went to the Arctic seas. 
 
 He had only been in the room an hour a dismal Novem- 
 ber afternoon hour and yet there was a difference in his 
 life as he left the door. It does not take long to make a friend.
 
 170 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XVII. 
 
 THE LAST MEETING. 
 
 THERE is no cloak for tears like laughter. He is a strong 
 man who merely does nothing in the midst of tears. Most 
 men either laugh or weep, but some there are who remain 
 grave. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton was not a strong man. The last 
 meeting of the association he was pleased to call "Guy 
 Fawkes"was looked forward to by him with positive 
 dread. This was not the outcome of a great responsibility. 
 He did not hold himself responsible for Pavloski and his 
 three compatriots, for he knew well enough that he him- 
 self was but a means to the end. If these four Russians 
 had not met with him, they would still have gone to 
 Siberia ; for they were branded, their souls were seared 
 by the hot iron the thrice-heated iron of unquenchable 
 vengeance. 
 
 The truth was that the little American had a warm 
 heart. He had learnt to like these men, to respect the 
 curse of their nationality ; for to him it was naught else 
 than a curse. And, indeed, no man would willingly be a 
 Russian no man worth his salt. 
 
 This meeting was the beginning of the end. Many 
 times had these six, and latterly seven, men met in the 
 American's room. They were bound together by the 
 ties of a joint interest, by the riven bond of a common 
 danger.
 
 The Last Meeting. 171 
 
 To-night they were to meet again ; they were to partake 
 once more of the open-handed transatlantic hospitality, 
 and in all human probability the same seven men would 
 never stand under one roof again. Of course such things 
 happen every day. It is no good waxing sentimental. 
 Avaunt, mawkish melancholy ! Sensible men and women 
 like ourselves do not worry about such trifles. It is much 
 better to take it cheerfully, as did Matthew Mark Easton. 
 Provide oysters and champagne especially champagne, 
 it is a rare specific and crack jokes. Only do not laugh 
 at them too loud and too quickly, as if it does not matter 
 much about the joke so long as the laugh is sonorous. 
 But above all avoid any reference to the future, because 
 in the loudest of laughter there are pauses some jokes 
 fall flat, and moments of thoughtful ness creep in. 
 
 Sergius Pavloski was the first to arrive. Immaculate, 
 cold, and self-contained as usual ; his old-fashioned dress 
 clothes scrupulously brushed, his large amethyst shirt- 
 studs brightly polished. There was a steady glitter in his 
 unpleasantly veiled eyes, but his manners were always 
 suave and courtly. 
 
 " Ah, Smith t " cried Easton ; " punctual as usual. 
 We business men know its value, eh ? especially at meal- 
 times. I've got a new box of caviare, my boy. Found 
 it in a German Delicatessen- Handlung in Wardour Street. 
 The real thing, in a white china box ; looks like saddle- 
 paste." 
 
 He drew his guest to a little side-table, where liqueurs 
 and a few delicacies were set out in the Russian fashion, 
 and they gravely examined the caviare which had been 
 purposely left in the small china box, bearing a printed 
 label in Russian characters, as one sees it in the Newski 
 Prospect shop-windows. 
 
 The interest which Pavloski displayed in this small waif
 
 172 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 from his own land was a trifle too eager to be quite natural. 
 Easton made little jokes about the beneficial effect likely 
 to accrue to his rusty Russian by the consumption of 
 caviare, and they got through the bad quarter of an hour 
 somehow, until the bell rang again. They were acting a 
 part most obviously, and rather badly. 
 
 The little office in the city had been almost their home 
 for the last two years, and within its four bare walls they 
 had worked together steadily, and with that restrained 
 enthusiasm which turns out good labor. The two heads 
 bowed together over the little box of preserved fish had 
 hatched and conceived a most wondrous plot. They had 
 talked of many things together ; had counted lives as 
 other men count their money. 
 
 Easton knew more of this man's history than any other 
 human being. He alone knew that Sergius Pavloski was, 
 of all the seven associates, by far the most dangerous 
 man ; that to him human life, whether his own or that of 
 another, was not a sacred thing at all. And now the 
 great scheme was maturing. The first decisive move had 
 been made. Pavloski was to leave England in twenty- 
 four hours. The little office was closed ; their joint labors 
 were finished. 
 
 When the guests were assembled, Easton led the way 
 to another room, where dinner was served. He had 
 carried out his intention of offering to his guests the best 
 that could be procured for money, and full justice was 
 done to the fare provided. The usual silence upon the 
 subject of their meeting was observed until the meal was 
 over, and all chairs were drawn round the fire. 
 
 Then the informal proceedings commenced. Matthew 
 Mark Easton was a trifle more restless than usual ; his 
 mobile features alternated between grave and gay, while 
 his dancing eyes were never still. He fidgeted at times
 
 The Last Meeting. 173 
 
 with his slim hands, and referred constantly to the lighted 
 end of his cigarette. 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " we have done a vast deal of 
 talking, and now at last some of us are going into action. 
 Of course I have done the most talking, and now that the 
 time for action has come, I occupy a retired seat in the 
 background. That is the good God's dispensation, not 
 mine. But I hope that the result of all my talking will be 
 useful in the hereafter. Each one of you knows his part, 
 and each one of you, of course, will do his best ; I know 
 that at least I surmise so. The three gentlemen who 
 leave us to-night for Siberia take absolutely nothing with 
 them except a little money. There are no maps, no 
 letters, no instructions, nothing that an enemy can get 
 hold of. We have, however, taken measures to supply 
 them with money at various stages of the journey. We 
 have also completed a method of communication, by 
 means of which the safe progress of the travelers can 
 from time to time be reported to St. Petersburg, and 
 subsequently to the headquarters in London. But in case 
 of partial failure if, I mean, one of you should . . . fail 
 it is quite understood that the others go on. Mr. Tyars 
 undertakes to get his ship round Cape Chelyuskin, and 
 to wait for you at the meeting-place arranged, namely, 
 the westernmost mouth of the river Yana, not far from 
 Oust Yansk, where we have a good friend. On the tenth 
 of July he sails from thence to complete the Northeast 
 passage, and reach the coast of Alaska. That date, 
 gentlemen, is fixed. If no one comes to meet him he goes 
 on alone, but he hopes to see you all three, and each with 
 a party not exceeding fifteen persons." 
 
 The three men turned their dull eyes towards the two 
 Englishmen seated side by side, and the American seeing 
 the action paused. Unconsciously the seven men as-
 
 174 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 sembled had grouped themselves into order. The stout 
 Russian and Easton were seated side by side with their 
 backs to the table, and on their left were placed the three 
 young Russians, while on the right the two British sailors 
 sat side by side a big man and a small one the lesser 
 and the greater power. 
 
 It would be hard to say what thoughts passed through 
 the minds of these five men. A better pen than mine 
 could scarce lift one corner of the veil. Now they were 
 seated in a warm room, surrounded by comfort ; when 
 next they met, if they were destined ever to see each 
 other again, it would be far within the Arctic circle. 
 The three foreigners were virtually placing their lives and 
 those of their friends in the hands of these two resolute 
 navigators, and they did it with the impassive coldness 
 which is such a terrible curse to the Slavonic race. 
 Each pair of eyes seemed to say, " I wonder if you will 
 meet us there," but nothing more. The two sailors 
 smiled in response. They belonged to a different race 
 a race that smiles but rarely laughs, that acts but rarely 
 threatens, a race which (as may be learnt from history) 
 has fought Nature, more successfully than any other. 
 And this was a fight with Nature. She is an enemy that 
 is sometimes very careless, but on the other hand she 
 knows no mercy. There were no protestations, no vows 
 to do or die. It must be remembered that these conspir- 
 ators belonged to the nineteenth century, a century much 
 given to sliding, and little addicted to protestations of any 
 description. The three Russians merely gazed with their 
 singularly expressionless eyes, and the Englishman smiled 
 in a ludicrously characteristic way. Then Easton went 
 on 
 
 " Of course," he said, " the distances are enormous ; 
 but we have endeavored to equalize them as much as
 
 The Last Meeting. 175 
 
 possible. The meeting point has been fixed with a view 
 to this. It is the southernmost anchorage obtainable east 
 of Cape Chelyuskin, though it is far within the Arctic 
 circle. Of course secrecy is the chief aim, and has been 
 the chief aim we have kept in view all along. Each of you 
 knows his own department, and that only. Each of you 
 keeps to himself the meeting-place and the date, not even 
 divulging them to the rescued exiles under your care. 
 We have succeeded, I surmise, in keeping our scheme 
 completely secret. No one knows of it except ourselves, 
 not even the Nihilist party in London. We must re- 
 member that we are not Nihilists, but merely seven men 
 engaged upon a private enterprise. We have friends who 
 have been unjustly exiled, many of them without a trial 
 upon mere suspicion. We are attempting to rescue those 
 friends, that is all." 
 
 " Yes," echoed the stout man, speaking for the first 
 time, "that is all. I seek my daughter." 
 
 " And I my sister," said one. 
 
 " And I my brother," said another. 
 
 " It is," added Pavloski, slowly, " a wife with me." 
 
 Tyars and Grace said nothing. They had not quite 
 thought it out, and were unprepared with a reason. Eas- 
 ton was more at ease now. He lighted a cigarette, and 
 consulted a little note-book hitherto concealed in his 
 waistcoat pocket. 
 
 " I have endeavored," he continued, without taking 
 his eyes from the pocket-book, "to make every depart- 
 ment independent as much as possible. For instance, my 
 own death would in no wise affect the expedition. The 
 money and information would after such an event con- 
 tinue to filter through to Siberia by the pre-arranged 
 channels. In case of the death or imprisonment of our 
 agent in St. Petersburg the same communications would
 
 176 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 be kept open. We each have a substitute, and the ar- 
 rangements are so simple that these substitutes will have 
 no difficulty in carrying them out. I need scarcely tell 
 you that heavy bribes have been sent to the right quarters 
 in Siberia high official quarters." 
 
 The stout man grunted in a knowing way, and signified 
 by a little nod of the head that no further interruption 
 need be feared. 
 
 " In Russia," continued Easton, turning the pages of 
 his note-book, "we all know that every official has his 
 price. The only difficulty lies in the discovery of that price. 
 The only parts that have not been doubled are those of 
 the three gentlemen who go out to Siberia to organize the 
 escape of the prisoners and exiles. I surmise that it is 
 unnecessary to point out that these parts cannot be 
 doubled. There are not three other such men to be found. 
 As to our ship, she was built for Arctic service, and has 
 been thoroughly strengthened above and below under the 
 personal supervision of Mr. Tyars and myself. In Mr. 
 Tyars and Lieutenant Grace we have two sailors emi- 
 nently calculated to bear the strain that will be put upon 
 them. Humanly speaking they may be trusted to do all 
 that man can do, to get the Argo round Cape Chelyuskin 
 to the rendezvous by the date named. It has always 
 been understood between us that mutual trust and mu- 
 tual assistance are things to be taken without saying. 
 We all trust each other, and in case of failure, partial or en- 
 tire, no blame is to be attached to any individual. This 
 is our last meeting in London. Some of us may see each 
 other again. I trust to God we shall. I trust that He who 
 knows no nationalities will bring five of you together again 
 next summer." 
 
 There was a pause. Matthew Mark Easton turned the 
 pages of his note-book in a vague, aimless way. Then
 
 The Last Meeting. 177 
 
 suddenly he rose, threw his cigarette into the fire, and 
 turning to the table, drew forward the decanters. He 
 poured himself out a glass of wine, which he drank, keep- 
 ing his back towards his guests. Then in that same posi- 
 tion, without looking round, he spoke in a low tone of 
 voice 
 
 " Gentlemen," he said, " my report is finished." 
 There followed upon this a painful silence. The Rus- 
 sians looked at each other vaguely. None of them were 
 good English scholars, though they all understood the lan- 
 guage perfectly, and spoke it without marked accent. 
 Perhaps also no one of them had anything very special to 
 say. Just as the pause became embarrassing Tyars took 
 the cigar from his mouth and spoke with that high-bred 
 calmness which is at times a trifle aggravating. 
 
 " I have thought it necessary," he said, " to give out 
 the information that I am fitting up a private Arctic expe- 
 dition, of which the object is the exploration of the North- 
 eastern passage. My reasons for doing this are numer- 
 ous. It is difficult to fit up a ship in London without 
 attracting the attention of maritime newspapers, and it is 
 imperative that suspicion be averted from the first. I had 
 the misfortune to get into the newspapers a few months 
 ago, and a society journal, on the staff of which are two 
 college contemporaries of my own, has taken the trouble 
 to inquire publicly what I was doing on board a merchant- 
 man in the West Indies. A certain amount of publicity 
 will insure the information reaching the Russian authori- 
 ties that an expedition is to start in the spring, and our 
 presence on the north coast will then cause no surprise or 
 suspicion. Again, Arctic exploration is a matter of keen 
 interest in England, and a few short paragraphs in the 
 leading newspapers will not only give me the choice of 
 the best men obtainable, but will lead to an influx of vol- 
 
 12
 
 178 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 unteered information and advice from whaling captains 
 and former explorers." 
 
 There was a businesslike terseness about the announce- 
 ments of this man which, while in keeping with his calling 
 (a calling which cannot afford to look on the shady side of 
 things), seemed to volunteer the information that he, at 
 all events, was not prepared to bear part in an affecting 
 leave-taking. The result of this was that the party broke 
 up with a mere shake of the hand, and the last meeting of 
 this strange conspiracy was a thing of the past. 
 
 These men had been from the first singularly careless 
 respecting outward things. They totally ignored from 
 first to last the picturesqueness of conspiracy, the romance 
 of secrecy, the dramatic intensity of their situation. It 
 is a painful duty to record that they lighted fresh cigars 
 and drove away in hansom cabs.
 
 A Dinner-Party. 179 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 A DINNER-PARTY. 
 
 MOST men pass through life without finding themselves 
 in direct opposition to a good woman. With other women 
 it is of course another matter ; but few of us really fear 
 bad women. Their power is not so great as is generally 
 supposed by anxious mothers. 
 
 Those men who usually find themselves opposed by 
 good women are not the best of the species, and fortu- 
 nately they form the minority. The bad make the 
 greatest stir in the world, but the good and the indifferent 
 form together an overwhelming majority, and despite bib- 
 lical teaching it is always a consolation to suppose that 
 there is a strong dividing line between badness and indif- 
 ference. When a poll is demanded, and they are forced 
 to vote, the indifferent ones sometimes bring about a won- 
 drous majority, and show themselves surprisingly keen- 
 sighted. 
 
 Claud Tyars had now declared war. The gauntlet was 
 thrown down, and there was one person from whose an- 
 tagonistic glance he would fain have withdrawn it ; we, 
 most of us, have felt this at one time or another, this 
 vague misgiving that the wrong person will pick up our 
 defiant glove the one person in the neighborhood whom 
 we fear. 
 
 As Tyars entered the drawing-room on the evening of 
 the dinner-party at Brook Street, he mentally pulled
 
 180 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 himself together for the fray. Miss Winter was there, of 
 course, and in her battle array. She was dressed as he 
 had never seen her dressed before, with all the cunning 
 gathered from a mature experience. Not as a girl, but as 
 herself, for she knew how to array to full advantage a 
 most perfect figure. She did not look up as Tyars and 
 Easton entered the room, but continued to talk gaily with 
 a vastly courteous old mariner. 
 
 Helen came forward, shook hands with Tyars, and re- 
 ceived the American very graciously. The admiral was 
 at her skirts, and Tyars included him in the introduc- 
 tion. 
 
 With inimitable sang-froid Easton proceeded to make 
 himself agreeable in the slightly ponderous style affected 
 by his countrymen. This maneuver left Helen and 
 Tyars alone for a moment. 
 
 " Does," inquired he at once, " Miss Winter know ? " 
 
 The girl looked up at him with a smile which was the 
 veriest reflex of his own. They had already learnt to de- 
 ceive onlookers, and any one watching their conversa- 
 tion from across the room would have decided at once 
 that the merest commonplaces were in course of ex- 
 change. 
 
 "Yes; every one knows. It was in the Times this 
 morning." 
 
 " I thought they did," laughed Tyars, softly : " u they 
 are staring me up and down like a wild animal." 
 
 " They are old sailors, you see." 
 
 " So I guessed," replied Tyars. " But they do not 
 know about your brother Miss Winter ? " 
 
 "She guesses," whispered Helen, hurriedly. Then 
 aloud " Come and let me introduce you to some of my 
 friends." 
 
 He followed her and went through the ceremony
 
 A Dinner- Party. 181 
 
 with that peculiar lack of enthusiasm which frequently 
 caused him to be misjudged by strangers. It would appear 
 that he was so absorbed in his one idea that things not 
 bearing directly upon it failed to interest him. These old 
 men and their wives, also their daughters, were useless 
 to him, and therefore he was polite, so polite as to be al- 
 most rude. He failed utterly to convey to them by smile 
 and glance that the moment of meeting them was the 
 apogee of his existence that life was now complete, and 
 that he would ever cherish them as his dearest friends. 
 Now we all know that without the constant and repeated 
 conveyance of these sentiments no one can expect to get 
 on in society. People do not believe them, but they like 
 to be offered the choice of doing so. 
 
 Tyars had only time to exchange a bow with Miss 
 Winter before dinner was announced. 
 
 " Tyars," the admiral said, plucking confidentially at his 
 sleeve, " will you take Miss Winter down ? " 
 
 He wondered a little whether this was the result of 
 chance, or otherwise. When they were on the stairs he 
 found that they had not spoken, amidst the babel of 
 expectant tongues. 
 
 " The admiral," he said, promptly repairing the error, 
 " told me to take you down." 
 
 She laughed, catching his meaning at once. 
 
 "You have my sympathy," she said. " How do you 
 propose doing it ? " 
 
 " Of course," he replied, with mock helplessness, " I 
 cannot do it." 
 
 " Oh, yes, you can ! I have been taken down heaps of 
 times by men of your stamp ; you are just the man to do 
 it." 
 
 "What is my stamp ?" he inquired, as they seated 
 themselves.
 
 1 82 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 She was half turned towards him, drawing in the rich 
 folds of her skirt, and she glanced up at him with a little 
 smile qualified by raised eyebrows. 
 
 " The muscularly restless," she answered. 
 
 " And are muscularity and restlessness qualifications by 
 which one may expect to compete successfully against. . ." 
 " Against what ? " she inquired, saucily, for she 
 scented a compliment. 
 
 " Against you." 
 
 " Yes ; men like you who travel and try their constitu- 
 tions, explore and ill-treat natives, sail where others have 
 never sailed, climb where others have not been able to 
 climb, are always at the top of a pinnacle. You look 
 down upon womankind as an ornament to be admired by 
 softer men, or as a useful adjunct to old age. You talk to 
 them with bowed head, and mouth your carefully-selected 
 two-syllable words as if talking to a baby or a foreigner. 
 Some of you look upon us as pretty fools, to be looked at 
 and admired in a patronizing way, while others are con- 
 descending enough to talk to us, as if we really under- 
 stood the rudiments of a few matters in which they take 
 interest." 
 
 All this was covered by the garrulous chatter of sundry 
 old gentlemen and ladies, who while enjoying immensely 
 their soup found time to talk all at once. 
 
 Tyars glanced towards the foot of the table, and in a 
 moment his eyes returned to the same spot again. With 
 him a keen observation of the human face had become 
 second nature. All who know men and women well 
 know the language of the human face, and without this 
 knowledge there has not been a true commander yet. 
 The look that he had surprised in Helen's eyes was full 
 of significance. He had caught her watching himself, 
 and there was in the drawn 1 ines about her lips the signal
 
 A Dinner- Party. 183 
 
 of a distress which was assuredly something more than 
 the anxiety of a young hostess at the foot of a well-filled 
 table. It was all noted and recorded in the space of a 
 second, and he turned to his companion. 
 
 For a moment he meditated before answering her. He 
 was not smiling now, but there was a look almost amount- 
 ing to one of relief upon his face. Here, at all events, 
 was a foe worthy of his steel, a spirit equal to his own. 
 This was a fair fight, and no favor. Miss Winter knew 
 of his projects, guessed that he had entrapped, or at least 
 over-persuaded, Oswin Grace to share the perils ; and 
 she was not reproachful. She was defiant, and defiance, 
 although a spirited policy in its way, was an utterly mis- 
 taken one to pursue against a man like Claud Tyars. 
 There was no opposition he loved meeting and quelling 
 so much as open defiance. 
 
 " Supposing," he said, "that I am one of those men 
 (which I do not admit), I am not ready to allow the ap- 
 plicability of any one of your charges. If I appear to 
 look down from a pinnacle, it is an optical delusion. 1 
 am in reality looking up. I have an immense respect for 
 the female intellect ; there are recesses in it to which I 
 cannot come near penetrating Any schoolgirl can beat 
 me in the game of repartee. If I bow my head and mouth 
 my words, it is owing to shyness. As you have no 
 doubt discovered long ago, Miss Winter, I am not much 
 accustomed to ladies' society." 
 
 She laughed merrily. Then suddenly she became 
 grave, and, turning, she looked at him with considerable 
 keenness. 
 
 " Do you really expect me," she asked, with genuine 
 surprise, "to believe that? No, Mr. Tyars, assuredly 
 you have no respect for the female intellect. Do you 
 not know that knowledge is considerably more difficult to
 
 184 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 conceal than ignorance ? The very first time I saw you, 
 while you walked across the drawing-room up-stairs, and 
 while I was trying to recollect where I had met with you 
 before, I knew at once that you were a man of the world, 
 and a man who had at one time or other moved in society 
 more than you care to admit now. Men are different 
 from women in that respect. We like to boast of having 
 been gay in our youth, while you seem ashamed of it. I 
 do not think you are shy. You are an old hand (if you 
 will excuse my dock language), almost as old a hand as 
 myself." 
 
 He caught the reference to their last meeting, and con- 
 cluded that there was a motive in it. 
 
 " I am more accustomed to the society of such persons 
 as Peters/' he said, coolly. 
 
 She was helping herself sparingly from a silver dish, 
 and appeared to be fully absorbed in her occupation. 
 Without looking towards her companion she turned her 
 attention to her plate. 
 
 " So," she said, " that is the ship ? " 
 
 " Yes that is the ship." 
 
 " I have known old Peters," she continued, conversa- 
 tionally, "for a long time. He and I are quite friendly, 
 although his supply of small talk is limited." 
 
 " Ay," observed Tyars, reproducing the tone and 
 accent of the Scotch ship-carpenter to perfection. 
 
 " I have always admired his discretion," said the lady, 
 ignoring Tyars' evident desire to find a more general and 
 less personal topic. " He is a very deep well, so deep 
 that there is not even the faintest glimmer at the bottom. 
 I am an intensely inquisitive person, Mr. Tyars, and I 
 have given some study to the art of asking questions. 
 Peters is one of the few from whom I find difficulty in 
 extracting information."
 
 A Dinner-Party. 185 
 
 " He is Scotch." 
 
 " Yes but is he dense ? " 
 
 " No," was the grudging answer. 
 
 " I thought not. I was not quite sure, however. I 
 noticed that he rarely made a mistake. Of course I 
 knew that there was a mystery about the vessel. Some 
 of the ship-keepers were interested in her, and asked me 
 questions. I cannot say, however, that my curiosity was 
 very much aroused." 
 
 " It is a habit with him," explained Tyars. " I put 
 him in that position partly on account of his discretion. 
 I wished to avoid being pestered by would-be heroes of 
 tender years. And I have always found that discreet 
 people are the best workers. They give less time to the 
 affairs of their neighbors. 
 
 Miss Winter was too keen an observer to take this as 
 a personal allusion. It was too clumsy for such a man 
 as Tyars. 
 
 " Perhaps they do," she said. " What I like about 
 Peters is his rugged, dirty old face. It is worth while to 
 simulate curiosity in order to watch his expression. His 
 features are like stone the lines are so hard and deep. 
 He is the incarnation of caution." 
 
 " Caution," opined Tyars, vaguely, "wearies me. I 
 have no patience with it." 
 
 She turned and looked at him with dancing eyes. He 
 raised his eyebrows in amusement. 
 
 " Have I made a joke ? " he inquired. 
 
 "Well no," she replied, returning to her plate, "I 
 do not think you have. I thought you were cautious, 
 but you are not you are merely alert the most alert 
 man I have ever met. I have caught Oswin, and 
 Peters, and Mr. Easton even ; but I have never caught 
 you."
 
 1 86 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " I did not know," he said, innocently, " that you were 
 on the lookout for a catch." 
 
 " Oh," she said, meaningly, " indeed. Did you not ? " 
 
 " Why should you be ? " he asked, and at the same 
 time he looked gravely into her face. If this was acting 
 he admitted to himself that it was a splendid perform- 
 ance. For it must be remembered that he was fully con- 
 vinced that this cheery little woman loved his first lieu- 
 tenant, Oswin Grace. 
 
 His glance was returned by one full of light-hearted de- 
 fiance the impenetrable glance of a beautiful woman of 
 the world, fully capable of guarding her one great secret, 
 the history of her own heart. 
 
 " Curiosity," she returned. " Mere curiosity ! " 
 
 It was just this curiosity that he feared, and he was not 
 the man to be caught off his guard. 
 
 " Why ? " he asked. " What did you want to 
 know ? " 
 
 " I thought," she said, calmly, " that you were leading 
 a friend of mine astray." 
 
 " Oswin Grace ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " So I was," he said. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. An opportunity presented 
 itself for her to turn to the gentleman on her right hand, 
 and she availed herself of it, entering at once into a lively 
 conversation. 
 
 Some one else addressed Tyars, and he had no further 
 occasion to beware of Miss Winter's curiosity during 
 dinner. 
 
 He was too experienced, too "old a hand," as Miss 
 Winter had tersely put it, to give way to preoccupation. 
 He knew that he had a duty to fulfil towards Helen 
 Grace, his hostess. He had been invited in order that he
 
 A Dinner-Party. 187 
 
 might talk and make others talk ; that he might wear a 
 black coat, and separate two lighter toilets, and he pro- 
 ceeded to carry out his duty. To some extent Matthew 
 Mark Easton and he were the features of the evening. 
 They formed the novelty which is such an important 
 factor to the human sense of enjoyment. For novelty is 
 the sought of all seekers, whether it be in society, in art, 
 or in literature. We write, and some one reads. Per- 
 haps the reader casts aside the work of our brain, our best 
 and earnest work perhaps he reads and tells others of 
 what he has read. A passing, hollow reputation is the 
 result, and we fly to ink and paper again ; but even while 
 we write we know that all is evanescent, that it is only 
 for a time. It is only the novelty that attracts. When 
 our brain is laid bare, when a thought is perchance re- 
 peated, then we are voted effete played out gone by. 
 
 And so these two men bore the heat and burden of the 
 entertainment. By the time that the soup had left the 
 room Helen knew that she had scored a success, and this 
 knowledge gave her confidence. She played her part as 
 she had never played it before, and her soft-hearted old 
 father exchanged more than one moist-eyed but knowing 
 glance with an ancient comrade, after a comprehensive 
 little nod, towards the foot of the table. 
 
 There was only one little signal of discomfort displayed 
 at times, and this was so small that it probably passed al- 
 most unnoticed. It was, however, observed by the very 
 person from whom it should have been concealed. 
 Claud Tyars, while laughing and making others laugh, 
 while drawing out the dry wit of his friend Easton, and 
 while making himself universally agreeable in a downright 
 way, never failed to catch the troubled glances directed 
 by Helen Grace towards Miss Winter and himself. It is 
 probable that the girl was unconscious of these glances,
 
 1 88 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 and it would appear that Miss Winter failed to notice 
 them, although the sudden cessation of interest in the con- 
 versation of Claud Tyars followed closely upon a glance 
 from Helen's eyes. 
 
 A few words murmured under her breath as she fol- 
 lowed the ladies up-stairs may have had something to do 
 with this matter. 
 
 "I wonder," she said, "whether it is on her own 
 account, or on Oswin's that she is jealous." 
 
 And it is worth noting that Claud Tyars was not al- 
 lowed an opportunity during the evening of exchanging 
 another tete-a-Ute word with Miss Winter. 
 
 When the ladies left the room there was a pause. 
 Four or five pairs of keen old eyes were directed from 
 beneath white brows towards Tyars, Easton, and Oswin, 
 who had either instinctively or accidentally drawn to- 
 gether. 
 
 Tyars knew well enough that he was regarded with 
 considerable ill-favor among these old mariners ; but the 
 knowledge exercised no disturbing influence upon his 
 equanimity. It was the ill-favor of the setting luminary 
 towards that which was rising the malevolent twinkle 
 of the sinking star towards the east. No old sailor will 
 admit that there are navigators afloat to-day. An old 
 novelist is quite convinced that printers have to deal with 
 naught but trash in modern times. 
 
 The old sailors waited for some time, expecting Tyars 
 to begin his defense, but to their surprise and disappoint- 
 ment the subject of Arctic exploration was completely 
 ignored. In this neglect Admiral Grace assisted the three 
 younger men, for he knew of the project, and quite ap- 
 proved of Oswin's action. To be among the few, to 
 know something more than one's neighbors, is very 
 pleasant, and the admiral fully relished his position.
 
 Easton Watches. 189 
 
 CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 EASTON WATCHES. 
 
 THERE is no opposition so difficult to cope with as that 
 which refuses to argue. If a man be full of wordy rea- 
 sons to explain his course of action, it may be presumed 
 that the reasons have done duty before, and in all proba- 
 bility to convince himself. If a player persistently with- 
 holds his best cards, it is difficult to discover whether 
 one's own be better. 
 
 Claud Tyars was one of those men with whom it is 
 impossible to engage in a hearty discussion. He admitted 
 tacitly and calmly that every one had a right to his opinion, 
 and there the matter ended. That this opinion in no wise 
 coincided with his own affected him but slightly, and he 
 was moved by no desire to bring about a change. 
 
 I am not of course going to be so bold as to assert that 
 he never changed his opinion such an assertion would 
 stamp him at once as an impossible being, no more human 
 than the hero of a lady's novel but if he did he managed 
 the alteration quietly and circumspectly, as it is always 
 best to do. If life is a kaleidoscope, as has been sug- 
 gested by some one or other, it is a very large one, and in 
 the changing colors we vary from pink to gray and rosy 
 red to white. From the cradle to the grave we change 
 and chop about like a yacht in a dead calm. To say that 
 Claud Tyars held the same opinions all through his life 
 would be a mere piece of folly, because it would lead the
 
 190 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 patient reader to the erroneous belief that he was a crea- 
 ture of imagination, and not flesh and blood at all. 
 
 Now Miss Winter was a singularly discriminating little 
 woman. Those clever gray eyes of hers saw most things, 
 and passed on the observation to a quick brain to be pieced 
 together and reduced, by a process of which the male in- 
 tellect has no conception, to a reasonable deduction. She 
 knew exactly what sort of man this was ; the type is not 
 uncommon. We all have run against it and trod on its 
 toes, or felt its weight on ours, in many a British draw- 
 ing-room. Miss Winter had encountered it also, and al- 
 though each of us has his individuality, we belong also to 
 a class or type, and this type generally asserts itself sooner 
 or later. Miss Winter had some knowledge of this, and 
 she was inclined to take Claud Tyars rather as a type 
 than as an individual. She had found from experience 
 that although each man may have an individual way of 
 doing things, the net result of his actions is very much 
 the same as that of the actions of other men of his 
 species. 
 
 If we look round us we shall find that this lady was not 
 so very far wrong. Take, for instance, the silent gentle- 
 man the man whose manners are good, but negative. 
 Take three of them. Call them, by way of being truly 
 original, Brown, Jones, and Robinson. Look them up 
 after a lapse of ten years. There is a Mrs. Brown, a Mrs. 
 Jones, and a Mrs. Robinson. Brown, Jones, and Robin- 
 son all talk a little more than they did in their youth. A 
 certain grand disregard for the details of existence has 
 given way in all alike to a domesticated love of the poker, 
 and a grave assumption of the cellular duties of butler. B., 
 J., and R. are devoted to three quiet little women of no 
 great beauty, but remarkable for their amiability, and 
 each for her devotion to B., J., and R. respectively ; and
 
 Easton Watches. 191 
 
 this, mind you, will go on. Mrs. B. will continue to 
 cherish her conviction that Brown is unrivaled among 
 men ; ditto Mrs. Jones towards J. ; likewise Madam R. as 
 regards Robinson. 
 
 How Brown won his wife, why Jones married that nice 
 little woman, and where Robinson picked up his treasure, 
 is not our business. Those details are doubtless individ- 
 ual enough, but the grand typical result is the same. 
 
 This method of treating men broadly is of course by no 
 means infallible, but in the long run it will be found 
 worthy of some attention. That Miss Winter had adopted 
 it, is in itself a recommendation, for these clear-sighted 
 and beautiful women, who move through society to its in- 
 finite advantage, see considerably deeper into human 
 nature than you and I, mon ami, with our keen eyes and 
 fine male intellects. 
 
 She read Claud Tyars as one of those men who are un- 
 assailable to other men. His was a mind incapable of 
 bowing to the will of another man, but to the will of a 
 woman she knew him, or thought she knew him, to be 
 pervious. From the very first she was antagonistic to 
 these Arctic schemes. She looked upon all such deeds as 
 pleasant pastimes for young men ; just as the study of art 
 or music is a pleasant pastime for young women until such 
 time as they are called to assume the burden of domestic 
 life. 
 
 When a girl lays aside her pencil or closes her music to 
 think about her bride'smaids' dresses, the pencil and the 
 book are generally deposed forever. The same rule 
 applies in most cases to a young man's ice-ax and Ex- 
 press rifle ; and it is not for us to cavil. We are told by 
 a wiser man than any of us (were he a pessimist or no) 
 that there is a time for everything. A middle-aged man 
 is all the better for having been a climber, or a rower, or
 
 192 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 a big-game hunter in his youth. Although the pencil be 
 laid aside, and the music-book be closed, art and music 
 are not forgotten. 
 
 Miss Winter, therefore, attached no permanent impor- 
 tance to Claud Tyars' Arctic aspirations, but she recog- 
 nized that a man may come to grief as readily on his first 
 expedition as in his later ventures. She therefore deter- 
 mined that this scheme should not be carried out if she 
 could manage to prevent it. 
 
 Whatever her feelings towards Oswin Grace may have 
 been, she had another motive, namely, that Claud Tyars 
 and Helen Grace were on the verge of loving each other. 
 The minutiae upon which this suspicion was based are too 
 numerous and too complicated to give any hope of success- 
 ful demonstration here. Women have more time to piece 
 these small details than we have who are busy enough 
 with more practical matters, and let it be confessed at 
 once, they have greater ability. As yet it was a mere 
 suspicion, and Miss Winter could not even decide whether 
 they understood each other or not. 
 
 In view of her own position regarding Oswin, a younger 
 woman would have held back, but Agnes Winter was 
 made of different metal. She had no reason to fear the 
 world's comment, and was quite ready to brave its 
 opinion. 
 
 She rather admired Tyars for displaying a love of 
 adventure, and secretly sympathized with his aims ; but, 
 being an eminently practical woman, she was of opinion 
 that it would be much more sensible for him to stay at 
 home and marry Helen. The truth of it was that she 
 had not hitherto met a man worthy, in her estimation, to 
 be loved by her friend, and Claud Tyars had appeared on 
 the scene at the right moment. At that moment, to be 
 more explicit, when a girl first begins to find out that home
 
 Easton Watches. 193 
 
 is not all it used to be in earlier days, that a father and a 
 father's love excellent possessions as they are have no 
 power to satisfy a certain vague desire for something 
 more exciting more exhilarating. 
 
 The quiet passive gentlemanliness of this nineteenth- 
 century adventurer pleased Agnes Winter's refined taste, 
 and the knowledge that there was a power of action con- 
 cealed behind the most self-contained of exteriors, inter- 
 ested her and aroused her curiosity. In a word, she 
 admired Claud Tyars, and admiration is a concession very 
 rarely drawn from a woman by a man of her own genera- 
 tion. Love, if you will, friendship or toleration, but 
 admiration rarely. 
 
 When the gentlemen entered the room and straggled 
 across the broad carpet to the ladies of their choice, Miss 
 Winter wondered whether there was a motive in Tyars' 
 avoidance of Helen Grace. She was seated at the little 
 low tea-table near the fire, dispensing the most fragrant 
 tea and coffee, and it was perhaps only natural that she 
 should attract more admirers than the other ladies. 
 
 There was, however, one cavalier who knew his own 
 mind, and this was Matthew Mark Easton. He crossed 
 the room without hesitation, and took a vacant seat beside 
 Miss Winter with an air of decision which betrayed a pre- 
 viously-conceived intention. 
 
 " Miss Winter," he said in his gravely-humorous way, 
 " I manufactured an excellent joke during dinner about 
 being left out in the cold, but somehow the powder has 
 got a little damp, and the joke won't go off. I had mis- 
 givings on the stairs as to the good taste of making a joke 
 about a lady's name." 
 
 " I doubt," she answered, "that even you could find 
 an entirely new variety. At school I was called Spring, 
 Summer, Autumn anything but Winter."
 
 194 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 At this moment Tyars joined them, and the lady looked 
 up with a smile which distinctly invited him to re- 
 main. 
 
 " Those schoolgirls," said Easton, in his formal trans- 
 atlantic gallantry, "showed considerable sense despite 
 their tender years." 
 
 Miss Winter received the compliment with an approv- 
 ing little nod which spoke of criticism. 
 
 " Very neat," she said. " You remind me of Colonel 
 Sames, your Minister, who is a finished master in the art 
 of flattery." 
 
 " Yes," answered Easton. " Sames is a great diplo- 
 matist. He can do two things well. He can flatter vanity 
 and baffle curiosity." 
 
 As he spoke the last words, with a simplicity which 
 was at times too perfect to be quite natural, he turned 
 towards Claud Tyars, who stood listening, with a vague 
 smile upon his face. The action was full of significance. 
 It seemed to say that here was another man who could 
 do these things. The quick-witted little lady read the 
 significance of the action, and looked from one man to the 
 other speculatively. She seemed to be occupied for some 
 moments in seeking the points of affinity upon which their 
 friendship could possibly have been built. It is rather an 
 interesting study, but there is a great danger in the pur- 
 suit of it, for one cannot help discovering sooner or later 
 how very few real friendships there are in the world. 
 Most of us can tell our friends upon the fingers of one 
 hand. 
 
 At last, after a prolonged scrutiny of Claud Tyars, pros- 
 ecuted with all the aplomb she was pleased to consider as 
 attached to her years, she said to Easton in mock confi- 
 dence 
 
 " Can he do both ? "
 
 Easton Watches. 195 
 
 " I do not know," was the prompt answer. " He has 
 never flattered my vanity, but he baffles my curiosity 
 every time 1 contemplate him." 
 
 Tyars laughed, an easy and provokingly unconscious 
 laugh. He did not deem it necessary to reply to their 
 raillery, but his endurance of it was friendly and even 
 encouraging. 
 
 "I should have thought that you knew him," sug- 
 gested Miss Winter. 
 
 Tyars turned towards Easton in a semi-interested way 
 to hear the answer, but he was evidently more occupied 
 with the group at the other end of the room, of which 
 Helen formed the center. 
 
 " 1 know him," replied the American in a queer way, 
 as if he were not quite sure of being humorous, " as he 
 knows the sea, from the surface only. A little penetra- 
 tion leads one no farther. There is a ruffled surface, or 
 a smooth surface, as the case may be ; then comes a great 
 calm depth ; beyond that there is something etwas, quel- 
 que chose, quakhe cosa ..." 
 
 He finished up with a little shrug of his narrow shoul- 
 ders, eminently descriptive of ignorance and incapability 
 of surmise. 
 
 Then Claud Tyars did rather a strange thing a thing 
 which many women would never have forgiven in an- 
 other man. He wandered away from them towards the 
 group of which Helen formed the center. He left his 
 character behind him, as it were, for dissection, but he 
 left it indifferently, unconcernedly, as a forgotten posses- 
 sion of no value. If he were possessed of vanity, he 
 assuredly must have been flattered by this open interest 
 displayed by Miss Winter ; but there was no misreading 
 his motive. There was no affectation of indifference, no 
 cynical skepticism. He merely wandered away, absorbed
 
 1 96 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 in some other thought. It was absurdly obvious that he 
 had something to say to Helen Grace, and he went off to 
 say it. When this man had something to do or something 
 to say, he had a singular way of saying or doing it, with 
 a grand disregard for convenience. 
 
 " Then," said Miss Winter, disregarding his departure, 
 "the friendship of men must be different from that of 
 women." 
 
 " It is," answered Easton with conviction. " You are 
 right there. The friendship of men is like some of the 
 hard-wood trees we find out West. These trees are there, 
 standing firm and strong, but they never grow an inch 
 and they never die. I surmise that they grew some time 
 in Noah's nine hundred and fifty years, and they have 
 stood there since. A woman's friendship is a soft-wood 
 tree, that grows up a great height, and gets blown down 
 by a gale of wind." 
 
 Miss Winter laughed. 
 
 " But," she said in self-defense, " one makes a great 
 many things of soft wood." 
 
 He bowed, with a deprecatory wave of his small slim 
 hand. 
 
 " Miss Winter," he said gravely ./' all fruit trees are 
 soft wood." 
 
 She smiled vaguely, but did not meet his glance, which 
 indeed was rather a difficult thing to meet, the movements 
 of his eyes being so very quick and uncertain. She was 
 watching the endeavors of Claud Tyars to oust out sun- 
 dry gallant old sailors and get Helen to himself for a mo- 
 ment. At last he either gave up the attempt as hopeless, 
 or deemed it expedient to bide his time, for he came back 
 towards the elder lady carrying a cup of coffee, with a 
 certain steadiness rarely found in the hands of men who 
 have not been at sea.
 
 Easton Watches. 197 
 
 " I am told," he said, "that this is prepared according 
 to your taste." 
 
 " Thank you," replied Miss Winter. " I have no 
 doubt that it is delicious. Helen knows my peculiari- 
 ties." 
 
 " Talking of baffled curiosity," said Tyars, in his pecu- 
 liar direct way, " I positively dread those old gentlemen at 
 the other end of the room. They are bubbling over with 
 advice, inquisitiveness, and personal reminiscences." 
 
 "Ah," said Easton, in a conciliatory tone, "you must 
 expect that sort of thing. From now until March your 
 life will be a burden to you. You will have to interview 
 people from morning till night ; men who have invented 
 balloons ; others with tin models of impossible ships ; 
 provision merchants, fresh fruit canners, old sailors, 
 young sailors, the army, the navy, and the church. I ex- 
 pect," he added gravely, "that Miss Winter will wait 
 upon you with a selection of tracts." 
 
 The lady mentioned was up in arms at once. 
 
 " Do you think that I am engaged in good works, Mr. 
 Easton ? " she inquired, innocently. 
 
 His quaint little face puckered up with amusement. 
 
 "I know it," he answered. 
 
 " How ? " with a quick glance of reproach towards 
 Tyars. 
 
 " I have seen you in the St. ^Catherine's Dock." 
 
 " Indeed ! I never noticed you." 
 
 " No," he replied, calmly, " people do not notice me 
 much. I guess I am insignificant." 
 
 " How absurdly small the world is ! " reflected the lady 
 aloud. 
 
 " Yes," assented the American, " it is certainly a little 
 cramped." 
 
 " However," said Miss Winter, after a pause, " I do
 
 198 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 not think Mr. Tyars need be afraid of me or of my advice. 
 I know very little about tracts, and absolutely nothing 
 about Arctic affairs. I am afraid," she added, deliberately, 
 " that I do not take much interest in either." 
 
 After this gratuitous stab she leant back and stirred her 
 coffee thoughtfully. 
 
 Easton made no answer to this. He looked from one to 
 the other in the spry, apprehensive way which had earned 
 him his sobriquet at school. He was rather at sea amidst 
 the smaller politics of this household, for as yet he could 
 only guess what Miss Winter's position in it might be. 
 He did not know upon what footing his friend Claud Tyars 
 had established himself, and he was keenly conscious of a 
 subtle antagonism between these two clever people the 
 friend of the daughter and the friend of the son. 
 
 Nothing, however, was lost upon him. Nothing es- 
 caped his little eyes. He knew that Miss Winter would 
 do precisely what she did when her coffee was stirred. 
 She raised her eyes slowly and deliberately to Tyars' 
 face, and he, looking down at her from his calm height, 
 met the penetrating glance with an intelligence full of 
 speculation. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton saw all this and was puzzled. 
 He was able to divine that there was some understanding 
 between these two, but at the nature of this understand- 
 ing he could not make the merest guess. It was not 
 antagonism, nor yet was it Love. These are the two 
 chief understandings that arise between men and women. 
 And yet there was a gleam of something very like a warn- 
 ing in both pairs of eyes. 
 
 Each seemed to be saying to the other " Be careful. I 
 know your secret. In this game I hold a better card than 
 you ! "
 
 For the Last Time. 199 
 
 CHAPTER XX. 
 
 FOR THE LAST TIME. 
 
 IT sometimes suggests itself that we shall in the here- 
 after be required to answer for words as well as deeds. 
 The ordeal will be decidedly unpleasant for the majority 
 of us, but we shall hardly be able to cavil at injustice, for it 
 is only right that those who suggest evil deeds by evil 
 words should be brought to task for the result. 
 
 In the majority of instances, however, our words are 
 considerably superior to our deeds. We talk, in fact, 
 much more prettily than we act ; and still more do we 
 suggest by words the beauty of action and the blessing of 
 virtue in others. But there are words which go so far 
 and achieve such distant results that although the respon- 
 sibility is unquestionably great it is hard to say whether 
 evil or good predominate in the influence exercised. 
 There are some lives which have been entirely influenced 
 by a word or a few words strung jingling together. These 
 words are sometimes spoken by father or mother, some- 
 times by some great man, some cultivated stringer to- 
 gether of alliterations, sometimes they are spoken from 
 the pulpit. But the influence of a sermon frequently 
 fades away and leaves the text behind it. The words, or 
 sayings, or mottoes that have influenced human lives 
 have usually been remarkable for terseness. The saying 
 must be light, the sense of it must be clear and sharp, it 
 must strike one in the face, and there must be biting 
 claws to cling to the memory.
 
 2oo Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 When our forefathers looked round for some striking 
 design of bird or beast or fish, to work upon their silken 
 pennant, and casually asked a learned monk for a few 
 words in Latin or French to write beneath it, I wonder if 
 they foresaw the responsibility they were assuming ! I 
 wonder if they dreamt that in years to come, when their 
 bones were moldering beneath the moss-grown stones 
 of a little country churchyard (for, mark you ! those fel- 
 lows rarely died in cities) I say, I wonder if the dream 
 ever came to them that the bearers of their name long 
 after would look up to the motto upon the church wall 
 and try to shape their lives according to it. Those words 
 were a battle-cry then, and they are a battle-cry now. 
 Our ancestors have much to do with our lives, much 
 more than we think. A word or a name reaches into 
 posterity. " Noblesse oblige." 
 
 And in our modern every-day whirl of existence a 
 chance word let fall here and there may take root some- 
 where, may find a chink in some mind, and slip in there 
 nestling and concealing itself, but making very sure of its 
 stronghold. 
 
 Claud Tyars was not an impressionable man ; indeed, 
 he was a singularly hard one. His self-sufficiency was 
 not of the bragging order, nor of the aggressive. His 
 habit was to think things out carefully, and then to stick 
 to his decision. Nothing now could turn him from his 
 scheme of rounding Cape Chelyuskin and rescuing the 
 Siberian prisoners to whom his word was pledged. 
 
 He knew himself to be a determined man. The throes 
 of indecision were quite unknown to him. But a few 
 words spoken by Miss Winter rather worried him as he 
 turned away and went towards Helen Grace to procure 
 himself a cup of coffee. 
 
 He wondered why she had told him so deliberately that
 
 For the Last Time. 201 
 
 Arctic matters were totally without interest to her, and 
 why her eyes had informed him with obvious intention 
 that his schemes and plans were a bore. 
 
 It happened that after all he was permitted to have a 
 few minutes of Helen's undivided attention. Having been 
 provided with tea or coffee, the old gentlemen had left 
 her to seek the repose demanded by their aged limbs for 
 purposes of digestion. 
 
 Tyars promptly appropriated the only vacant seat near 
 at hand. 
 
 Since the conversation which he had had with Helen in 
 this same room there was an indefinite difference in their 
 relationship. It was not only that difference which comes 
 with an increasing familiarity, although it savored of a 
 greater ease. Tyars, who was by no means a voluble 
 man, felt that he had to some extent explained himself ; 
 that he had spoken a few at least of the difficult words 
 which had tied his tongue. The mystery with which his 
 movements had been surrounded was not of his own 
 seeking but the result only of necessity. 
 
 It thus came about that the two young people did not 
 speak at once as partial strangers would have done, but 
 sat in silence for some moments. During this space she 
 handed him a filled cup which he acknowledged with a 
 little nod of the head, and the movement of his heavy 
 mustache betokened the framing by concealed lips of a 
 word which remained inaudible. 
 
 "I am afraid," he said at length, "that I am not 
 popular this evening." 
 
 " Do you covet popularity ? " she asked, brightly. 
 
 " Not in the least." 
 
 " And why do you fear that you are not popular to- 
 night ? " 
 
 " There are several old gentlemen dying to offer me
 
 2O2 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 advice, and I am not a sufficiently accomplished humbug 
 to solicit it," he replied, with a little laugh, " and," he 
 addded, with sudden gravity, " Miss Winter has been 
 snubbing me." 
 
 Helen looked at him seriously. His placid gray eyes 
 met hers with a little smile full of unconscious purpose, 
 the eyes of a man who goes ahead. 
 
 " Yes," he said, with a little nod, " I am beginning to 
 find that the North Pole is further off than I thought it 
 was." 
 
 He had got so accustomed to consider his first expedition 
 as a mere preliminary to a second having for its aim the 
 North Pole, that his conscience passed over many little 
 deceptions now without a pause. 
 
 Helen seemed to attach some importance to Miss 
 Winter's caprice. 
 
 " What did she say ? " was her next inquiry. 
 
 " She went out of her way to inform me that she con- 
 sidered me a bore with my Arctic expeditions." 
 
 Helen looked puzzled, and gathered no hope of elucida- 
 tion from the grave face before her. He did not seem to 
 dream of offering any solution ; indeed the position he 
 occupied was more that of an inquirer. 
 
 "Did Agnes," she asked, at length, "say anything 
 about Oswin ? " 
 
 " No ! Did you expect that she would ? " 
 
 "Scarely," she replied; " but . . . but I should have 
 preferred her to do so." 
 
 He played meditatively with the small silver spoon 
 lying in his saucer, and said nothing, leaving her in 
 ignorance as to whether he detected a subtle meaning 
 in her remark or not. 
 
 At this moment they were interrupted by a garrulous 
 old gentleman who had been sent by his wife to procure
 
 For the Last Time. 203 
 
 her a second cup of coffee as quietly and unobtrusively 
 as possible. Tyars continued to amuse himself with the 
 spoon until this docile husband had gone off jubilantly, 
 then he looked up and spoke in an abrupt way which was 
 habitual with him. He seemed almost to expect other 
 people to follow out the same sequence of thought as 
 himself. 
 
 " There is one rule, you know," he said, " to which I 
 adhere without exception. I take no man who has ties 
 at home, no man who is married or engaged, no man upon 
 whose labors any one is wholly or partially dependent." 
 
 By way of reply Helen looked across the room towards 
 her brother, and Tyars followed the direction of her glance. 
 Oswin was talking interestedly enough with the plain 
 daughter of an ugly admiral. Miss Winter was still 
 engaged in lively converse with Matthew Mark Easton. 
 The two seemed quite content. Each ignored the pres- 
 ence of the other, completely and unaffectedly. 
 
 Now this pastime of watching from afar is full of teach- 
 ing, for we usually learn from the result that we knew, 
 after all, remarkably little of the proceedings. We are 
 warned against false prophets, but most of us could fill a 
 fair-sized volume with false prophecies about our neighbors. 
 
 It would seem that Claud Tyars was not disposed to 
 waste much time in speculation. Perhaps he deemed 
 that Miss Winter and Oswin Grace were quite capable 
 of taking care of themselves a really serviceable plan of 
 action which I would recommend to old and young for 
 practical every-day application. He ceased studying 
 these persons from afar, and turned his attention to a more 
 pleasing object which had the obvious advantage of prox- 
 imity. 
 
 There are some people who need not seek among colors 
 for a shade to suit them, for black does them greatest
 
 2O4 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 service. Very white arms and a graceful, rounded neck 
 need never fear black, and girls possessing the slim 
 strength of carriage which was so noticeable in Helen 
 Grace cannot do better than cultivate somberness of garb. 
 Alas ! most of them have, however, opportunity enough 
 of finding this out for themselves. 
 
 Tyars' gaze, slow and thoughtful the gaze that stores 
 up food for the memory continued to rest upon the girl 
 until she became conscious of it. 
 
 " Oswin," he then said, practically, " knows this. I 
 made the rule in consultation with him. It is a desperately 
 matter-of-fact and practical rule. No sentiment it is 
 not in our line." 
 
 She laughed, unconcernedly enough. 
 
 " No. I have never known Oswin descend so low as 
 that." 
 
 It seems rather hard to realize that Claud Tyars had 
 never known a girl so intimately as he now knew Helen 
 Grace. He was sisterless, and his closest friend, Matthew 
 Mark Easton, was no more fortunate. He had at one 
 time " moved in society," as the story-books have it, but 
 we all know what that means we all know that a girl 
 puts on her evening dress and her evening manner at the 
 same time. Men change with a change of clothes, but 
 women are subject to a still greater alteration. The man 
 who falls in love and does all his wooing in the ball-room, 
 is to be pitied. He sees a girl at her best for the moment, 
 and at her worst for a lifetime. Claud Tyars had made 
 many ball-room acquaintances, and some had been con- 
 tinued in daylight, but he had never hitherto been allowed 
 an insight into the home life of an English girl. He had 
 never up to now shared aught else than pleasure with one, 
 and it is not in the participation of pleasure that we learn 
 to know women best, and at their best.
 
 For the Last Time. 205 
 
 The most fortunate possessors of sisters can hardly com- 
 prehend the position of a man like Claud Tyars, for a sister 
 leads us to catch glimpses of human life from the feminine 
 point of view ; and above all she has her friends. Look 
 around you, and you will find that those men who were 
 brought up with sister or sisters have made the best choice 
 in wives. No man is any the worse for beginning life with 
 the friendship of a woman. Some of our own friends, we 
 must admit, have gone to the bad, and of course we ut- 
 terly disclaim them now, the recollection of our former 
 familiarity has quite vanished. We remember now that 
 we were never intimate with them, our eyesight is often 
 defective when we meet in the street, and we are given 
 to great preoccupation when they stare deprecatingly. 
 We give thanks inwardly that we are not as these publi- 
 cans, and think comfortably of the tithes that we give, 
 because we cannot help giving. You see therefore that 
 we are exceedingly worthy beings, and consequently 
 quite beyond reflection. We merely mention that some 
 persons with whom in our callow youth we were slightly 
 acquainted, have not realized their mothers' hopes, 
 because we wish to seek out several peculiarities which 
 may have influenced their downward career. These men, 
 then, were not members of a mixed family. They had 
 not played in a nursery with little girls, later on they had 
 never been boy lovers to some long-haired fairy. They 
 had not even been dancing men. Few dancing men goto 
 the bad. They may be muffs, fops, dandies, snobs ; but 
 let us be just to them nevertheless. 
 
 Although Claud Tyars had been a social success al- 
 though he had been a renowned dancer, and never the 
 victim of those little ball-room subterfuges which sting 
 manly vanity very deeply, he had never been a ladies' 
 man. He was actually in the habit, if you please, of
 
 2o6 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 treating ladies as if they thought earnest thoughts, as if 
 they possessed reasoning powers, only differing from those 
 of noble man so much as different environments rendered 
 imperative. He had followed out this treatment so 
 thoroughly that he had up to this time found but few 
 members of the fairer sex in whom he could take the 
 slightest interest. It was perhaps hardly a satisfactory 
 view to hold, because there are not very many women 
 who can bear successfully the treatment mentioned. 
 Claud Tyars had however encountered exceptions, and the 
 most noticeable of them was undoubtedly the girl whom 
 he had met by the merest accident at the Brasenose ball 
 some years before. A girl who, in spite of being the best 
 dancer in the room, was not as light in head as in foot ; 
 who was thoughtful as well as beautiful, independent 
 without superiority, and perhaps just a little disdainful 
 without being aware of it. He had not forgotten the 
 peculiar sweeping line of delicate nose, and lips, and chin, 
 which in some way suggested an old portrait. There was 
 something Stuart-like in that face, with its softer lines in 
 the girl, and the harder for the brother ; something that 
 recalled the days when men were content to die for a face, 
 and loved to fight for no other reward than a smile from 
 eyes that were fascinatingly sad. 
 
 This same face was before him now, and it almost 
 seemed as if he had looked on it every day since his Cam- 
 bridge years. I wonder what it is, that strange sense of 
 familiarity with certain faces and certain things which 
 comes to us at times, and then fades away again without 
 explanation. 
 
 Although at times Claud Tyars could be lively enough, 
 his presence was calculated rather to lend thoughtfulness 
 than hilarity to an assembly. The Creator has endued 
 all large things with a solemnity which nothing that is
 
 For the Last Time. 207 
 
 small can ape. If the young hostess had reckoned upon 
 Tyars as a guest likely to tell amusing anecdotes to select 
 groups of old ladies, or even to keep one young lady in a 
 constant ripple of laughter, she must have been disap- 
 pointed. He was distinctly dull, overshadowed by a great 
 preoccupation, or laboring under some discomforting 
 thought. 
 
 He thanked her for the coffee in a grave way, refused 
 a second cup, and then sat replying in monosyllables to 
 all her sparkling sallies. Occasionally he joined, igno- 
 rantly with a smile in the laughter that reached them from 
 the corner of the room where several guests had con- 
 gregated around Miss Winter and Matthew Mark Easton ; 
 but it was quite plain that he had no idea of the joke, and 
 was merely echoing. 
 
 At last there was a move on the part of the largest lady 
 present to depart, and Claud Tyars rose promptly. 
 
 A general exodus followed, and Easton refused gaily for 
 himself and Tyars, Oswin's invitation to stay and have 
 a cigar. This delayed them a few moments, and they 
 were thus the last to say good-by. 
 
 While Easton was making a somewhat prolonged trans- 
 atlantic speech to the admiral respecting his fine hos- 
 pitality, Tyars found himself standing beside Helen alone 
 in the drawing-room, for Oswin had gone to seek cigars. 
 
 " I am afraid," said Tyars, "that I have been a trifle 
 duller than usual this evening. I am sorry." 
 
 She laughed, and for a moment did not know what to 
 say. She flushed slightly, and in the glowing light looked 
 very lovely, as she said 
 
 " I hope that does not mean that you have been bored." 
 There was no hint of coquetry in her question, and he 
 answered it gravely enough. 
 
 " I do not know what it is to be bored."
 
 2o8 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 When the front door had been closed behind them, 
 Tyars said to his companion, Matthew Mark Easton, 
 without removing the cigar from his teeth 
 
 " That door has closed behind me for the last time." 
 
 " Why? " inquired the American. 
 
 " Because," was the cool reply, " I prefer keeping out 
 of number one hundred and five Brook Street."
 
 Miss Winter Moves. 209 
 
 CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 MISS WINTER MOVES. 
 
 ON the evening of the Admirals' Club dinner, early in 
 December, Helen had been in the habit of dining at the 
 Winters'. Although Agnes Winter was now alone, she 
 seemed singularly anxious to keep up this custom, and 
 Helen acceded to her proposal readily enough. Oswin 
 was easily disposed of. A sailor returning to London, 
 after an absence of some years, can usually employ his 
 evenings satisfactorily. 
 
 It happened that Miss Winter was absent from town 
 during the three days preceding the anniversary, and 
 Helen was therefore left in ignorance as to the nature of 
 the entertainment to which she was invited. It seemed 
 probable that there should be other guests, and she pro- 
 vided for this contingency in the selection of her dress. 
 
 As she drove through the fog and gloom of December 
 streets, the thought came to her, however, that had there 
 been other guests her brother Oswin would, in the ordinary 
 course of events, have been invited. This thought gen 
 erated others ; and before the little brougham drew up 
 smoothly, the young girl was verging upon a conviction 
 that the course of events had diverged already from the 
 commonplace. She was not, therefore, surprised to see 
 Miss Winter standing at the head of the brightly-lighted, 
 softly-carpeted stairs to greet her. Before she spoke 
 Helen had guessed that they were to pass the evening
 
 2io Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 alone together, and as she mounted the stairs she did her 
 best to quell an indefinite feeling of discomfort. Now 
 when one looks forward with a feeling of discomfort to the 
 prospect of passing an evening in the undisturbed society 
 of one's dearest friend, it is more than probable that there 
 is what is vaguely called something wrong. Two very 
 commonplace, much used, every-day words. Something 
 and wrong. Yet place them together, and you will 
 find the text of many a human life. You will find the 
 preface to most human sorrows. 
 
 " Anything wrong, old fellow? " 
 
 " Yes ; something wrong." 
 
 What a ludicrously taciturn nation we are, after all ! 
 How many times have most of us heard the above words? 
 How many times have we asked the question, or answered 
 it? And how many times has the answer made its mark 
 upon a whole life ? 
 
 Miss Winter, however, was smiling and cheery. 
 
 " How are you dear ? " she said, fingering deftly her 
 friend's wraps. " So glad you have come ! I was almost 
 afraid the fog would stop you. I have only been home 
 half an hour ; just time to change my dress ! Oh ! you 
 have got on your black tulle. I am so sorry I forgot to 
 tell you that we should be quite alone. It is too cold to 
 get up dinner-parties. We will have a cosy evening. 
 Ann," she added, to the staid and elderly maid, " let us 
 have dinner at once." 
 
 During the tete-a-tete meal Miss Winter entertained 
 her friend with a lively description of the visit to a country 
 house which had just terminated. The usual sort of 
 thing a dance, some private theatricals, and the bewilder- 
 ing society of one young man who had written a book, 
 and of another who was going to write one some day. 
 She was not really cynical, this little lady. She could
 
 Miss Winter Moves. 211 
 
 afford to lay aside that arm, which is at its best but a 
 temporary weapon, soon losing its edge ; but this eve- 
 ning she was inclined to be a trifle severe. She seemed to 
 be laboring under a necessity of talking and laughing at 
 any price. 
 
 The literary lions were fleeced mercilessly, the amateur 
 actors were criticised as if they had been attempting to 
 make money by their performance, and the dancing of 
 the local swains was held up to scathing ridicule. 
 
 " You can imagine how hard I was pressed, my dear," 
 she said, as they went up-stairs together after dinner, 
 " when I tell you that I was forced to tear my shoe a 
 thing I have only done once before, at Woolwich Academy, 
 in the heyday of my early youth." 
 
 Helen laughed, where laughter seemed appropriate, and 
 commiserated freely. 
 
 The drawing-room looked intensely cosy. Miss Winter 
 had been an early upholder of lamps, when gas first 
 began to go out of favor in London drawing-rooms. One 
 huge lamp a soft yellow circle of light, supported by a 
 long ornamented silver pillar with Corinthian flutings, 
 the whole no thicker than a walking-stick, stood upon the 
 table in the center of the room. Two armchairs, and 
 two only, small and low, were drawn forward to the fire, 
 and between them a small table, promising coffee. 
 
 In response to a little gesture of the hand Helen took 
 possession of one of the chairs. Miss Winter took up an 
 evening newspaper, of which the careful cutting betrayed 
 no tampering on the part of a literary cook, and slowly 
 unfolded it. 
 
 " I want," she said, " to see who is acting in that new 
 piece at the Epic. I had a note from Oswin to-day, pro- 
 posing to make up a party for next Wednesday." 
 
 " Yes ; he spoke to me about it. I should like to go."
 
 212 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Miss Winter continued to unfold the paper with a con- 
 siderable bustle. She was not looking at it but at Helen, 
 who seemed interested in the texture of an absurd little 
 lace handkerchief. 
 
 "Who is going?" 
 
 The girl raised her head and frowned slightly, as if 
 making a mental effort. 
 
 " Let me see papa, Oswin, you, myself, and and 
 oh yes ! Mr. Tyars." 
 
 Miss Winter had succeeded at last in finding the theatri- 
 cal column, and studied the closely-printed lines for some 
 time attentively. There was a little clock upon the man- 
 telpiece, which presently gathered itself together with 
 an officious whirr, and struck nine. It seemed desirous 
 of drawing attention to its own industry, for it ticked 
 more loudly and aggressively after the effort. 
 
 Helen sat looking at it as if wondering that it should 
 dare to break the somewhat heavy silence. She had her 
 back turned towards the lamp, but the fire had fallen 
 together a few minutes before, and there was a single 
 bright flame leaping and falling spasmodically. This 
 lighted up her face, and betrayed the presence of a drawn, 
 anxious look in her eyes. She made a little shrinking 
 movement with her shoulders, and glanced furtively back 
 towards her companion. Miss Winter had dropped the 
 newspaper on the floor. She had approached, and was 
 standing close beside the girl. 
 
 "Helen!" 
 
 It was almost a gasp. The girl seemed to make an 
 effort, but she succeeded in smiling. 
 
 "Yes dear." 
 
 Miss Winter was not an impulsive woman. There was 
 a graceful finish and sense of leisure about her move- 
 ments, but before Helen could move, her friend was
 
 Miss Winter Moves. 213 
 
 kneeling on the white fur hearthrug drawing her towards 
 her, forcing her to face the light. 
 
 " Helen ! let me see your face ! " 
 
 It was almost a command, and the girl obeyed, slowly 
 turning. Her eyes were dull, as if with physical agony. 
 
 Miss Winter relinquished the warm soft fingers. She 
 half turned, and sat with her hands clasped in her lap, 
 gazing into the fire. 
 
 " When " she asked, " when was it ? Long ago at 
 Oxford, or only just lately ? " 
 
 "I suppose," Helen answered, quietly, "that it was 
 long ago at Oxford ; but but I think I did not know it." 
 
 This daughter of a sailor race was not given to tears, 
 but now her lashes were glistening softly. It is not the 
 bitterest tear that falls. 
 
 "My poor, poor Helen!" murmured Miss Winter, 
 stroking her friend's hand gently. 
 
 Helen replied by a sickening little laugh. 
 
 " It is a little awkward, is it not ? " she said. 
 
 A wince of pain passed across the elder woman's face. 
 
 " And he" she asked, at length, " Claud Tyars he 
 has said nothing ? " 
 
 " Of course not." 
 
 Miss Winter's eyes fell on the newspaper lying open at 
 her feet. Mechanically she read the heading of a long 
 article on the "New Arctic Expedition." Her heart 
 sank within her. 
 
 " But, Helen," she whispered, " do you think he " 
 
 "Hush, dear," interrupted the girl. " Don't ask me 
 that." 
 
 Then there followed a long silence, while these two 
 gracious women sat hand in hand. We know, we who have 
 passed through the mill, that sorrow is not the exclusive 
 inheritance of the poor. Sorrow is a little thing. It is
 
 214 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 intangible it is a shadow. And it creeps through fine- 
 wrought keyholes, up soft-carpeted stairs, through silken 
 curtains. It nestles upon the finest, whitest pillows. It 
 sits with diamonds upon the fairest breasts. 
 
 In this warmly-curtained room where every chair, 
 every curtain, every minutest ornament was an expres- 
 sion of taste and comfort, where two fair women sat clad 
 in silk and fine linen, sorrow hovered in the air. For are 
 we not told that it is our inheritance ? And there is noth- 
 ing so sure as heredity. I know a woman whose father 
 died mad. She wriggles and twists beneath the ban of 
 heredity. She tries to persuade herself that she is not 
 her father's daughter, she even laughs at her own fears. 
 She accounts glibly for her own mental sensations, she 
 welcomes with thirsty heart all instances where the curse 
 of the father has not been visited upon the children. But 
 does she think that she will escape ? Most assuredly 
 not ! And from a disinterested point of view it seems 
 probable that she is right. Whatever she may have 
 lived in the way of a life, her death will be that of her 
 father's daughter. 
 
 That is but one instance. She is an exceptional and an 
 unfortunate heiress. But if there is one thing certain on 
 earth, it is that we all have an inheritance. We cannot 
 wriggle out of it, we cannot twist it aside. We read of 
 sorrow we hear that our grandmothers and grandfathers 
 dabbled in it, and the fact lends to them a pleasantly ro- 
 mantic interest. But do we realize that as surely as they 
 dabbled shall we dabble ? Or we may wade knee-deep 
 in it. We may sink and be overwhelmed. We are like 
 soldiers going out to battle. Private Smith may fall a 
 bullet may find its billet in the brain of Major Jones ! 
 But Private I Major Me no, the idea is too absurd ! To 
 lapse once more into egotism. We are told that a friend
 
 Miss Winter Moves. 215 
 
 has been killed by the fall of a heavy block from aloft. 
 " Poor fellow," we think, " but what a fool not to get 
 out of the way ! " Now we should have got out of the 
 way ! Voila I Are we not like that ? 
 
 Miss Winter was the first to speak. This had not taken 
 her by surprise, but our mind very often takes a little 
 time to digest a fact in which there was no surprise. Of 
 course she had known before, but there was a difference 
 now. It had not been a misfortune before and now it 
 was simply the greatest misfortune that could have come. 
 For she knew Claud Tyars now, and she knew that such 
 a man was far beyond her influence that he would go on 
 this expedition if he tore his own heart in two in so doing. 
 She attributed this to his nature. It was merely the in- 
 dulgence of a passion, the satisfaction of a singular sense 
 of resolution and grim determination. She was, of course, 
 ignorant of the other motive, of the real object of Tyars' 
 expedition. That was cleared up afterwards years 
 afterwards when it was too late to make any difference. 
 Mark this last-named detail it is characteristic of most 
 earthly elucidations. 
 
 " And you want to go on Wednesday ? " inquired Miss 
 Winter, with a dawning wonder in her tone. 
 
 ' Yes ; I want to go very much, Agnes." 
 
 There was a spell of silence, after which Miss Winter 
 spoke as much to herself as to her companion. 
 
 " I cannot understand that," she said ; " I should have 
 thought that you would have preferred not going." 
 
 "So should I," replied the girl, in a voice which crisped 
 her listener's face with pain, "of any one else. But 
 when it is oneself one thinks quite differently I find." 
 
 Again she finished her sentence with a nauseating little 
 laugh, so utterly miserable was it. 
 
 There are some sorrows which are sorrows at once.
 
 216 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 They spring into existence in all their rude development, 
 and there is no possibility of mistaking them. Others 
 develop slowly it is uncertain whether they will turn out 
 to be sorrows or not, although as things go the chances 
 are by no means even. And somehow these two women 
 seemed to take it for granted that this love which had 
 forced its way into Helen's heart was a thing of tears. 
 
 "Is it not much better," urged Miss Winter, practi- 
 cally, " to avoid seeing him ? " 
 
 Helen shrugged her shoulders before replying. 
 
 " Why ? What is the good of it ? It is not as if there 
 were any chance of my I mean Agnes you know that 
 it will never be any different with me." 
 
 " Still," said the woman of the world, " I should avoid 
 him. Do not ask him to the house." 
 
 " You need not fear that. He will never come to Brook 
 Street again." 
 
 Miss Winter looked sharply round. 
 
 " How do you know that ? " she asked. 
 
 " I could see it. He made it obvious enough when he 
 said good-by to papa and to me the other night." 
 
 " Then, Helen," said the elder woman with conviction, 
 " he did it on purpose, and if he did it on purpose . . ." 
 She stopped, arrested by a glance from the girl's soft, 
 thoughtful eyes. 
 
 " It is either a misfortune or a crime," she added, 
 sadly. 
 
 " It is a misfortune." 
 
 Miss Winter was not, however, the sort of woman to 
 admit that. 
 
 " No," she said ; " I do not see why." 
 
 The girl turned on her sharply. 
 
 " How can it be anything else ? " in a hard, heart- 
 broken voice.
 
 Miss Winter Moves. 217 
 
 " It might be," persisted Agnes Winter ; " it would be 
 with any man but Claud Tyars, with any girl but you ! 
 As it is . . ." 
 
 " As it is," echoed Helen, taking advantage of a pause, 
 " he will go, and if he comes back he will go again until 
 until he does not come back. And I I suppose I shall 
 muddle on with Clothing Clubs and Girls' Friendly Socie- 
 ties, and the Church Extension. I shall wear unbecoming 
 bonnets and thick boots ; shall brush my hair back very 
 tight, and polish my face with soap. I shall develop into 
 an intensely energetic and talkative middle-aged female, 
 whose existence or non-existence is a matter of perfect 
 indifference to all the world excepting a few other ener- 
 getic and talkative middle-aged females. Ha ! ha ! .No, 
 Agnes, dear : don't look so solemn. It is all right. I shan't 
 take to unbecoming good works. It will all come right in 
 the end. These things always do at least we say they 
 do, which comes to the same thing. It does not make 
 any difference, so the brightest side must be kept turned 
 towards the outside world. I wish you would give me 
 some tea. It has been standing under that elegant cosy 
 ever since we came up. I wonder why no one has in- 
 vented a cosy yet which is anything but absolutely hid- 
 eous." 
 
 Miss Winter rose from her humble position on the 
 hearthrug. She was still lithe and supple, this daughter 
 of the great city, despite the gracious roundness of her 
 form. She obeyed Helen's request, pouring out the tea 
 in thoughtful silence ; but she failed to smile at her 
 friend's gaiety. Gaiety, you see, is not always a thing 
 to smile at. Laughter is not always a sign of joy. 
 
 She was thinking deeply. This lady had upon most 
 things very decided opinions. She was, as already 
 stated, somewhat in the habit of treating individual men
 
 2i8 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 as representatives of a type, and in the same spirit she 
 met the difficulties of life. She maintained that there was 
 in most circumstances a wrong thing to do and a right. 
 Moreover, she invariably made it her aim to set about, 
 practically and methodically, finding the right. 
 
 " Helen," she said, " will you tell me one thing ?" 
 
 The girl moved uneasily, keeping her eyes averted. 
 
 " I think not," she answered ; " you can ask it, but I 
 do not think that I will answer." 
 
 " Long ago," murmured the low voice of the elder wo- 
 man, " long ago at Oxford did you think Helen, forgive 
 my asking did you think that he loved you ? " 
 
 There was a long silence, broken only by the officious 
 little clock upon the mantel-piece and the heated creak of 
 the glowing cinders. Then at last the answer came. 
 
 " No no, certainly not. But he was different from 
 the others quite different. It seems ridiculous, but at 
 the time I thought that it was because he was a Cam- 
 bridge man." 
 
 " Then if you had not met again this would not have 
 happened ? " 
 
 " No," answered Helen, gravely; "it would not. I 
 wonder why Oswin should have saved him, of all men, 
 in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Now I must go, 
 Agnes. It is ten o'clock."
 
 A Sermon. 219 
 
 CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A SERMON. 
 
 ON this same day Oswin Grace dined with Claud 
 Tyars at his club. It was in this manner that he dis- 
 posed of his unoccupied evening. 
 
 During the actual meal, served in a tall, hushed, and 
 rather lonesome room, by a portentous gentleman in red 
 plush breeches and pink stockings, there was not much 
 opportunity for private conversation. A few friends of 
 Tyars came at intervals and stopped to exchange some 
 words before sitting down at their own particular table. 
 There was about all these gentlemen a similar peculiarity, 
 namely, a certain burliness of chest and flatness of back. 
 They had one and all been boating men in their time. 
 They did not boast of many honors, nor possess many 
 degrees among them, but most of them had been in the 
 " Boat " in their time, and some of them were " strokes " 
 as well as Claud Tyars. 
 
 After dinner the two men lounged up the broad stair- 
 case to the smoking-room. There were two vast chairs 
 near a secondary little fireplace at the far end of the room, 
 and to these Tyars led the way. 
 
 There is nothing like a cigar, coupled with a club chair, 
 to conduce to pleasant meditation. Oswin was inclined 
 to be merry but Tyars made no attempt to conceal his 
 preoccupation. He had naturally much to think of, and 
 it had as yet not been noticed among his colleagues how
 
 22o Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 strictly he kept matters in his own hands. About the 
 ship and her crew, her outfit and her capabilities, he con- 
 sulted his subordinate freely enough, but as Easton had 
 once remarked, the executive was wholly in his own hands. 
 He saw personally to every detail, made all purchases, 
 gave all orders ; and everything was done in a matter-of- 
 fact and businesslike manner which showed great power 
 of organization. 
 
 Although the two men were by now quite familiar 
 friends, there were certain phases in Claud Tyars' char- 
 acter which were as unintelligible to Oswin Grace as they 
 had been months before on board the Martial. The young 
 lieutenant still confessed freely that Claud Tyars was a 
 " rum fellow." One generally finds a statement of this 
 description tantamount to an admission of inferiority. It 
 is just possible that Tyars had chosen this young sailor to 
 aid him in his tremendous enterprise on account of that 
 same inferiority. Men who are born to command and love 
 commanding are usually found in association with such as 
 are obviously inferior to them. In some cases the selec- 
 tion is instinctive, in others it is deliberate ; but Claud 
 Tyars had unconsciously set his choice upon this man, 
 knowing him to be a good sailor, a bold navigator, and an 
 able officer. The choice had been made very quickly, 
 with that strange haste which almost amounts to impetu- 
 osity, and which usually characterizes the action of prom- 
 inent and successful men. Tyars was not conscious of his 
 own strength, and did not therefore choose Oswin Grace 
 because he was of weak will and easily led. 
 
 The elder man was the first to break the silence. He 
 removed the cigar from his lips and watched the fire burn 
 while he spoke. 
 
 "You have not," he said interrogatively," got leave 
 from the Admiralty yet ? "
 
 A Sermon. 221 
 
 " Not yet," was the answer returned confidently. 
 Grace evidently anticipated no difficulty. 
 
 " Then don't do it." 
 
 The little square-shouldered man sat up, but Tyars bore 
 with perfect equanimity the glance of a remarkably direct 
 pair of eyes. 
 
 " What the devil do you mean, Tyars ? " 
 
 " Don't you think that you had better stick to brass- 
 buttons and slave-catching ? " 
 
 For once there was a lack of conviction in his voice. 
 
 " No, I don't ! " replied the other, with plenty of con- 
 viction. He was leaning back again in the deep chair ; 
 but his bronzed face wore a singular gray color, while his 
 gaze never swerved from his companion's features. 
 
 " What is it ? " he continued in a quieter voice ; " my 
 seamanship ? " 
 
 " No," replied Tyars, "that is a matter of history. It 
 was your seamanship that brought the Martial home. 
 Every one recognizes that." 
 
 " Then," said Grace, illogically, " let me go as A. B." 
 
 Tyars laughed. 
 
 " I do not think," he said, "that you ought to go at all. 
 You must feel it yourself, and now is the time to draw 
 back before it is too late." 
 
 " My dear man I don't feel it, and I don't want to draw 
 back." 
 
 Grace was smiling now. Things were not so serious as 
 they had at first appeared. He was still waiting for 
 Tyars' reason. He knew that his whilom chief was not 
 the man to change his mind without strong motives, and 
 already he pictured himself relegated to a lower position 
 on board the Arctic vessel. 
 
 " Why," he asked, " do you want to get rid of me ? " 
 
 " I don't want to get rid of you. There is no man
 
 222 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 afloat whom I would put in your place. But I must be 
 consistent. I have refused many good men for the same 
 reason. You have too many home ties." 
 
 Grace found time to relight his cigar, and the match 
 illuminated rather a flushed face. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " he asked at length, in a voice 
 rendered unconscious with only partial success. 
 
 It was an awkward question, for Tyars had been as- 
 sured by this man's sister that there existed a distinct 
 understanding between him and Miss Winter. 
 
 He was not an adept at prevarication. 
 
 " You see," he said, awkwardly, " I am quite alone in 
 the world. I have no one to sit at home and worry over 
 my absence or my silence. 1 should like all the fellows 
 who go with me to be in the same circumstances." 
 
 A somewhat prolonged silence followed the stately 
 silence of a club-room, with padded doors and double win- 
 dows. The two men smoked meditatively. I wonder 
 how many lives have been made or marred over a 
 cigar ! 
 
 "I suppose," said Grace at length, "that Helen has 
 been getting at you." 
 
 Tyars was to some extent prepared for this, but he 
 moved rather uneasily in his luxurious chair. 
 
 "No," he answered, "you know your sister better 
 than to think that. She is not that sort of woman." 
 
 Oswin Grace smiled. He was rather proud of his 
 sister. She was, he opined, the sort of sister for a sailor 
 to have. Not a fretting, high-strung girl, but cool and 
 self-contained and strong a fair sweet sample of that 
 most enduring of womankind, an English lady. Tyars' 
 words conveyed a compliment, manly and terse, such as a 
 gentleman may permit himself to imply in the presence of 
 a brother.
 
 A Sermon. 223 
 
 " Then," he said, cheerfully, " if Helen does not mind 
 it is no one else's affair." 
 
 " How do you know," asked Tyars, " that she does 
 not mind ? " 
 
 " You have just said so." 
 
 "Never." 
 
 " Then what did you say, or mean to say ? " 
 
 " I meant," replied the elder man, "that I never asked 
 her whether she would mind or not, and therefore do not 
 know." 
 
 " You merely told her that I was going." 
 
 Tyars nodded his head, and smoked with some enthu- 
 siasm. 
 
 And? " 
 
 " And she did not say in what way it would affect her ; 
 only suppose we are away two years suppose we don't 
 come back at all. Your father is an old man she will be 
 alone in the world.'* 
 
 Oswin Grace stroked his neatly-cropped beard thought- 
 fully. 
 
 " Helen," he said at length, " will marry." 
 
 Like most big men Tyars possessed the faculty of sit- 
 ting very still. During the silence that followed this re- 
 mark, he might have been hewn of solid stone, so motion- 
 less was he as to limbs, features, and even nerves. At 
 length he moistened his lips and turned his slow gaze to 
 meet that of his companion, who was sitting forward in 
 his chair awaiting the effect of this argument. There was 
 a waiter arranging the newspapers on a table near at hand, 
 and before replying Tyars ordered coffee. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " that is probable, and she always has 
 her friend Miss Winter." 
 
 Oswin Grace relapsed suddenly into the chair. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " she will always have Agnes Winter,
 
 224 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 and if she married, her friendship would be only the more 
 useful." 
 
 That settled it. Claud Tyars gave a little sigh of relief, 
 and helped himself to coffee. 
 
 " Shall I," he said, " put sugar in yours ? " 
 
 " Yes, please." 
 
 " Two lumps ? " 
 
 " Two small ones," replied Grace. 
 
 They discussed this question just as gravely as the 
 other. 
 
 Then, when the waiter had withdrawn, Tyars returned 
 to the original subject of the conversation. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " if you feel quite free from the 
 slightest moral obligation, I have nothing more to say." 
 
 " Thank you," replied Oswin Grace, with relieved 
 cheeriness ; " that is exactly how I feel. But, old fellow, 
 I wish you would give me notice when you feel a fit like 
 that coming on. It gave me a beastly fright. Quite a 
 turn, as my washerwoman said, when she saw my shirt- 
 cuff covered with red paint." 
 
 There was evidently not the slightest afterthought. 
 Oswin was genuinely enthusiastic, and showed it 
 showed it, in fact, much more than did Claud Tyars, who 
 was essentially a son of this nineteenth century, where 
 enthusiasm is hardly known. Enthusiasm about evil 
 things is not desirable, but it would at least show sincerity. 
 We cannot even go to the dogs with enthusiasm nowa- 
 days. Tyars may have been honest enough in his intention 
 to give his subordinate a chance of withdrawing, but it is 
 probable that he never recognized the possibility of such 
 an action on the part of Oswin Grace. A man capable 
 of doing so was certainly not the person to select for the 
 work that lay before them. 
 
 They now lapsed into mere technicalities, which will
 
 A Sermon. 225 
 
 not bear setting down here. .There are some people who 
 disapprove of Arctic expeditions, but there are also per- 
 sons who withhold their approval of mountaineering and 
 of football. If this volume fall into the hands of any such, 
 I bow most meekly. Heavens forbid that they should be 
 persuaded to do any of these things ! To play football, 
 for instance, on my side ; to climb a snow-slope in front 
 of me ; to have anything whatever to do with the naviga- 
 tion of an Arctic vessel with myself on board Heavens 
 forbid that I should uphold in wordy contest the taking of 
 a part in any of these ventures ! But it may be pointed 
 out that those who do so know what they are about. The 
 risks and the chances are infinitely better known to them 
 than they are to literary folk and mere newspaper pes- 
 terers. If, knowing the risk so well, certain persons 
 choose to run it mon Dieu ! whose business is it ? 
 
 These young men are not held up as heroes because 
 they were pleased to risk the only life they possessed (or 
 were likely to possess) on a hair-brained scheme for re- 
 lieving the misery of the most pitiable body of people on 
 the face of the earth. It is not for us to say whether they 
 did right or wrong. 
 
 Of course their design was a deliberate breach of the 
 law ; but it was the law of another country, and we all 
 know that the laws of a foreign country are a mere joke ; 
 a series of quips and cranks compiled for the amusement 
 of travelers, and in no way binding upon Englishmen. 
 This, at all events, appears to be the view generally taken 
 by our countrymen abroad. 
 
 " There is, however, a higher law than that of nations 
 the Law of Humanity. We Britons at one time set an 
 example in the application of this law, but we have now 
 other things to attend to. The whole world indeed must 
 have its hands full, or else its vastest nation would never 
 15
 
 226 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 be allowed to cast an indelible stain upon this century and 
 generation. We get up subscriptions and we write huge 
 letters to the newspapers about atrocities, Bulgarian, 
 Cretan* and other. Well-intentioned men dispute contin- 
 uously and fruitlessly as to whether certain objects seen 
 on the banks of a certain river were the remnants of a 
 haystack or the remains of a crucified man. 
 
 Atrocities seek you ? They are not far. There is a 
 very comfortable train from Charing Cross at eleven 
 o'clock in the morning which will land you at the railway- 
 station at St. Petersburg in about fifty hours. For sixty 
 kopecks you can drive in a really luxurious droscky straight 
 down the Newski Prospect and past the Admiralty. There 
 from the English quay you can look on one of the great 
 atrocities of the day, namely, the fortress of St. Peter and 
 St. Paul. That same evening at half-past eight you can 
 take a train on to Moscow, and after a short drive over 
 cobble-stones now instead of wood, as in the Prospect, 
 you can look on atrocity number two the House of 
 Preliminary Detention. And these are but introductions 
 to the great atrocity of Siberia. 
 
 Even in bygone days, before the ages were illumined, 
 political prisoners were treated with some sort of respect. 
 They were never herded with the common felon, the frat- 
 ricide, the murderer, the thief. We have only come to 
 that in these later days, this enlightened nineteenth cen- 
 tury. But this is no place to set down so-called sensa- 
 tional details. This is no political pamphlet, and the writer 
 is no Nihilist. But surely there are some Englishmen 
 who find time to study this great question ; some who 
 know that a Nihilist is not a Terrorist, nor a Socialist, nor 
 an Atheist, but merely, if you please, a politician a man 
 who loves his country sufficiently well to risk all for her 
 sake. In all changes there is a time when crime is turned
 
 A Sermon. 227 
 
 to heroism. To-day the Nihilists are criminals, some day 
 they will be heroes. To-day Nihil merely represents the 
 fruit that they gather from their seed, but in times to come 
 one cannot help hoping that there will be a mighty har- 
 vest. And then perhaps the gatherers the new Russian 
 nation that will spring up and flourish from the ashes of 
 the old autocracy will remember those who sowed in 
 tears and tribulation ; will remember those nameless thou- 
 sands of men and women who have died in solitary cell, 
 in dripping darksome mine, in prison-hospital, and on the 
 great road to Siberia. 
 
 In England the whole question of the future of Russia is 
 as little studied as its present state is known. Nihilism 
 at present is a subject to write novels about the dramatic 
 side of it alone is brought before the public ; and conse- 
 quently the cause of Progression, ay, the cause of per- 
 sonal freedom, each man's birthright, is treated as a huge 
 fiction. A few read the sparse books here and there 
 written by Russians who are in deadly earnest, but fewer 
 still take it as it is, namely, a downright practical fact. 
 It is a great fight, and though the picturesque part of it 
 only is presented in fiction, just as the picturesque side of 
 Poland was a few years ago turned into fictional capital, 
 there is another the earnest steady pressing forward of 
 an ever-increasing party of men and women who daily 
 make stupendous sacrifices for the cause that binds them 
 together. 
 
 The picturesqueness requires distance. One must con- 
 template the drama to appreciate its force, and take no 
 part in it. It is very thrilling and very picturesque to 
 conjure up in the mind's eye a gloomy cell, with glisten- 
 ing walls and a wooden bed, without even a handful of 
 straw ; but the denizen of that cell fails to see the dra- 
 matic force of it all. There is a certain excitement in
 
 228 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 imagining a snow-covered plain traversed by one dirty, 
 deeply-rutted road, and to set thereon a string of misera- 
 ble beings, dragging one leg after another their backs 
 turned towards home and all they love, their horror- 
 stricken eyes looking on hopeless exile. But there is no 
 excitement in standing at the edge of that road and watch- 
 ing with living eyes those same poor human beings in the 
 flesh. There is no dramatic thrill in standing at the side 
 of a miserable pallet infested with vermin, reeking with 
 damp, and watching the last throes of a repulsive heap of 
 dirt and rags which was once a comely, fair young girl. 
 And these are realities, they are no sensational details. 
 The details of Siberian prison life and exile life are not 
 sensational they are merely beastly.
 
 Miss Winter Diverges. 229 
 
 CHAPTER XXIII. 
 
 MISS WINTER DIVERGES. 
 
 " MY DEAR OSWIN, 
 
 "If you want to carry out this theater-party, come 
 and see me about it. I shall be at home all the 
 morning. 
 
 " Yours very truly, 
 
 " AGNES WINTER." 
 
 The young sailor read this letter among others at the 
 breakfast- table. His father and sister were engaged on 
 their own affairs ; Helen with her letters, the admiral 
 among his newspapers. Oswin Grace read the letter 
 twice, and then with a glance to see that he was unob- 
 served by his sister, he slipped it into his pocket together 
 with the envelope that had contained it. 
 
 " Have you," said Helen, immediately afterwards, " a 
 letter from Agnes ? " 
 
 " Yes," he replied, opening a second missive with airy 
 indifference. " She wants me to arrange about the 
 theater. I shall go round and see her this morning will 
 you come with me ? " 
 
 The girl raised her eyebrows almost imperceptibly. 
 There had been a time when he would have schemed 
 unscrupulously to go alone. 
 
 " I am afraid," she answered, quietly, "that I cannot 
 go out this morning. I have so much to do in the house."
 
 230 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 "You had better come." 
 
 " If you will put it off to this afternoon I should like to," 
 she replied. 
 
 " No ; I am engaged this afternoon." 
 
 "Where?" inquired the admiral without raising his 
 eyes from the newspaper. 
 
 " At the docks with Tyars." 
 
 There was nothing more said, and at eleven o'clock 
 Oswin went out alone. The fog and gloom of late No- 
 vember had given place to a bright, dry cold, and this, 
 without any great fall in the thermometer, now held com- 
 plete sway over mud and water. 
 
 Miss Winter's elderly maid-servant evidently expected 
 Lieutenant Grace, for she opened the door and stood back 
 invitingly. Then when he was in the hall unbuttoning 
 his thick pilot coat, she informed him that Miss Agnes 
 was out, but was to return in a few moments. He was 
 ushered up into the warm, luxurious drawing-room, and 
 after the door had been closed, stood for a few moments 
 irresolute in the middle of the deep carpet. Presently he 
 began to wander about the room, taking things up and 
 setting them down again. He inhaled the subtle atmos- 
 phere of feminine home refinement and looked curiously 
 round him. There were a hundred little personalities, 
 little inconsidered feminine trifles that are only found 
 where a woman is quite at home. The very arrangement 
 of the room proved that it was a woman's room, that a 
 woman lived her every-day life there, and set her inde- 
 finable subtle stamp upon everything. There was a silly 
 little lace handkerchief, utterly useless and vain, lying 
 upon a table beside a work-basket. He took it up, ex- 
 amined its texture critically, and then instinctively raised 
 it to his face. He threw it down again with a peculiar 
 twisted smile.
 
 Miss Winter Diverges. 231 
 
 " Wonder what scent it is," he muttered. " I have 
 never come across it anywhere else." 
 
 He went towards the mantelpiece ; upon it were two 
 portraits old photographs, somewhat faded. One of 
 Helen, the other of himself. He examined his own like- 
 ness for some moments. 
 
 " Solemn little beggar," he said, for the photograph was 
 of a little square-built midshipman with a long oval face. 
 "Solemn little beggar; wonder what his end will be? 
 Wonder why he is on this mantelpiece? " 
 
 Then he continued his mental inventory, stopping finally 
 on the hearthrug with his back turned towards the fire, 
 his hands thrust into the side-pockets of his short blue 
 serge jacket. 
 
 " I think," he reflected aloud, " that I was rather a fool 
 to come here. Tyars would not like it." 
 
 While he was still following out the train of thought sug- 
 gested by this reflection the door opened and Miss Winter 
 entered. She had evidently just come in, for she was 
 still gloved and furred. 
 
 "Ah!" she said, gaily; "you have come. I was 
 afraid that your exacting commander would require your 
 services all the morning." 
 
 " My exacting commander," he answered, as he took 
 her gloved hand in his, " has a peculiar way of doing 
 everything himself and leaving his subordinates idle." 
 
 She was standing before him slowly unbuttoning her 
 trim little sealskin jacket. Then she drew off her gloves 
 and threw them down on a chair beside her jacket. There 
 was about her movements that subtle sense of feminine 
 luxury which is slightly bewildering to men unaccustomed 
 to English home-life. The cold bright air had brought a 
 glow of color to her rounded cheeks ; she might easily have 
 been a lovely girl of twenty-one. But there was a fascina-
 
 232 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 tion in her which was equal to that of youth, if not supe- 
 rior the fascination of perfect self-possession, of perfect 
 savoirfaire. She seemed singularly sure of herself, quite 
 certain as to what she was going to say or do next. She 
 seemed to know how to make the best of life, how to 
 laugh in the right places, and work and play ; and perhaps 
 she knew how to love if she set her mind that way. 
 
 " The delicate daughter," she said, cheerily, " of the 
 genial milkman has been suddenly taken worse. I knew 
 that meant jelly, so I took it round at once with last week's 
 Graphic, and got it over. I hope I have not kept you 
 waiting ? " 
 
 " Oh, no ; thanks," he replied. 
 
 It almost seemed that he was not quite at ease with his 
 old playmate the companion of his childhood, the little 
 sweetheart of his " Britannia " days. If this was so 
 the change was all on his side, for she persistently treated 
 him with that sisterly familiarity which has led so many 
 of us into mistakes that might be ludicrous if they only 
 did not leave such a nasty sting behind them. 
 
 She approached the mirror above the mantelpiece, and 
 in continuance of her sisterly treatment, proceeded placidly 
 to draw out the long pins from her hat, while he watched 
 the deft play of her fingers. 
 
 " I have been wandering round the room," he continued, 
 resolutely turning away, " looking for old friends." 
 
 " You have scarcely been in this room," she said, with- 
 out looking round, " since you came back." 
 
 " No-o-o ! I found a little thimble in the top of your 
 work-basket. Do you remember how we used to make 
 indigestible little loaves of bread and cook them in a thimble 
 over the gas ? " 
 
 " Yes," she laughed, " it is the same thimble. It fits 
 me still."
 
 . Miss Winter Diverges. 233 
 
 She held up for his edification a small dimpled hand with 
 clever capable little fingers bent coquettishly backwards. 
 He gave a short laugh, and took no notice of the tempting 
 fingers. Then, having removed her hat, she knelt down 
 in front of the fire to warm herself. 
 
 "What," she said suddenly, "about this expedi- 
 tion?" 
 
 He looked back at her over his shoulder, for he had 
 gone towards the window, and there was a sudden gleam 
 of determination in his eyes. It was her influence that 
 had disturbed Tyars' resolution. 
 
 " What expedition ? " he asked, curtly, on his guard. 
 
 " This theater expedition," she replied, sweetly. 
 
 " Oh, well ; I suppose it will be carried through. We 
 all want to go." 
 
 " We all ? " she said, inquiringly. 
 
 He came nearer to her, standing actually on the hearth- 
 rug beside her and looking down. 
 
 " Helen," he explained, " and Tyars, and myself and 
 Easton, I believe." 
 
 She gave a little nod at the mention of each name, 
 tallying them off in her mind. 
 
 " And," he continued, " I suppose you are not strongly 
 opposed to it ? " 
 
 "I," she laughed lightly; "of course I want to go. 
 You know that I am always ready for amusement, prof- 
 itless or otherwise profitless preferred ! Why do you 
 look so grave, Oswin ? Please don't I hate solemnity. 
 Do you know you have got horribly grave lately ? It 
 is ..." 
 
 " It is what, Agnes ? " 
 
 He was looking down at her with his keen, close-set 
 gray eyes, and she met his glance for a moment only. 
 
 "Mr. Tyars," she answered, clasping her fingers to-
 
 234 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 gether and bending them backwards as if to restore the 
 circulation after her cold walk. 
 
 " There is something," said Grace, after a little pause, 
 during which Miss Winter had continued to rub a re- 
 markably rosy little pair of hands together, " that jars. 
 Tyars annoys you in some way." 
 
 Miss Winter changed color. She looked very girlish 
 with the hot blush fading slowly from her cheeks. She 
 did not however make any answer. 
 
 " What is it ? " asked Grace. " His energy ? " 
 
 " No-o," slowly, with a faint suggestion of coquetry. 
 
 " His gravity ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " His independence ? " 
 
 " I like men to be energetic, grave, and independent. 
 All men should be so." 
 
 " Then what is it ? " asked Oswin. 
 
 She made no answer. 
 
 " Won't you tell me, Agnes?" he urged; and as he 
 spoke he walked away from her and stood looking out of 
 the window. They were thus at opposite sides of the 
 room, back to back. She glanced over her shoulder, 
 drew in a deep breath, and then spoke with an odd little 
 smile which was almost painful. One would almost have 
 thought that she was going to tell a lie. 
 
 " His Arctic expedition," she said, deliberately. " If 
 he is going to spend his life in that sort of thing I would 
 rather not cultivate his friendship." 
 
 She leant forward, warming her hands feverishly, 
 breathing rapidly and unevenly. She felt him approach, 
 for his footsteps were inaudible on the thick carpet, and 
 she only crouched a little lower. At last, after a horrid 
 silence, he spoke, and his voice was quite different ; it 
 was deeper and singularly monotonous.
 
 Miss Winter Diverges. 235 
 
 " Why should you not wish to cultivate his friendship 
 under those circumstances? " 
 
 "Because," she answered, lamely, "I should hate to 
 have a friend of mine a real friend running the risk of 
 such a horrible death." 
 
 He walked away to the window again and stood there 
 with his hands thrust into his jacket-pockets a sturdy, 
 square little man a plucky, self-contained Englishman, 
 taking his punishment without a word. He was, as has 
 been stated, rather ignorant in the ways of women. 
 Most naval men are. And he fell into the trap blindly. 
 He was actually foolish enough to believe that Agnes 
 Winter loved Claud Tyars, and he was ignorant enough 
 to believe that a woman ever tells one man of her love 
 for another. It seems almost incredible that he should do 
 this. It is only men who make such mistakes as regards 
 human nature. 
 
 As a man of honor he had carefully schooled himself 
 to show this lady by every action, word, and gesture 
 that if he had at one time been moved to regard her with 
 other than the eyes of a brother, that time was passed. 
 This was the least he could do in honor towards her, in 
 faith towards Claud Tyars. Whether he succeeded or 
 not could only be known to Agnes Winter herself. But, 
 to judge from the expression of his face, from the con- 
 tracted pain of his eyes as he stood looking down into the 
 quiet street, it would seem that he had not been prepared 
 to hear from her own lips that this woman, whom he had 
 loved all his life, loved another man. The news, coming 
 suddenly as it did, almost threw him off his mental 
 equilibrium. This nauseating sense of unsteadiness in a 
 great purpose is probably not quite unknown to the 
 majority of us. It is so easy to make up one's mind to a 
 noble sacrifice and to give entire attention to the larger
 
 236 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 duties attending on it. Then comes some sudden un- 
 foreseen demand upon our self-suppression ; sometimes it 
 is almost trivial, and yet it leaves us shaken and un- 
 certain. 
 
 Oswin remembered the jealous pangs with which he 
 first saw these two together. Subsequent events had 
 disarmed his jealousy and allayed his fears. Even now 
 he could not realize what she had told him. And yet he 
 was mad enough to believe it. Moreover, he continued 
 to believe it. It was only at a subsequent period that 
 he began to doubt and to analyze, and then it was clear 
 enough to him. It was clear that in implying she had in 
 no way committed herself. He had understood her to 
 confess that she was on the verge of falling in love with 
 this nineteenth-century knight-errant, and yet she had 
 made no such confession. It is probable that in that later 
 season he remembered the words and not the manner of 
 saying them. For, after all, the most important thing is 
 not what we say, but how we say it. Do we not say 
 every day the same trivial things that were said in 
 Pompeii ? Do we scribblers not write the same silly old 
 story over and over again ? Do we not smear the gilt 
 over the same stale old gingerbread, and try to make 
 inexperienced young folks believe that it is solid gold, just 
 as our predecessors endeavored to persuade us ? 
 
 Suddenly Oswin Grace seemed to recall himself to the 
 matter-of-fact question under discussion. 
 
 " That," he said, " is the worst of making friends. 
 One is bound to drift away from them. But still it is 
 foolish to hold aloof on that account." 
 
 She laughed in rather a strained way. 
 
 " Our maritime philosopher," she said, "will now ex- 
 pound a maxim. Ex-pound. Derivation to pound 
 out."
 
 Miss Winter Diverges. 237 
 
 " Shall I get the tickets ? " he asked in a practical 
 way. 
 
 " Please.' 
 
 " Well, then, I will go off at once and book them." 
 
 He shook hands and left her standing in the middle of 
 the room. 
 
 " Perhaps," she murmured regretfully, " it was very 
 cruel or it may be only my own self-conceit. At all 
 events it was not so cruel as they are to Helen. I do not 
 think that they will both go now."
 
 238 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXIV. 
 
 GREEK AND GREEK. 
 
 SCARCELY had the front door closed behind Oswin 
 Grace when the bell was rung again. 
 
 Miss Winter standing in the drawing-room heard the 
 tones of a man's voice and in a few moments the maid 
 knocked and came into the drawing-room. 
 
 " A gentleman, please, Miss ; a Mr. Easton," she said, 
 doubtfully. 
 
 " Mr. Easton," repeated Agnes Winter, catching the 
 inflection of doubt. For a moment she forgot who this 
 might be. 
 
 " He gave his full name, Miss," added the servant with 
 faltering gravity. 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 "Mr. Matthew Mark Easton." 
 
 " Of course show him up at once." 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton had evidently devoted son.e care 
 to the question of dress on this occasion. Some extra 
 care perhaps, for he was a peculiarly neat man. He al- 
 ways wore a narrow silk tie in the form of a bow of which 
 the ends were allowed to stick straight out sideways, over 
 the waistcoat. His coat was embellished by an orchid. 
 
 "I am afraid," he began at once, with perfect equa- 
 nimity, "that I have made a mistake a social blunder." 
 
 " How so ? " inquired Miss Winter, smiling her ready 
 smile.
 
 Greek and Greek. 239 
 
 " I do not think that your hired girl expected visitors at 
 this time in the morning," he replied, waiting obviously 
 for her to take a seat. 
 
 " I am afraid Ann is rather eccentric," began the lady, 
 apologetically, but he stopped her with a laugh. 
 
 " Oh no ! " he said, " she did not think that I had come 
 about the gas-meter, or anything like that. But her face 
 is expressive if homely ; plain, I mean." 
 
 " I hope that it only expressed polite surprise." 
 
 " That was all," he replied, laying on the table a few 
 beautiful flowers which he had been carrying loose in his 
 hand. There were orchids and white lilac and pale helio- 
 trope. " I brought you these," he explained, " but I did 
 not come on purpose to bring them. I came on business, 
 so to speak. I have noticed that when Englishmen are by 
 way of being sociable, when they are going to a dance or 
 a theater or to make calls, they always carry a flower in 
 their buttonhole, so I bought one. I thought it would ex- 
 plain to your domestic servant that 1 had come to call, 
 but she perhaps failed to see my flower. When I was 
 buying it, I saw these other ones and and thought they 
 would look nice in your parlor." 
 
 He looked round him in his formal American way, and 
 interrupted her thanks by saying that it was a very pretty 
 room. 
 
 She rose, and taking up the delicate flowers proceeded 
 at once to place them in water. 
 
 "I came," he then explained, "to inform you that I 
 have secured a box, the stage-box, for Wednesday night, 
 at the Epic Theater. It will be doing me a pleasure if you 
 will form one of my party." 
 
 Still engaged with the flowers, Miss Winter began 
 thanking him vaguely without actually accepting. 
 
 " I do not know," he said, " exactly how these things
 
 240 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 are managed in England, but I want Miss Grace and her 
 brother to come as my guests too. Miss Grace was kind 
 enough to ask me to be one of a theater party, and 
 mentioned the Epic, so I went right away and got a box." 
 
 " Oswin has just gone to procure seats for the same 
 night," said Miss Winter, quickly. 
 
 " No," replied the American ; " I stopped him. I met 
 him in the street." 
 
 Miss Winter knew that they must have met actually 
 on her doorstep, and she wondered why he should have 
 deliberately made a misstatement. She felt indefinitely 
 guilty, as if Oswin's visit had been surreptitious. Sud- 
 denly she became aware of the quick flitting glance of her 
 companion's eyes, noting everything each tiny flicker of 
 the eyelids, each indrawn breath, each slightest movement. 
 
 "How am I to do it?" he asked, innocently. "A 
 note to Miss Grace, or a verbal invitation to her brother ? " 
 
 "A note," replied Miss Winter, with a gravity equal 
 to his own, "to Helen, saying that you have secured the 
 stage-box for Wednesday evening, and hope that she and 
 her brother will accept seats in it." 
 
 He nodded his head, signifying comprehension and rose 
 to go. 
 
 " Thank you," he said ; " in America we would not be 
 so circumlocutory. We would say, 'Dear Miss Grace, 
 will you come to the theater with self and friends on 
 Wednesday ? ' But I am anxious to do what is right over 
 here. I respect your British institutions and your do- 
 mestic servants ; the two hold together right through. 
 Half the institutions are adhered to on account of the 
 servants. Half your British gentlemen dress for dinner 
 because their butler puts on a claw-hammer coat for the 
 same. Half your ladies wash their hands for lunch 
 because the hired girl has taken up a tin of hot water."
 
 Greek and Greek. 241 
 
 " And in America," said Miss Winter, who had not 
 risen from her seat, " you have no respect for your 
 servants ? " 
 
 " Not much we pretend we have. We pretend that 
 we are all equal, and of course we are not. We think that 
 we are very simple, and we are in reality very complex. 
 Our social life is so complicated as to be almost impossible. 
 No ; you are the simplest people on earth, because you 
 like doing exactly what your immediate ancestors did. 
 We are not content with a generation, we must go farther 
 back for our model, or else we have no model at all, but 
 try to be one." 
 
 " I think," said Miss Winter, "that you are more con- 
 scious of yourselves than we are. I do not mean self- 
 conscious ; it is not so strong as that. You are self- 
 analytical." 
 
 "Yes," answered Easton, still lingering, although he 
 did not take a seat in obedience to her evident wish. 
 "We feel our own feelings; we think about our own 
 thoughts ; nous nous ecoutons mentally." 
 
 " As a nation ? " she inquired, with some interest. 
 
 " Yes, as a nation. We think, and talk, and write 
 about our national morals, about the evolution of the 
 national mind. You have nothing in common but your 
 political wrangles." 
 
 " England," said Miss Winter, without disparagement, 
 indeed with a sort of pride, " is the only country that does 
 not talk of Progress, and write it with a capital P." 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton came back again towards the 
 fireplace ; like all Americans, he loved comparisons. 
 
 " Progress," he said, " spelt as you suggest is a disease. 
 
 It fixed itself upon England in the days of your virgin 
 
 queen ; you have lived it down, and are all the stronger 
 
 now for having been affected. We got it next, and I 
 
 16
 
 242 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 surmise that we had it badly. France is suffering now, 
 and she has had a still sharper attack, so sharp that 
 surgery came into play the knife the knife they called 
 the guillotine. Russia is the next upon the list ; she will 
 have it worst of all, her surgery will be effected with a 
 dirty ax." 
 
 " Your mention of Russia," said Miss Winter, skipping 
 away from the subject under discussion with all the incon 
 sequence of her sex and kind, " reminds me of something 
 I heard said of you the other evening. It was, in fact, 
 said to me." 
 
 " Then," replied the American, with cheery gallantry, 
 " I should like to hear it. Had it been said to any one 
 else I allow that I should have been indifferent." 
 
 He stood with his hands clasped behind his back, look- 
 ing down at her with a smile upon his wistful little face. 
 
 " Do you know Mr. Santow ? " 
 
 The smile vanished, and the dancing eyes at once as- 
 sumed an expression of alert keenness, which was almost 
 ludicrous in its contrast." 
 
 " The Russian attache unaccredited ? " he replied, 
 giving back question for question. 
 
 Miss Winter nodded her head. 
 
 " No " he said, slowly ; " I do not; 1 think I know 
 him by sight." 
 
 " I have met him on several occasions. I rather like 
 him, although I cannot understand him. There is an in- 
 ward Mr. Santow whom I have not met yet ; I only know a 
 creature who smiles and behaves generally like a lamb." 
 
 "Santow," said Easton, deliberately, "is altogether 
 too guileless." 
 
 Miss Winter countered sharply. 
 
 " I thought you did not know him ? " 
 
 " I do not," answered Easton, imperturbably.
 
 Greek and Greek. 243 
 
 " Except by reputation ? " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 "He is reputed," said Miss Winter, "to be a great 
 diplomatist." 
 
 " So I believe hence the lamblike manners." 
 
 Easton's face was a study in the art of suppressing 
 curiosity. 
 
 " Do you think that he is a wolf in lamb's-clothing ? " 
 asked the lady with a laugh. 
 
 " No ; I think he is an ass, if you will excuse a slight 
 mixture of metaphor." 
 
 Miss Winter laughed again in a light-hearted, irrespon- 
 sible way. 
 
 " I will tell you," she said, " what he said about you." 
 
 " Thank you." 
 
 "We were talking about Russia it is his favorite 
 topic and he said that at times he felt like the envoy 
 from some heathen country, so little is Russia known by 
 us. By way of illustration he asked me to look round 
 the room and tell him if it did not contain all that was 
 most intellectual and learned in England. I admitted that 
 he was right. He said, ' And yet there are but two men 
 in the room who speak Russian.' Then he pointed you 
 out. ' That is one,' he said ; ' he knows my country 
 better than any man in England. If he were a diplo- 
 matist I should fear him ! ' ' What is he ? ' I asked, and 
 he merely shrugged his shoulders in that guileless way 
 to which you object." 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton did not appear to be much im- 
 pressed. He moved from one foot to the other and took 
 considerable interest in the pattern of the carpet. 
 
 " And," he inquired, " did he mention the name of the 
 second accomplished person ? " 
 
 " No."
 
 244 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " 1 wonder who it was ? " said Easton. 
 
 " Mr. Tyars," suggested the lady, calmly. 
 
 " Possibly. By the way, I thought of asking him to 
 join us on Wednesday at the Epic." 
 
 " I hope," said Miss Winter, with a gracious little bow, 
 "that he will be able to come." 
 
 " ' Dear Miss Grace,' " began Easton, solemnly, as if 
 repeating a lesson, " ' I have secured the stage-box at 
 the Epic for Wednesday evening next, and hope that you 
 and your brother will do me the pleasure of accepting 
 seats in it.' Will that do ? " 
 
 " Very nicely." 
 
 " And I may count on you ? " 
 
 " Yes ; you may count on me." 
 
 " Thank you," he said, simply, and took his depart- 
 ure. 
 
 As he walked rapidly eastward towards the club where 
 he was expecting to meet Tyars, his quaint little face was 
 wrinkled up into a thousand interrogations. 
 
 " Yes," he said, at length, with a knowing nod, 
 " it was a warning ; that spry little lady smells a rat. 
 How does she know that Tyars speaks Russian ? He is 
 not the sort of fellow to boast of his accomplishments. 
 She must have heard it from Grace, and to hear from him 
 she must have asked, because Grace is more than half 
 inclined to be jealous of Tyars, and would take care not 
 to remove the bushel from his light." 
 
 For some time he walked on whistling a tune softly. 
 Cheerfulness is only a habit. He did not really feel 
 cheerful, nor particularly inclined for music. Then he 
 began reflecting in an undertone again. 
 
 " Here I am," he said, " in a terrible fright of two 
 women ; all my schemes may be upset by either of them, 
 and I do not know which to fear most that clever little
 
 Greek and Greek. 245 
 
 lady with her sharp wits, or that girl's eyes. I almost 
 think Miss Helen's eyes are the more dangerous ; I am 
 sure they would be if it was my affair if it was me whom 
 those quiet eyes followed about. But it is not ; it is 
 Tyars. Now I wonder I wonder if he knows it ? "
 
 246 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXV. 
 EASTON'S BOX. 
 
 IT occasionally happens to the most astute of us to act, 
 and even take some trouble over our action without quite 
 knowing why we do so. There is a little motive called 
 human impulse which at times upsets the deepest calcula- 
 tions. Not one of us has met a man or woman whose 
 every action and every word was the result of forethought, 
 and consequently fraught with a deeper meaning and a 
 fuller design than would appear upon the surface. Such 
 persons do exist, of course because the lady novelist 
 tells us so. There can be no doubt of it. I merely ven- 
 ture to observe that in our small way we have not met 
 them yet in the flesh. 
 
 Had the keen-witted Easton been asked why he felt 
 impelled to disburse ten guineas for the benefit of the lessee 
 of the Epic Theater he would scarcely have been able to 
 make an immediate reply. In his rapid airy fashion he 
 had picked up and pieced together certain little bits of 
 evidence tending to prove that the young people with whom 
 he found himself on somewhat sudden terms of intimacy 
 were exceedingly partial to each other's society. As may 
 have been gathered from his own outspoken reflections, 
 he had drawn certain conclusions respecting Helen Grace. 
 He had never known women intimately, and to him as to 
 many in the same position the feelings of a woman were 
 something almost sacred. I must even ask you to believe
 
 Easton's Box. 247 
 
 that he held the quaint old-fashioned opinion that it is 
 man's duty to spare women as much as possible to make 
 their way here among the rocks as smooth as they can 
 to be gallant and gentle to be brave for them and to fear 
 for them to look upon them as a frail and delicate and 
 beautiful treasure placed into their hands to cherish and 
 to love ; to be proud of. Ha ! ha ! How funny it sounds ! 
 How ludicrous ! Try and realize that men like you and me 
 once held these views in good earnest that there are even 
 a few holding them now. But of course the rest of us 
 know better. We know that in treasuring and cherishing 
 we insult a being whose soul is higher than ours, whose 
 intellect would be loftier than ours had it freedom to soar, 
 whose mere physical inferiority in the matter of brute force 
 is a question of training and of athletic exercise. Is it 
 possible to be gallant and gentle to a being however lovely 
 who can get up on the first platform and pour forth a 
 stream of eloquence, of reason, and of argument, or to one 
 who can sit down and write a slashing article for an ad- 
 vanced magazine dealing with the realistic side of human 
 life boldly, and without fear ? Mercil Not for me. Let 
 us admit our inferiority at once. Our slow tongues cleave 
 to the roof of our mouth at the thought of debate our 
 halting pens splutter at the brink of realism. 
 
 In this respect, then, it must be admitted that Matthew 
 Mark Easton was behind the times. He was one of the 
 millions of men who never read those slashing articles, 
 and never attend the animated debates ; one of the millions 
 who stay at home, and read the comic papers who are 
 content with facts and ignore fancies. He had only once 
 met a modern woman. It was on the occasion of an in- 
 tellectual gathering whither he had repaired in the hopes 
 of meeting a great Russian novelist. As soon as he en- 
 tered the room his quick eyes detected her a very plain
 
 248 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 woman, large and clumsy, short-sighted and shockingly 
 dressed. Her chief outward signs of greatness were an 
 aggressive eagerness of manner and a deep-seated sense 
 of self-satisfaction. 
 
 " What," inquired Easton very gravely of a friend, 
 " in the name of goodness is that thing ? " 
 
 On receiving a detailed reply, he added, with the same 
 imperturbable solemnity 
 
 " Then take it away send it off in a hired carriage I 
 don't like it." 
 
 And from that day forth he treated the whole question 
 of woman's rights with the same reprehensible levity. 
 For him the leaven failed to affect the whole, and he con- 
 tinued to hold his strange old-world views of womankind. 
 
 He had no desire to pry into the secrets of Helen's 
 heart. Such curiosity would have been unmanly and 
 cowardly. But he simply looked upon Claud Tyars as a 
 man who was different from the others for Helen Grace. 
 We know what it means, some of us that difference ; 
 for most of us have known a man or woman who was 
 different from the others. 
 
 Under the circumstances his simple creed was avoid- 
 ance. He was no Stoic, this little American. He held no 
 mistaken opinions as to the powers of endurance vouch- 
 safed to the human heart. Being physically delicate, his 
 perception was keener and his knowledge of women sub- 
 tler than that of a strong man like Claud Tyars. He 
 was however eminently practical. Claud Tyars and 
 Helen Grace were clearly called upon by the force of cir- 
 cumstances to avoid each other. If they declined to take 
 the initiative, force must be used. Under the same cir- 
 cumstances Matthew Mark Easton would have acted up 
 to his own creed with a steady sense of purpose amount- 
 ing to more than stoicism.
 
 Eastern's Box. 249 
 
 And yet he deliberately took a box at the theater and 
 invited the two young people to join his party. On re- 
 flection he realized suddenly that the two other members 
 of the party were in an almost similar position. In his 
 anxiety respecting Tyars he had quite overlooked the 
 danger to which he was exposing Oswin Grace. He 
 himself was the fifth man an alternative third, likely to 
 be ill received by either couple. He tried to persuade 
 himself that the theater scheme would have been uncon- 
 ditionally carried through despite any efforts of his, and 
 that as his guests he would be able to manage these peo- 
 ple much better than he could have done as a guest of 
 theirs. But he was distinctly sensible of the fact that 
 there was in reality no question of management, and that 
 in practise his influence over any of the persons impli- 
 cated was remarkably small. 
 
 On the evening fixed Easton took care to be early on 
 the scene of action. It had been his intention to invite 
 Tyars to dine with him, but on reflection he abandoned 
 this hospitable scheme. A general rendezvous at the 
 theater was more formal, and would put the whole affair 
 in the light of a bachelor's return for hospitality received, 
 rather than the gathering together of close friends. This 
 distinction was subtle ; but without such powers of dis- 
 tinguishing no man gets very far on in the world. The 
 human career is one long effort at distinction, one long 
 choice between that which is good and that which is evil, 
 between things profitable and unprofitable. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton was leisurely surveying the 
 half-empty house when Miss Winter, Helen Grace, and 
 Oswin were shown into the box by an official. His quick 
 glance detected a momentary droop of Helen's eyelids. 
 A blundering man would have made some reference to 
 Tyars' lateness of arrival. Easton did no such thing.
 
 250 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 He proceeded to draw forward chairs for the ladies, and 
 did the honors with a certain calm ease which in no way 
 savored of familiarity. 
 
 " I should like," said Miss Winter, untying the ribbon 
 of a jaunty little opera-cloak, "the darkest corner." 
 
 " Why ? " asked Helen, almost sharply. 
 
 " Because the piece is said to be very touching, and 
 I invariably weep." 
 
 "Sorry," said Easton ; "sorry it cannot be done. 
 But I can lend you a huge pair of opera-glasses." 
 
 " But," urged Miss Winter, " my tears drop audibly on 
 the program." 
 
 "We want the dark corners for the men the back- 
 ground," urged the American, holding a chair invitingly. 
 " We love the shadow eh, Grace ? " 
 
 " Speak for yourself," said that sailor bluntly, pulling 
 forward a second chair and seating himself immediately 
 behind Miss Winter. 
 
 Things were not going well. There was a vacant chair 
 close to that occupied by Helen Grace. Easton looked at 
 it for a moment and then deliberately brought another 
 forward from the back of the box. At this moment the 
 orchestra ceased, and the curtain ran smoothly up. All 
 turned their eyes towards the stage, but the two ladies 
 glanced occasionally over their shoulders as if in expecta- 
 tion of a new arrival. Matthew Mark Easton saw these 
 glances, but his imperturbable little smile concealed what- 
 ever thoughts may have been passing through his mind. 
 The manager of the Epic Theater never allowed a farce 
 upon his stage. The first play this evening was a little 
 story of Coppee's skilfully translated. Like most of that 
 Frenchman's productions, the interest of this play gathered 
 and culminated. Half unwillingly the four occupants of 
 the stage-box allowed themselves to become interested.
 
 Easton's Box. 251 
 
 When at last the curtain dropped Claud Tyars was stand- 
 ing behind them ; he had entered the box unheard and 
 unnoticed. 
 
 During the greetings that followed, more than one per- 
 son observed that he looked somewhat stronger, some- 
 what larger than ever, but that in his face there was a 
 difference. It lay, perhaps, in the fact that a greater 
 portion of sunburn had been bleached out of his skin 
 by the gloom of an English winter. Oswin Grace was, 
 curiously enough, reminded at that moment of a very dif- 
 ferent scene. For a second there arose in his mind a 
 vivid recollection of the moss-grown deck of the Martial, 
 and of this same face, these same deep eyes looking at 
 him from beneath the tattered brim of an old Panama hat. 
 The two scenes were as unlike as could well be ; but in 
 the glare of the pitiless electric light there was a momen- 
 tary flash of stubborn energy which the young sailor had 
 only seen in one pair of eyes before, under the scorching 
 rays of a tropical sun. It may, of course, have been 
 nothing else than a very natural contraction of the eye- 
 lids under a glare of light, but it imparted to the man's 
 face a restless, hunted expression quite out of keeping 
 with his placid manner. 
 
 Oswin resumed his seat beside Miss Winter as unos- 
 tentatiously as possible. Easton and Tyars were thus 
 left standing side by side. Helen, who was half turned 
 towards them, glanced up thoughtfully from time to time. 
 The contrast they afforded might well have struck a less 
 observant onlooker. The girl raised her lace fan so that 
 she might watch them unobtrusively. In outward appear- 
 ance the two men could scarcely have been less similar. 
 One tall, rather fair, and singularly quiet; the other 
 small, nervous, quick, and dark. The one was eminently 
 and undoubtedly an athlete, the outturn of English public
 
 252 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 school and university ; the other frail and intellectual. He 
 might possess deftness, nimbleness, skill, but in the nerv- 
 ous limbs there could be no great strength. They al- 
 most looked like beings of a different creation, and yet 
 they were what we vaguely call "chums." Tyars was 
 wont to speak of his " friend Easton " in a careless Brit- 
 annic way, while the American talked of " Old Tyars" 
 with undisguised affection. 
 
 Chance observers in the other parts of the theater 
 glanced at the stage-box, noted the presence of two beau- 
 tiful women, and some perhaps looked beyond the two gra- 
 cious heads. If such there were, they probably passed 
 on with a mere mental comment respecting the big, fine- 
 looking fellow and the insignificant little man at his side. 
 No one would have associated them in a joint labor, no 
 one would have put them down as Quixotic law-breakers. 
 It is so easy, you see, to conspire, so simple to break the 
 law if you have only a decent coat upon your back. 
 
 But the girl who was watching them close at hand had 
 no suspicion of aught concealed from her. She only 
 knew that they were singular men, that they were the 
 only two who had yet crossed the pathway of her young 
 life without raising their eyes from the road they trod. 
 With the intuition of her sex she had unconsciously found 
 the one characteristic possessed by both. Without analy- 
 sis, without study it had come to her. She was simply 
 aware of it the knowledge had crept into her soul 
 stealthily. She knew that they were equally possessed of 
 an abnormal strength of purpose. Then she found herself 
 wondering what the mental attitude of each might be to- 
 wards the other. She had seen them together frequently, 
 it is true, but they were not effusive. They almost ig- 
 nored each other. There was something in their attitudes, 
 as they stood side by side without speaking, which told
 
 Easton's Box. 253 
 
 Helen in plainer language that they were friends than 
 any social intercourse had hitherto demonstrated. She 
 wondered vaguely in which mind was hidden the initia- 
 tive, in which the executive, and by natural transition she 
 glided on to mental questions as to how each and both 
 would act in a crisis, in a moment of physical or moral 
 danger. For maidens, I take it, are little altered since 
 those brave days when gentlemen were knights. I be- 
 lieve that they still would wish us to be upright and fearless 
 before the world. It boots not that we be very clever or 
 very intellectual, great musicians, artists, writers ; but 
 they would have us gentle towards themselves, very 
 cool, and quite ready in moments of danger. They 
 would have us readier with our hands than with our 
 tongues, strong and simple manly. 
 
 It was rather strange that Helen Grace should have 
 had these thoughts just then. Later on, when she could 
 remember anything at all she recollected them and won- 
 dered if it was really a mere coincidence. 
 
 For some time the two men stood, each declining to 
 make the first move. There were two chairs, but one 
 had a distinct advantage over the other. At last 
 Easton pointed to the seat close to Helen. 
 
 " Will you sit there, Tyars ? " he said hospitably. 
 
 One great fault in Matthew Mark Easton was soft-heart- 
 edness. He was one of those mistaken men who hesi- 
 tate to punish a dog. 
 
 " Thank you," said the Englishman, appropriating the 
 chair nonchalantly. 
 
 " It appears," continued Easton, who was beginning to 
 fear that Tyars was in a silent mood, " that the piece is 
 touching. We shall require your moral support ; that 
 calm exterior of yours will, I surmise, assist us materially 
 to keep a serene countenance turned towards the stalls."
 
 254 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " Don't be personal," replied the Englishman. " You 
 may rely upon me at the pathetic parts. It is some years 
 since I wept." 
 
 " The last time I did it," said the American, thought- 
 fully, " was when I got my ears boxed because another 
 fellow broke a window." 
 
 Helen and Miss Winter laughed. They all felt that 
 there was a hitch somewhere. They were conversation- 
 ally lame and halt. 
 
 "We both told untruths about it," continued Easton, 
 determined to work this mine to its deepest. " But mine 
 failed while his succeeded. That was why I wept. Mine 
 was not an artistic lie, I admit ; but it might have got 
 through with a little good luck. There is nothing so hu- 
 miliating as an unsuccessful attempt to pervert the truth. 
 Have you not found that so, Miss Winter ? But of course 
 you would not know. I apologize ; I am sorry. Of course 
 you never tell them." 
 
 " Oh yes," said the lady candidly, " I do." 
 
 At this moment the curtain was drawn up, and Miss 
 Winter broke off suddenly in the midst of her confession, 
 turning towards the stage and settling herself comfortably 
 to watch the play. In so doing she unconsciously drew 
 her chair a little farther away from Helen, and thus left 
 her and Claud Tyars more distinctly apart. 
 
 This was scarcely noticeable during the act, which was 
 of a thrilling and absorbing nature ; but when the curtain 
 fell again it was suddenly obvious to them both that they 
 could now talk in slightly lowered tones without being 
 overheard.
 
 An Emergency. 255 
 
 CHAPTER XXVI. 
 
 AN EMERGENCY. 
 
 THE effect of the discovery that they distinctly formed 
 a group apart was barely visible to the keenest glance. 
 Helen's slow gentle eyes were turned towards the center 
 of the house, bent vaguely on the brightly dressed oc- 
 cupants of the stalls. 
 
 Tyars took up a program and began studying it. 
 
 " Who is the man," he said, " playing the villain ? I 
 am frightfully ignorant in theatrical matters." 
 
 " He is good, is he not ? " said the girl, mentioning the 
 actor's name. 
 
 " Yes. He is unconscious of being a villain, which 
 touch of nature makes him very human." 
 
 Helen seemed to be rather struck with these words, 
 spoken indifferently with down-turned eyes. 
 
 " Are villains in real life unconscious of their villainy ? " 
 she asked at length, with perfunctory interest. 
 
 " I do not know," he answered, with a preoccupation 
 which saved his manner from being actually rude; "I 
 should think so yes certainly." 
 
 He raised his head, and the effort with which he avoided 
 looking towards her was probably detected by the gentle 
 gray eyes. 
 
 There was a little silence : hardly irksome because the 
 invisible orchestra was now in full blast. 
 
 " I suppose," said Helen, closing her fan, " that all this
 
 256 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 is rather trivial for you. The interest you take in it must 
 be superficial now that you are so busy." 
 
 " Oh no ! " Tyars hastened to begin ; he was looking 
 past her in that strangely persistent way into the theater, 
 and something he saw there made him turn his head 
 quickly towards the stage. 
 
 " Hallo ! " he exclaimed. Then he caught her wrist in 
 his grasp. " Keep still," he whispered. 
 
 The painted curtain was bellying right forward like the 
 mainsail of a bark, and from the space at either side a 
 sudden volume of smoke poured forth in huge uneven 
 clouds. 
 
 In a second the whole audience was on its feet, and for 
 a moment a sickening silence reigned the breathless 
 silence of supreme fear. 
 
 Then a single form appeared on the stage. It was that 
 of the man referred to by Claud Tyars a moment before ; 
 he who played the villain's part so unconsciously. He 
 was still in his dark wig and pallid make-up. On his arm 
 he carried the coat he had just taken off, and the other 
 arm clad in white shirt-sleeve was raised in a gesture of 
 command. 
 
 "I must ask you," he cried, in a full clear voice, " to 
 leave your seats as . . ." 
 
 And his tones were drowned, completely overwhelmed 
 by a strange unearthly roar ; the roar of a thousand 
 human voices raised in one surging wail of despair, like 
 the din of surf upon a shingle shore. 
 
 The man shouted, and his gestures were almost ludicrous 
 even at that supreme moment, for no sound could be 
 heard from his lips. 
 
 Then the gas was turned out, and in the darkness a ter- 
 rible struggle began. Some who came out of it could liken 
 it to nothing on earth, but they said that they had gained a
 
 An Emergency. 257 
 
 clearer comprehension of what hell might be. Women 
 shrieked and men forgot themselves blaspheming aloud. 
 
 As the gas flickered and finally collapsed, those in the 
 stage-box caught a momentary vision of wild distorted 
 faces coming towards them. The pit had overflowed the 
 stalls. Strong barriers crumbled like matchwood. Into 
 a hundred minds at once there had flashed the hope of 
 escape through the stage-boxes. 
 
 " Grace ! Easton ! " It was Tyars' voice raised, and 
 yet not shouting. The crisis had come, the danger was 
 at hand, and Helen knew who it was that would take the 
 lead. 
 
 She heard the two men answer. 
 
 " Keep the people back. I will break open the door on 
 to the stage ; it is our best chance." 
 
 The girl felt herself lifted from the ground and carried 
 to the back of the box. 
 
 " Helen ! " whispered Tyars. 
 
 " Yes ! " 
 
 " Are you all right ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I thought you had fainted, you were so quiet ! Hold 
 on to my coat ! Never leave go of that ! " 
 
 He turned away from her, and above the din and up- 
 roar came the sound of his blows upon the woodwork of 
 the door. It seemed impossible that such strokes could 
 have been dealt by an unarmed human hand. 
 
 Between the blows came the sickening sound of the 
 struggle at the front of the box. Imprecations, blasphemy, 
 and supplications, mingled with groans and the dull thud 
 of merciless fists upon human faces. Shoulder to shoulder 
 the two men the American and the Englishman fought 
 for the lives of the women placed by the hand of God 
 under their protection. It was a terrible task, though few 
 17
 
 258 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 women reached the front of the box. Each man struck 
 down, each assailant beaten back was doomed, and the 
 defenders knew it. Once down, once underfoot, and it 
 was a matter of moments. 
 
 Fresh assailants came crowding on, treading on the fallen 
 and consequently obtaining an ever-increasing advan- 
 tage as they rose on a level with the defenders. Neither 
 seemed to question the wisdom of Tyars' command. It 
 was a matter of life or death. Those already in the stage- 
 box would only be crushed by the onrush of the others 
 were they allowed to enter. With a dazed desperation 
 the two men faced the frightful odds, hammering wildly 
 with both fists. Their arms ached from sheer hard work, 
 and they panted hoarsely. Their eyeballs throbbed with 
 the effort to pierce unfathomable darkness. It was quite 
 certain that their defense could not last long. 
 
 " Stick to it ! " yelled Tyars. He might have been on 
 the deck of the Martial during a white squall, so great 
 was the uproar all around him. 
 
 At last there was the sound of breaking wood. 
 
 " Grace ! " shouted the voice of Tyars. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Look after Miss Winter when we go." 
 
 "Right." 
 
 " Easton ! " he cried again. 
 
 "Yes, old man!" 
 
 " Come last, and keep them back if you can." 
 
 Then a minute later he shouted, " Come ! " 
 
 At the same instant the roaring crowd of madmen 
 poured in over the low front of the box, like soldiers 
 storming a bastion. The door which Tyars had succeeded 
 in opening was so narrow as to admit of the passage 
 of only one person at a time, but at this instant the larger 
 door leading into a narrow passage, the real exit from the
 
 An Emergency. 259 
 
 stage-box, broke down before a pressure from without, 
 and from this point also a stream of half-demented beings 
 tried to force an entrance. 
 
 The only advantage possessed by the original occupants 
 of the box was that they knew the position of the small 
 door. 
 
 The subsequent recollections of such individuals as 
 survived were so fragmentary and vague that no con- 
 nected story of the terrible tragedy in the stage-box of 
 the Epic Theater was ever given to the public. 
 
 Miss Winter remembered finding herself caught up in a 
 strong pair of arms, which she presumed to be those of 
 Oswin Grace. Almost at the same moment she and her 
 protector were thrown to the ground. After that the next 
 thing she could remember was the touch of a hand over 
 her face and hair, and a whispered voice in her ear 
 
 " Agnes Winter is this you ? " 
 
 She recognized the peculiar American twang which was 
 never unpleasant. At that moment she almost laughed. 
 
 "Yes yes," she answered. 
 
 " Then crawl to your left. Don't try to get up crawl 
 over this man. I don't know who he is, but I surmise he 
 is dead." 
 
 She obeyed, and found her way out of the narrow door 
 and up some steps. Close behind her followed some one, 
 whom she took to be Matthew Mark Easton, but it ulti- 
 mately turned out to be Oswin Grace, who was in his 
 turn followed by the American, but not until later. 
 
 Helen Grace heard the word " Come," and submitted 
 obediently to the supporting arm which half dragged, half 
 carried her up some steps. She remembered being carried 
 like a child, through some darksome place where the 
 atmosphere was cold and damp. Then she was conscious 
 of a halt, followed closely by the sound of breaking wood
 
 260 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 and the tearing of some material probably canvas, for 
 they were among the scenery. After that she probably 
 fainted, and was only brought to consciousness by the 
 shock of a violent fall in which her companion was under- 
 most. Then she heard a voice calling out 
 
 " This way, sir ; this way." 
 
 She recollected seeing a fireman standing in a narrow 
 passage waving a lantern. By the time that she reached 
 the open air she was quite conscious. 
 
 " Let me walk," she said, " I am all right. Where is 
 Agnes ? " 
 
 "They are behind," answered Tyars. "She is all 
 right. She has two men to look after her. You have 
 only me." 
 
 " Wait for them," said the girl. " I will not go home 
 without them." 
 
 "All right; we shall wait outside. Let us get out 
 first." 
 
 They were standing in a small room, probably the 
 office of the theater, and a policeman stationed near the 
 window, of which the framework had been broken away, 
 called to them impatiently. 
 
 The window was about four feet from the ground, and 
 Helen wondered momentarily why Claud Tyars accom- 
 plished the drop so clumsily. In the narrow street he 
 turned to a police inspector, and pointed to the window. 
 
 " Lift the lady down," he said. 
 
 A cab was near at hand, and in it they waited seated 
 side by side in silence for what seemed hours. The 
 crowd dropped away, seeking some more interesting spot. 
 At last there was a movement at the window, and Tyars 
 got out of the cab and went away, leaving Helen in an 
 agony of mute suspense. In a few moments it was over 
 and the girl breathed freely.
 
 An Emergency. 261 
 
 It seemed strangely unreal and dreamlike to hear 
 Agnes Winter's voice again ; to see her standing on the 
 pavement beneath the yellow gas-lamp, drawing together 
 the gay little opera-cloak round her shoulders. 
 
 As Miss Winter stepped into the cab she leant forward 
 and kissed Helen. That was all ; no word was said. 
 But the two women sat hand-in-hand during the drive 
 home. 
 
 Tyars and Oswin spoke together a few words in a low- 
 ered tone quite overwhelmed by the rattle of the cab, and 
 then sat silently. The light of occasional lamps flashed 
 in through the unwashed window, and showed that the 
 men's clothes were covered with dirt and dust, which 
 neither attempted to brush off. 
 
 When the cab stopped in Brook Street, Oswin got out 
 first, and going up the steps opened the front door noise- 
 lessly with a latchkey. Tyars paid the cabman, and 
 followed the ladies into the house. 
 
 The gas in the hall and dining-room had been lowered, 
 and they all stood for a moment in the gloom round the 
 daintily-dressed table. When Oswin Grace turned up the 
 gas they looked at each other curiously. 
 
 The two men bore greater evidence to the terrible 
 ordeal through which they had passed than the ladies. 
 Oswin's coat-sleeve was nearly torn off, while his waist- 
 coat hung open, all the buttons having been wrenched 
 away. Upon his shirt-front there were deep red drops of 
 blood slowly congealing, and the marks of dirty fingers 
 right across the rumpled linen. His face was deeply 
 scratched, and the blood had trickled down into his trim 
 dark beard, unheeded, unquenched. 
 
 As to clothing, Claud Tyars was very much in the same 
 condition, but there was a peculiarity worth noting in the 
 expression of his face as he looked round with a half-sup-
 
 262 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 pressed smile. All the lines of care were smoothed away 
 from it. In his eyes there dwelt a clear glow of excite- 
 ment (the deep inward excitement of a man accustomed 
 to the exercise of an iron control over his own feelings), 
 which had taken the place of a certain concentrated frown 
 of preoccupation, as if something were going wrong. 
 
 There was something characteristic of their calling in 
 the manner in which both men ignored completely the 
 dilapidated condition of their apparel. That alone would 
 have told a keen observer that they were sailors men 
 accustomed to foul weather and heavy damage accus- 
 tomed to accepting things as they come with a placid hope 
 of fairer weather ahead when repairs might be effected. 
 
 Miss Winter kept her opera-cloak closed, simply stat- 
 ing that her dress was torn. Her hair was becomingly 
 untidy, but she showed no sign of scratch or hurt. 
 
 Helen was hardly ruffled, beyond a few little stray 
 curls, almost golden in color, stealing down beside her 
 ears. Her dress, however, was a little torn at one 
 shoulder, and a tiny scratch was visible upon the white 
 arm exposed to view. She doubtless owed her immunity 
 from harm, and in all human probability the safety of her 
 life, to the enormous bodily strength of Claud Tyars. 
 
 It was she who spoke first. 
 
 " Your arm ! " she said, pointing to Tyars' right sleeve. 
 " Have you hurt it ? " 
 
 He looked down at the limb, which was hanging in a 
 peculiar way very close to his body, with a vague and 
 questioning smile, as if it were not his property. 
 
 " Yes," he said, " it is broken." 
 
 Miss Winter and Oswin went to his side at once. 
 Helen alone remained standing at the table. She said no 
 word, but continued looking at him with very bright 
 eyes, her lips slightly parted, breathing deeply.
 
 An Emergency. 263 
 
 He avoided meeting her glance in the same awkward, 
 embarrassed way which she had noticed before ; answer- 
 ing the questions put to him with a reassuring smile. 
 
 " It happened," he said, " during the first rush. We 
 fell down somewhere through some scenery, and my arm 
 came underneath." 
 
 "You put it underneath," corrected Helen, almost 
 coldly, "to ... save me, I suppose." 
 
 Her first feeling was unaccountably akin to anger. 
 
 " Instinct," he exclaimed, tersely. 
 
 " Shall I fetch a doctor, or will you come with me ? " 
 asked the practical Oswin, gently forcing his friend Jnto 
 a chair. " We are surrounded by them in Brook Street." 
 
 " I will go with you," answered Tyars. " But first, I 
 think, we had better see that the ladies have some wine." 
 
 With his left hand he reached a decanter, but Miss 
 Winter took it from him. 
 
 " You must have some," she said, pouring it out. 
 
 " No, thanks," he replied; " I think not, on account 
 of inflammation." 
 
 "He is better without it," added Oswin. 
 
 Miss Winter gave a little short laugh, very suggestive 
 of annoyance. 
 
 "You men are so terribly practical. I should like to 
 sympathize with Mr. Tyars, to minister to him, and take 
 up a picturesque attitude, but you give me no chance," 
 she said, with a bantering air which was half serious. 
 
 " An arm broken below the elbow is not so very 
 serious," explained Tyars. 
 
 " Claud," added Oswin Grace, " is one of those great 
 strong healthy people who heal like horses." 
 
 Nevertheless he kept close to his large friend, and 
 glanced at times into the colorless face with those keen 
 experienced gray eyes of his.
 
 264 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 It was, as Tyars had said, nothing very serious a 
 simple fracture below the elbow and well above the wrist 
 but the consequences of it might be serious. Claud 
 Tyars was not thinking of the numb, aching pain which 
 had now spread right up his arm. It was only natural 
 that the first thought should be for the great absorbing 
 scheme which was filling his mind. In little more than 
 two months he was to sail from London. In nine weeks 
 he was to lead a picked body of men forth on an expedi- 
 tion of which the peril was patent to them all. He could 
 not afford to devote his few remaining days of prepara- 
 tion to his own health, to the mere recovery from the 
 effects of an accident. There were a thousand details 
 still to be cared for details which none other but himself 
 could grasp or cope with. For it is the man who reduces 
 detail to a minimum in his own daily existence, and sees 
 personally to that minimum, who finds time to do great 
 things in life. If we hand details over to others if we 
 wish to be waited on hand and foot in order to find leisure 
 for the larger items of the conglomerate detail called a 
 career, we shall probably employ all our time in endeav- 
 oring to teach others to divine our wants. 
 
 There are men in the world who pack their own bags, 
 and others who make the task over to some one else. 
 Claud Tyars was of the former ; he habitually did his 
 own packing.
 
 A Midnight Call. 265 
 
 CHAPTER XXVII. 
 A MIDNIGHT CALL. 
 
 REFUSING all offers of hospitality made by Oswin and 
 his sister, Claud Tyars went off with his friend to the 
 doctor's, leaving the ladies comfortably installed in arm- 
 chairs by the fire. 
 
 They protested that they could not possibly sleep, and 
 that, as it was only twelve o'clock, they would await 
 Oswin's return. 
 
 You will say, perhaps, that they were all a trifle too 
 self-possessed and calm to be quite natural. Critical 
 readers will be inclined to give judgment against the poor 
 narrator of these events, accusing him of mismanagement. 
 But there is a certain merit in truthfulness. If any of 
 these ladies had fainted, and clung wildly to their rescuers 
 with bewildering abandonment, it should have been re- 
 corded. If Helen Grace had whispered neatly-turned 
 phrases expressive of gratitude to the hungering ears of 
 Claud Tyars, those words should have been set down 
 here. But none of these things happened. What really 
 took place is narrated above ; and it is not the fault of the 
 writer if these persons chose to lose a series of dramatic 
 points, to ignore a number of thrilling situations, and to 
 refrain from anything approaching heroics. 
 
 The truth of the matter is, that ladies and gentlemen of 
 this latter end of the nineteenth century are difficult sub- 
 jects to write about. They will not, like folks upon the
 
 266 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 stage, make facial contortions capable of record as show- 
 ing inward emotions. They will not laugh fiendish laughs, 
 nor sigh "heigho!" nor tear their hair, nor beat their 
 bosoms as people did fifty years ago, if one may judge 
 from fictional literature. They are so persistently self- 
 possessed that one cannot wring a dramatic situation out 
 of them anyhow. 
 
 We live so quickly nowadays, pass through so many 
 emotions in the day, that our feelings are apt to lose their 
 individuality. When a man can attend a christening in 
 Westminster Abbey, a wedding in Bristol Cathedral, a 
 funeral at Exeter, and finally partake of a regimental din- 
 ner at Plymouth, in the same day, one must hardly blame 
 him for failing to be deeply moved by any one of the cer- 
 emonies mentioned. 
 
 Claud Tyars actually said " Good-night," as he pre- 
 ceded Oswin Grace out of the room. Such an exit was 
 utterly false to dramatic art, utterly clumsy and ignorant. 
 Now what can one do with such a man as this ? He did 
 not even limp in order to show that his arm was injured, 
 as has been done upon the English stage, but walked out 
 of the room without looking back. 
 
 And the two ladies left there sat, each in her deep arm- 
 chair, toasting her neatly-shod toes on the fender, and 
 said never a word. They both stared into the fire with 
 such a marked persistence, that one might almost have 
 suspected them of fearing to meet each other's glance. 
 
 At last Helen moved. She had evidently just become 
 aware of a black mark on the soft mauve material of her 
 dress. With her gloved hand she attempted to brush it 
 off, and as this had no effect began rubbing it with a tiny 
 handkerchief. Then she raised her eyes. Miss Winter 
 was watching her with a curious smile a smile much 
 more suggestive of pain than of pleasure.
 
 A Midnight Call. 267 
 
 Their eyes met, and for some moments both seemed on 
 the verge of saying something, which was never said. 
 Then suddenly Helen leant forward and covered her face 
 with her two hands. 
 
 Have you ever seen a woman weep from whose eyes 
 tears have never flowed since childhood ? Have you ever 
 seen eyes kindling with a strange surprise through tears 
 as if they could not understand what was blinding and 
 burning them ? It is often hard to realize sorrow, and it 
 is always hard to accept it as one's own property. With 
 some the power of assimilating sorrow is merely a matter 
 of tears, with others it is a dryer process. The habit of 
 shedding tears brings a familiarity which deprives them 
 of their bitterness. Most people, however, and especially 
 in this generation, weep but once or twice in their whole 
 lives. The majority, thank God ! only once. Again, the 
 most of us do it in solitude, so that others are spared the 
 sight. It seemed to come to Helen Grace without pre- 
 monition as a harsh surprise just as death will come to 
 some of us. She had no time to fly to her own room no 
 chance of exercising over herself that command which 
 she had learnt from living with men alone. 
 
 It is just possible that Miss Winter was not without ex- 
 perience in these same tears. One can never be quite 
 sure of these very cheery women whom one meets every- 
 where. She made no attempts at consolation. She did 
 not look towards her friend, and there was no outward 
 sign even of sympathy, except that her eyes glistened in 
 a peculiar way. She merely waited, and, moreover, she 
 had not long to do so. Helen recovered herself as suddenly 
 as she had given way, and rising from her chair, stood 
 with her shoulder turned towards her friend, her two 
 hands upon the mantelpiece, looking down into the fire. 
 Her attitude, moral and physical, was reflective.
 
 268 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 "I wonder," she said, " if every one got out of the 
 theater ? " 
 
 " Mr. Easton promised to come and tell us," answered 
 Miss Winter. 
 
 " To-night ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 The girl raised her head and looked critically at her 
 own reflection in the old-fashioned mirror above the fire- 
 place. The trace of tears had almost vanished from her 
 young eyes it is only older countenances that bear the 
 marks for long. 
 
 Before she moved again the sound of cab-wheels made 
 itself audible in the street, and the vehicle was heard to 
 stop at the door. 
 
 Miss Winter rose and went to let in the newcomer. 
 
 It was Matthew Mark Easton. He followed Miss Winter 
 into the dining-room, walking lightly an unnecessary 
 precaution, for his step was like that of a child. 
 
 " I do not know," he was saying, " the etiquette ob- 
 served in England on these points, but I could not resist 
 coming along to see if you had arrived safely." 
 
 " Yes thanks," replied Helen, to whom the latter part 
 of the remark was addressed. 
 
 " No one hurt, I trust ? " continued he. 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl gently ; " Mr. Tyars is hurt 
 his arm is broken." 
 
 Easton's mobile lips closed together with a snap, be- 
 traying the fact that he had allowed himself the luxury of 
 an expletive in his reprehensible American way. He 
 turned aside, and walked backwards and forwards for a 
 few minutes, like a man made restless by the receipt of 
 very bad news. He glanced at the face of each lady in 
 turn, and concluded that Helen was more sympathetic 
 than Miss Winter in this matter. In a moment he con-
 
 A Midnight Call. 269 
 
 ceived the idea that Agnes Winter was by no means 
 grieved that Tyars should have met with an accident. 
 
 He had never considered her a scheming woman, but 
 his conception of her character was that she possessed 
 very decided opinions of her own, and was quite capable 
 of acting up to them against the strongest opposition. 
 For some reason, then, she was decidedly opposed to the 
 expedition about to be undertaken by Tyars and Oswin. 
 He had always suspected opposition in that quarter, but 
 it had hitherto been passive, as feminine opposition is often 
 compelled to be. This deliberate refusal, however, to 
 simulate a sympathy she did not feel was something more 
 than passive in its tenor. 
 
 " Not a compound fracture, I hope ? " he said tersely, 
 while turning these things over in his mind. 
 
 " He thinks not," answered Helen, reseating herself. 
 
 " Was he in pain ? " 
 
 " I do not know," replied the girl, in a toneless, me- 
 chanical way, which brought the quick monkey-like eyes 
 down upon her like lightning. 
 
 It was the matter of a second only. Like a serpent's 
 fang the man's keen eyes flashed towards her and away 
 again. The peculiarly nervous face instantly assumed 
 an expression as near stolidity as could be compassed by 
 features each and all laden with an exceptional intelli- 
 gence. Then he turned away, and took up a broken fan 
 lying on the supper-table, opening it tenderly and critically. 
 
 But Miss Winter was as quick as he. She knew then 
 that he had guessed. Whatever he might have suspected 
 before, she had no doubt now that Matthew Mark Easton 
 knew that Helen loved Claud Tyars. 
 
 " The worst of it," he broke out, with sudden airiness, 
 " is that there was no fire at all. It was extinguished on 
 the stage. The performance might have been continued."
 
 270 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " It only makes it more horrible," said Miss Winter ; 
 "for I suppose there were some killed ? " 
 
 " That is so," he answered. " They took forty-two 
 corpses out of our box alone." 
 
 " I did not know," said Helen, after a painful pause, 
 " that it was so bad as that." 
 
 Easton looked at her with his quaint little wistful 
 smile. 
 
 "Yes," he said, with transatlantic deliberation, "it 
 was very bad. We were fortunate. The Almighty has 
 something else for us to do yet, I surmise." 
 
 " We ought to be very thankful," said the girl, simply. 
 
 " Ya as ; and no doubt we are. I am." 
 
 He gravely pulled down his waistcoat, and stood with 
 his legs apart, looking down at his own diminutive boots. 
 
 The ladies noticed that he bore no signs of his recent 
 experience. He had doubtless called in at his club to 
 wash and tidy himself before appearing at Brook Street. 
 His left hand was neatly bandaged with white linen. 
 
 " Grace," he inquired, " is not hurt, I hope ? " 
 
 " No, I think not. His hands were scratched like 
 yours," answered Miss Winter. 
 
 " It comes," explained Easton, looking tenderly at his 
 injured knuckles, " from hitting in the dark. I came in 
 contact with some very hard things possibly British 
 skulls." 
 
 Helen laughed rather too eagerly ; but Miss Winter 
 was grave. Presently Oswin Grace came in, opening 
 the front door with his latchkey. He was greeted by an 
 interrogatory " Well ? " from Miss Winter. 
 
 "He is all right," he answered. "It was a simple 
 fracture. Old Barker set it very nicely, and I sent him 
 off to his club in a cab." 
 
 "Then," said Easton, holding out his hand to say
 
 A Midnight Call. 271 
 
 good-by, " I shall go and help him into bed tuck him 
 in, and sing a soft lullaby over his pillow. Good night, 
 Miss Winter. Good night, Miss Grace." 
 
 Miss Winter slept at Brook Street that night, according 
 to previous arrangement. She was soon left alone in her 
 bedroom. Helen complained of sleepiness, and, contrary 
 to her custom, did not return to brush her hair before her 
 friend's fire a mysterious operation, entailing the loss 
 of an hour's sleep, and accompanied by considerable con- 
 versation. 
 
 The elder lady did not appear to be suffering from 
 drowsiness. Indeed, she was very wide awake. She 
 threw herself upon the bed, all dressed, in a ridiculously 
 girlish pose, and lay there thinking. 
 
 " If it had been any other man," she meditated aloud, 
 " I should have said that he could not possibly go now ; 
 but with him one cannot tell. The arm would hardly stop 
 him, though something else might. Poor Claud Tyars ! 
 the naivete with which he displayed a perfect indifference 
 as to my life was very full of meaning."
 
 272 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII. 
 
 FROM AFAR. 
 
 ONE morning, about a fortnight later, Matthew Mark 
 Easton received a letter which caused him to leave his 
 breakfast untasted and drive off in the first hansom-cab 
 he could find to Tyars' club. 
 
 The waiter whose duty it was to look after the few resi- 
 dent members, informed the American, whom he knew 
 well by sight, that Mr. Tyars was not down-stairs yet. 
 
 " Well," replied Easton, " I guess I'll wait for him ; 
 in fact I am going to have breakfast with him a boiled 
 egg and two pieces of thin toast." 
 
 He was shown into the room occupied by Tyars, and 
 proceeded to make himself exceedingly comfortable, in a 
 large armchair, with the morning newspaper. 
 
 Tyars was not long in making his appearance trim, 
 upright, strong as usual, and conveying that unassertive 
 sense of readiness for all emergencies which was at times 
 almost aggressive. He carried his hand in the smallest 
 and most unobtrusive sling allowed by the faculty. At 
 his heels walked Muggins the grave, the pink-eyed. 
 Muggins was far too gentlemanly a dog to betray by sign 
 or sound that he considered this visitor's behavior a trifle 
 too familiar. 
 
 " Good morning captain," said Easton, cheerily. 
 " Well, Muggins I trust I see you in the enjoyment of 
 health."
 
 From Afar. 273 
 
 The violent chuck under the chin with which this hope 
 was emphasized, received scant acknowledgment from a 
 very stumpy tail. The truth was that Matthew Mark 
 Easton was no great favorite with Muggins. He was not 
 his sort. Muggins had never been a frivolous dog, and 
 now that puppyhood was passed, he affected a solemnity 
 of demeanor worthy of his position in life. He looked upon 
 the American as a man lacking self-respect. 
 
 "I have news," said Easton at once, laying aside the 
 newspaper ; " news from old Smith Pavloski Smith." 
 
 " Where from ?" inquired Tyars, without enthusiasm. 
 
 " From Tomsk ! It is most extraordinary how these 
 fellows manage to elude the police. Here is old Pavloski 
 an escaped Siberian exile a man they would give their 
 boots to lay their hands on goes back to Russia, smug- 
 gles himself across the German frontier, shows that solemn 
 face of his unblushingly in Petersburg, and finally posts 
 off to Tomsk with a lot of contraband luggage as a mer- 
 chant. I thought I had a fair allowance of cheek, but 
 these political fellows are far ahead of me. Their cheek 
 and their calm assurance are simply unbounded. 
 
 " The worst of it," said Tyars, turning over his letters 
 with small interest, " is that the end is always the same. 
 They all overdo it sooner or later." 
 
 "Yes," admitted the American, whose sensitive face 
 betrayed a passing discomfort; " but it is no good think- 
 ing of that now." 
 
 " Not a bit," acquiesced Tyars, cheerfully. " Only I 
 shall be rather surprised if I meet those three men up 
 there. It would be better luck than one could reasonably 
 expect." 
 
 " If one of them gets through with his party, all con- 
 cerned should be very well pleased with themselves," 
 said Easton. " Now listen to what Pavloski says." 
 18
 
 274 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 He unfolded a letter, which was apparently a commer- 
 cial communication written on the ordinary mail paper of 
 a merchant, and bearing the printed address of an office 
 in Cronstadt. 
 
 On the first page was a terse advice, written in a delicate 
 clerkly hand, of the receipt by Hull steamer of a certain 
 number of casks containing American apples. 
 
 " This," said Easton, " is from our stout friend. He 
 has received the block soups, and the Winchester cart- 
 ridges." 
 
 He then opened the letter farther, and on the two inside 
 pages displayed a closely written communication in a pe- 
 culiar pink-tinted ink, which had evidently been brought 
 to light by some process, for the paper was wrinkled and 
 blistered. 
 
 " ' I have,' " read the American, slowly, as if decipher- 
 ing with difficulty, "'reached Tomsk without mishap, 
 traveling with an ordinary civilian post-pass, which is 
 very little slower at this time of year, as there are plenty 
 of horses. I have bought a strong sledge, wholly covered 
 in the usual sledge of a merchant of fine goods and 
 instead of sleeping in the stations, usually lie down on the 
 top of my cases under the cover. I give as reason for 
 this the information that I have many valuables watches, 
 rings, trinkets and being a young merchant, cannot run 
 the risk of theft to save my own personal comfort. I have 
 traveled day and night, according to the supply of horses, 
 but have always succeeded hitherto in communicating with 
 those who are to follow me. One man on my list was 
 not in the prison indicated he is probably dead. I find 
 great improvements. Our organization is more mechan- 
 ical, and not so hysterical this I attribute to the dimin- 
 ished number of female workers. All the articles with 
 which your foresight provided me have been useful ; but
 
 From Afar. 275 
 
 the great motor in Siberia is money. With the funds I 
 have at my disposal I feel as powerful as the Czar. I can 
 buy whom I like, and what I like. My only regret is that 
 the name of C. T. has to be suppressed that the hundreds 
 of individuals who will benefit by his grand generosity will 
 never know the name of the Englishman who has held 
 out his laden hands to those groaning under the yoke of 
 a barbarous oppression. When we are all dead when 
 Russia is free, his name will be remembered by some one. 
 The watches will be very useful ; I have sold two at a 
 high price ; but once beyond Irkutsk, and I will sell or 
 give one to the master of each important station, or to 
 the starosti of each village. By this means those who 
 follow me will know that they are on the right track. 
 They cannot well stop at a station, or halt in a village 
 without being shown the watch, which will tell them that 
 one of us is in front. I have enough watches to lay a train 
 from Irkutsk to the spot where I assemble my party. I 
 met my two companions by appointment at the base of 
 the Ivan Veliki tower in the Kremlin, and we spent 
 half an hour in the cathedral together within a musket-shot 
 of the Czar, and under the very nose of the cream of his 
 police. Since then we have not met, but are each working 
 forward by the prescribed route alone. I see great 
 changes here Russia is awakening she is rubbing her 
 eyes. God keep you all three ! ' " 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton indicated by a little jerk of the 
 head that the letter was finished. Then after looking at 
 it curiously for a moment, he folded it and put it away in 
 his pocket. 
 
 " Old Smith," he said, " waxes quite poetic at times." 
 
 "Yes," answered Tyars, pouring out his coffee, " but 
 there is a keen business man behind the poetry." 
 
 "One," observed Easton in his terse way, "of the
 
 276 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 sharpest needles in Russia, and quite the sharpest in 
 Siberia at the present moment." 
 
 " He will need to be ; though I think that the worst of 
 his journey is over. The cream is, as he says, at Moscow. 
 Once beyond Nijni he will find milk,then milk-and-water, 
 and finally beyond Irkutsk the thinnest water. The of- 
 ficial intellect in Siberia is not of a brilliant description. 
 Pavloski can outwit every gendarme or Cossack com- 
 mandant he meets, and once out of Irkutsk they need not 
 fear the law. They will only have Nature to compete 
 with, and Nature always gives fair play. When they 
 have assembled they will retreat north like an organized 
 army before a rabble, for there are not enough Cossacks 
 and gendarmes in Northern Siberia to form anything like 
 an efficient corps of pursuit. They may follow, but I shall 
 have the fugitives on board and away long before they 
 reach the seaboard." 
 
 " How many are there in Yakutsk ? " 
 
 " Two thousand altogether, soldiers and Cossacks. 
 They have no means of transport and no commissariat 
 corps. By the time that the news travels south to 
 Yakutsk, that there is a body of supposed exiles to the 
 north, our men will have gained such an advantage that 
 pursuit would be absurd." 
 
 " It seems," replied Easton, "so very simple, that I 
 wonder no one has tried it before." 
 
 At this moment the waiter entered the room with sev- 
 eral hot dishes, but the two men went on discussing 
 openly the question mooted. Club-waiters are the near- 
 est approach to a human machine that modern civilization 
 has yet produced. 
 
 " Simply because no one has had the money. I know 
 several whaling captains who would be ready enough to 
 try, provided they were paid ! The worst danger was
 
 From Afar. 277 
 
 the chance of the three men being captured as soon as 
 they entered Russia. They are now at their posts in 
 Siberia. In May they meet surreptitiously on the south- 
 ern slope of the Verkoianiska, cross the mountains, and 
 they are safe. The three leaders will then be together, 
 and they will retreat north as arranged, scaring the Yam- 
 schicks into obedience, and taking all the post-deer and 
 dogs with them, so that an immediate pursuit will be im- 
 possible. I think," added the organizer of this extraor- 
 dinary plot, " that we shall succeed." 
 
 Easton was silent. His boiled egg had arrived, and his 
 keen little face was screwed up into earnest inquiry as he 
 gently broke the shell with a spoon. He was a strange 
 mixture of the trivial and the great, this sharp-witted 
 American ; but he was intensely conscious of his own 
 shallowness. He could touch great things, but he could 
 not grasp them ; he could give attention to trifles, but he 
 could not allot to them just that modicum of thought which 
 would suffice. In the position which he had occupied 
 during the last two months, namely, the chief superintend- 
 ent of trifles, he was excellent. But without the direct- 
 ing control of Claud Tyars he would probably have given 
 all his attention to small things, neglecting or fearing to 
 touch the great. He would have regarded the pence too 
 closely, failing to make sure that the pounds were safe. 
 There was no lack of courage, but a distinct want of 
 power, and this deficiency became singularly apparent in 
 intercourse with Claud Tyars. 
 
 We very often meet men in the world who have done 
 one thing ; conceived some great thought, or invented one 
 great combination say a soda-water cork. Upon that 
 one basis they seem to rest for the remainder of their 
 days. He does not manufacture the soda-water cork, he 
 does not even attend to the advertisement of it ; but he
 
 278 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 invented it long years back in the recesses of a youth 
 which can hardly have been brilliant. One is conscious 
 that he is a great man, or that he should be such, and yet 
 there is a wondering desire to know why he does not get 
 up and invent something else a machine to cut and read 
 magazines, or something equally in demand. 
 
 This was to some extent the position of Matthew Mark 
 Easton at the beginning of the year which has been 
 succeeded by four. He had conceived the idea which 
 Claud Tyars and his intrepid colleagues had now quite 
 wrested from his grasp. The initial conception had so 
 grown and expanded, had gathered in here and shot out 
 there, in such a manner as to render it quite strange in the 
 eyes of its own father. 
 
 It was not a pleasant position, but the American faced 
 it pluckily. He was to some extent an imaginative little 
 man had been an imaginative boy. He had dreamed 
 dreams just as some others have dreamed them. He had 
 nourished and fostered great ambitions just as you, my 
 good friend, may have done just as a poor scribbler may 
 have done. We confess nothing, mind you ! but there 
 may have been a time . . . And now Easton had met a man, 
 made a friend of a man, who calmly showed him that those 
 same dreams were wofully hollow. It is a strange fatuity, 
 that habit of dreaming. At the very threshold of life we 
 ought by rights to recognize what lies before us. At the 
 very earliest school we attend we probably find that a large 
 portion of our companions are infinitely cleverer than our- 
 selves ; in the playground, on football or cricket field, we 
 are bound to realize that there are better players than our- 
 selves. And so on, as we reach out into the world. We 
 find better shots, better dancers, better oars, better seats 
 in the saddle ; and perhaps better thinkers, better writers, 
 better workers, better wooers. But does all this shake
 
 From Afar. 279 
 
 that strange, deep-rooted confidence in self ? Does it 
 open our eyes to the melancholy fact that we are not only 
 like other people, but inferior to them ? Does it, I ask in 
 all gravity, make you and me acknowledge that this life 
 that we are leading now is, humanly speaking, perma- 
 nent ; that it is the only life we shall ever have, and that 
 it is after all rather a sorry business ? No. We go on in 
 a futile way, building up grand dreams beneath our gray 
 hairs, vainly looking to that day when we shall be blest, 
 when we shall be celebrated, and recognized as the great 
 men that we are. And yet at times there comes a fleet- 
 ing glimpse of the reality. Some one passes us in the 
 race, or does something that we should like to have done, 
 and for a moment our hearts are pressed down with the 
 uncomfortable feeling of being left behind. 
 
 This was precisely the feeling which had stolen into the 
 cheery heart of Matthew Mark Easton while he opened 
 his egg with that singular attention which has been 
 previously indicated. When I am a ghost, endowed 
 with the power of looking into men's minds, I shall not 
 peer though the grave eyes, but through the smiling. I 
 shall not flit about among those who weep, but among 
 such as will not weep because they are too courageous. 
 
 " Of course, old man," said Easton, "you we shall 
 succeed. Pass the salt, please." 
 
 Nothing escaped his keen observation. He knew well 
 enough that he could not play a greater part, and yet 
 there had been placed in his frail frame that longing for 
 action felt at one time or other by all men worth their salt. 
 He did not glance enviously at his friend's huge limbs and 
 quick strength of carriage, for he was accustomed to it. 
 He was accustomed to his own incapacity. 
 
 It is probable that Claud Tyars knew something of his 
 friend's feelings upon this subject, for he never made ref-
 
 280 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 erence to his own share of the exploit beyond what was 
 absolutely necessary. Whatever he may have felt, he 
 never exulted openly in the coming dangers by sea and 
 ice. Their conversation was chiefly respecting the prog- 
 ress of the three adventurous Russians headed by Ser- 
 gius Pavloski and the probabilities of their failure or suc- 
 cess. It was a safe subject ; for neither Claud Tyars nor 
 Matthew Mark Easton could have attempted what these 
 men were undertaking.
 
 An Overture. 281 
 
 CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 AN OVERTURE. 
 
 THERE are some indeed many people who shun 
 the world because they fear it. Not being sure of its 
 admiration they prefer to avoid the risk of earning its 
 contempt. But there are others who withdraw them- 
 selves because there exists in their hearts an honest and 
 unobtrusive contempt for the opinion of that generality 
 which is usually called "the world." Of these latter 
 was Claud Tyars, and it must be allowed that his opinion 
 was in no way aggressive or offensive. He despised the 
 generality of his fellow-men, but he was quite unconscious 
 of so doing. He had lived his short life among men of a 
 race singularly unaffected by the blame or praise of the 
 world the British upper middle-class. In most moral 
 virtues or faults it is merely a question of degree, and it 
 is therefore comprehensible that Claud Tyars should be 
 unaware of the fact that he carried the peculiarity of his 
 contemporaries to an excess. 
 
 It was rtow a well-known topic of the day that he was 
 fitting up an Arctic expedition, and the society papers had 
 taken good care to make the most of the terrible defense 
 of the stage-box in the Epic Theater on the historical 
 night of the panic. The majority of his friends knew that 
 his arm had been broken in that struggle for life, and his 
 refusal of all invitations was therefore a matter of small 
 surprise.
 
 282 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 It seemed hardly natural for a man of his character 
 to fear a little unsought publicity, but this excuse he 
 invariably put forward when rallied by his friends for 
 unsociability. 
 
 Easton knew no more than the rest of the world why 
 Tyars so suddenly withdrew himself from all social inter- 
 course. They had moved in the same circles to a some- 
 what limited extent, and had never been coupled as men 
 likely to be found together. It was only by degrees, 
 therefore, that he learnt of Tyars' defection from the 
 duties of a man placed in the midst of the most thoroughly 
 sociable community in the world. From Miss Winter, 
 Easton learnt that Tyars had never even called upon her 
 or at Brook Street, to inquire whether any after-effects 
 had shown themselves since the memorable evening of 
 the fire. 
 
 The relationship between the two men was just one 
 of those understandings which are impossible between 
 women, and common enough among their husbands, 
 brothers, and sons. A friendship between women is 
 usually comprehensive it embraces the lives of both 
 from morning till night without reservation. They are 
 friends indoors, in their bedrooms ; at luncheon, at din- 
 ner, at dances, and between those functions. If they 
 meet at night they are straightway consumed with a 
 desire to meet in the morning. They want to shop to- 
 gether, to lunch together, and to take each other up-stairs 
 to see their new hats. If they are unmarried they talk 
 about young men and the millinery means of fascinating 
 the same ; if they are married they discuss the weak- 
 nesses, physical or mental, of their husbands, and the 
 best treatment for same. They do not even stop there, 
 but go on to compare cooks, and even exchange a receipt 
 or two.
 
 An Overture. 283 
 
 Now with men it is different. We have out-door friends 
 and in-door friends. Old March Brown, for instance, is a 
 first-rate fellow, an excellent sportsman, the keenest 
 fisherman that ever wet a wader ; but in a ballroom he 
 is no friend of mine I hate him ! We have fished to- 
 gether in Norway and Greenland, but I do not even know 
 his wife's name, nor his cook's besetting sin. 
 
 Then there is young Adonis Smiler. He 'is usually the 
 best dancer in the room ; it is a pleasure to take him out 
 as one's friend. He always gives satisfaction to his hos- 
 tess, and several freshly-bloomed young ladies invariably 
 think of him the next morning. But because we take 
 each other out to dances, Smiler does not, any more than 
 I, propose spending our autumn holiday together. No ; 
 Smiler is a London friend, and nothing else he is an 
 evening friend. By daylight he is an effeminate dandy, 
 and I should not think of being on the same moor as 
 Smiler were he in the possession of a gun. 
 
 A friend of mine came in to see me a few minutes ago, 
 interrupting the flow of these remarkable observations. 
 For five years he has been diametrically under my feet ; 
 we have always kept half a world between us, and we 
 have never thought of corresponding. He is an antipo- 
 dean friend, and we have become quite accustomed to 
 thinking of each other as in the antipodes. In fact, each 
 formed part of the other's antipodes. We took up the 
 same questions that we left unsettled five years ago, and 
 so far as I could gather, the friendship has in no way 
 cooled, though we have never met twice in the same part 
 of the world. 
 
 In a word, the friendship of women means the posses- 
 sion of many, if not all, interests in common ; while men 
 can build up the enduring fabric upon the basis of one 
 mutual interest only.
 
 284 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton possessed mental energy of a 
 conceptive order ; Claud Tyars was a healthy Hercules, 
 his body longed for work. They were brought together 
 by that vague influence we call Chance, and they found 
 a common interest at once. But their friendship, which 
 lasted as long as human friendships can last, was never 
 general. They never knew much of each other's lives. 
 The great absorbing interest of their existence during 
 these years had never flagged ; there had always been 
 some point or another requiring instant discussion, and 
 they never found time to talk of themselves or of each 
 other. 
 
 The Americans are the most independent people of the 
 world. They have learnt more thoroughly than any 
 other race the great lesson that whatever may be done 
 for us in the hereafter we must look after ourselves now. 
 They expect no help and they ask none. Easton was a 
 true American in his social proclivities ; he was not the 
 man to overstep those tacit boundaries by which men's 
 friendships are confined. So long as things went on satis- 
 factorily, so long as Tyars attended to the outfit of ship 
 and crew, he was free to live where he liked and how he 
 liked. 
 
 Oswin Grace was naturally brought into daily com- 
 munication with Tyars, but they met at the docks, usually 
 on board their vessel, and at evening they parted with- 
 out question of meeting later. The young officer, accus- 
 tomed as he was to obedience, had by this time quite 
 fallen under the influence of his chief, and their relation- 
 ship towards each other was therefore slightly altered. 
 
 Miss Winter, however, was a woman of resource. For 
 reasons of her own she determined to bring Claud Tyars 
 out of his shell. It was nothing to her that the exploring 
 vessel should be out of dry-dock and almost ready for sea,
 
 An Overture. 285 
 
 her crew engaged, her stores on board. She had one 
 card left, and she played it with that calm assurance which 
 follows on skilful courage. And so it came about that 
 Muggins set up a great barking, and displayed a deter- 
 mination to repel or die, one morning when breakfast had 
 been cleared away by the lightning-fingered club-waiter. 
 
 The diminutive buttons attached to the hall-door 
 knocked, entered, and stood aside in three movements, 
 like the soldier's son that he was. 
 
 " Admiral Grace sir/' he announced, clippingly. 
 
 Then Muggins, obeying one terse word, retired under 
 the armchair nearest to the fire. 
 
 The admiral entered with some dignity and laid his 
 stick and hat upon the table ; then he turned round and 
 glared at the button-boy, causing the door to be shut 
 precipitately. 
 
 " Good morning, sir ! " said Tyars, pleasantly. He 
 was standing, but did not offer his hand. He had a sin- 
 gular and almost foreign way of avoiding the practise of 
 shaking hands, and now that his right arm was disabled 
 he never offered his left. 
 
 The admiral looked at him, and then held out his hand 
 very deliberately, so that no mistake could be made. 
 
 " Good morning," he said ; " your hand." 
 
 He took the reluctant fingers held out, it must be con- 
 fessed, rather awkwardly, in a good hearty, old-fashioned 
 
 grip- 
 
 " I came," said the old gentleman so concisely that 
 Tyars almost wondered whether he had asked aloud the 
 question that was in his mind, " to your club because I 
 have something to say to you." 
 
 He stopped, visibly embarrassed, in a bluff, undisguised 
 manner ; his kindly but firm lips moved as if framing 
 tentative words.
 
 286 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " It is," Tyars hastened to say, "a beastly morning. 
 I hope you have not got wet." 
 
 " Thanks, no ; I am not afraid of a little clean water." 
 He pulled himself up and looked somewhat pugnacious. 
 " I came about a matter which I have something to say 
 which is not easy for an old fellow to say to a young 
 one." 
 
 " Oh ! " Tyars drew forward a chair in a pleasant and 
 comfortable way it was, by the way, a remarkably com- 
 fortable chair. " Won't you sit down ? Put your boots 
 on the fender, your right foot is wet, these roads are so 
 badly kept." 
 
 " D n it, sir," said the admiral, without accepting the 
 chair, " I didn't come here to talk about my boots." 
 
 Tyars looked at him in his large placid way as one 
 sees a huge Newfoundland look at a fox-terrier. He 
 made no further attempt to stave it off, for he knew that 
 it had come. He was a man who hated thanks and apol- 
 ogies, and never learnt to receive them graciously. 
 
 And so they stood opposite to each other two typical 
 Englishmen an old and a young sailor. Not poetical, nor 
 romantic, nor highly intellectual you are not asked to 
 imagine that. But honest! Honest and strong. Surely 
 the Creator meant men to be both these ; for if they are, 
 no woman need fear to love them. 
 
 " I came," said the old mariner, fixing his solemn gray 
 eyes upon his companion's face, "to ask you to accept 
 an apology. If I do it badly it is because I have had no 
 practise at that sort of thing." 
 
 "Please," interrupted Tyars, gravely, "do not say 
 anything more. There must be some mistake. I know 
 of nothing that could require an apology, and I am like 
 yourself I know nothing of such matters. Won't you 
 sit down ? "
 
 An Overture. 287 
 
 This time the admiral accepted. He sat squarely down, 
 undeterred ; he was fully bent upon hammering out what 
 he considered his dutiful apology. 
 
 "It is," he said, in a more conversational manner, 
 " like this. When you first came home, and Oswin 
 brought you in to dinner, I took a dislike to you. I 
 well, I thought you were a humbug what the Frenchmen 
 call a poseur. Perhaps I was a bit jealous about that mer- 
 chantman you brought home I would rather have had 
 my boy commanding her, and you playing second fiddle. 
 Then there is another thing. I am afraid I am a little 
 jealous of all young fellows who come to my house and 
 cut an old fogey out ; you understand ? My girl my 
 little girl, Helen." 
 
 "Yes," answered Tyars, slowly, " I understand." 
 
 " I think a lot of her," said the old fellow, with an apol- 
 ogetic laugh, "and I am always imagining that every 
 man who sees her is going to fall in love with her. 
 Ha ! ha ! " 
 
 " Ha ! ha! " echoed Tyars, with sudden gaiety. 
 
 " Stupid of me," added the admiral, " but I can't help 
 it, you know ! " 
 
 "Ha! ha! " repeated Claud Tyars, in identical 
 tones. 
 
 "Well," continued Admiral Grace, settling himself 
 more comfortably in the large chair, " it all comes to this. 
 I have found out my mistake all round, and I wanted to tell 
 you that I consider you are a gentleman and a sailor, and 
 I am proud to know you." 
 
 He pulled out his cuffs, and emitted a long breath of 
 relief. Like a great schoolboy, he had gravely made up 
 his mind to say this thing, and now that it was over he was 
 fairly well pleased with the manner in which he had man- 
 aged to say it.
 
 288 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 "It is very good of you to say so," replied Tyars, 
 rather lamely, for he was a poor hand at turning glib 
 phrases. " By your own showing, however, no apology 
 was necessary. It was only a matter of thoughts, and 
 we are all free to think what we like." 
 
 "Then," said the old gentleman with a chuckle, "I 
 did not show my dislike ? " 
 
 " Not that I noticed," replied Tyars. He wisely re- 
 frained from adding that this might be because he had 
 never taken the trouble to look. 
 
 " That's all right. And now, my boy, I want to thank 
 you for your bravery and coolness the other night. From 
 what I hear, you undoubtedly saved my little girl's life 
 if not the -lives of the whole party. It quite turned the 
 tables on me. It was quite contrary to what I was think- 
 ing of you, you see. That broken arm too I hope you 
 did it saving Helen." 
 
 "I did," answered the young fellow, with a quick, 
 unnatural laugh ; " but why do you hope that ? " 
 
 " Because," replied Admiral Grace, gravely, " it must 
 be much more satisfactory to an English sailor to think 
 that he carried away a spar in saving another life than his 
 own the life of a woman and a pretty girl too. Helen 
 wants to thank you herself, which she somehow forgot to 
 do. Will you come and dine one night, and give her a 
 chance ? Name your own night." 
 
 Claud Tyars did not seem to hesitate. He bowed 
 gravely, while his beard and mustache moved as if he 
 were biting his lip in order to control some passing 
 emotion. 
 
 " Thank you," he said, " very much ; but I am afraid 
 I must refuse. I am so busy that I have entirely given 
 up going out." 
 
 " As you like," snapped the admiral, after a little
 
 An Overture. 289 
 
 pause. He was vexed, and did not care to disguise it. 
 He naturally concluded that Tyars bore him ill-feeling 
 despite the apology which had been so difficult for him to 
 make. It was no hard matter to divine this from the 
 proud old man's sudden hauteur of manner ; and Claud 
 Tyars doubtless saw it, for his unobtrusive gaze had 
 never left his companion's face. It was rather strange 
 that he did not hasten to undeceive his visitor, to protest 
 that nothing could have given him greater pleasure than 
 to dine at Brook Street. He might easily have put for- 
 ward another excuse. It was a matter requiring very 
 little to smooth it, but the young Englishman deliberately 
 left it as it was left his refusal in all its curt formality for 
 the old martinet to put in his pipe and smoke at leisure. 
 
 He stood where he had stood during the entire inter- 
 view, with his one able hand resting on the back of a 
 chair. His attitude and expression were distinctly courte- 
 ous, and nothing more. It is, one finds, these grave 
 men who are so difficult to read. One may hide many 
 things, many sorrows and loves and hatreds behind a 
 ready smile ; but a pleasant, dense gravity is much more 
 impenetrable. 
 
 Admiral Grace rose, gave one quick glance at his com- 
 panion's face, and then took up his hat and stick. 
 
 " I am due at the Admiralty," he said. " Good morn- 
 ing." 
 
 Tyars followed him towards the door, gravely respect- 
 ful. He opened the door and followed him down the 
 thickly-carpeted stairs. Half-way the old man stopped. 
 
 " By the way," he said, raising his stick, " Miss Win- 
 ter asked me to deliver a message. She has found a berth 
 for a protege of yours, the son of your carpenter. She 
 will be in at eleven o'clock to-morrow morning if you can 
 find time to call and see her about it." 
 9
 
 290 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " Thank you. I will try to do so." 
 
 "Good morning." 
 
 " Good morning." 
 
 And the old fellow stumped out into the sunny street. 
 A woman would have taken his last words as a confession 
 that he had been sent by Miss Winter some men might 
 have read it so, but Claud Tyars was not of these.
 
 Trapped. 291 
 
 CHAPTER XXX. 
 TRAPPED. 
 
 THE next morning he despatched his laborious corre- 
 spondence as quickly as a cramped left hand would allow. 
 He was not dressed in the tar-stained old suit donned for 
 dock-work, but in blue serge. 
 
 Armed with a cigar to keep out the morning coolness, 
 he set off westward at a swinging pace, and deliberately 
 walked into the trap set for him by Miss Winter. This 
 was so simple, and it succeeded so smoothly, that the 
 lady whose well-intentioned deceit it was stood almost 
 breathless in her own bedroom, pressing her hand to her 
 breast and wondering whether she should laugh or cry. 
 
 The maid answering his summons swung the door so 
 wide open as to leave no doubt of his welcome and ex- 
 pectation. Miss Winter was in, would he step up-stairs ? 
 This he did with rather less agility than when he had 
 possessed two arms to swing. He was shown into the 
 drawing-room, and for a moment imagined himself alone. 
 Then he was conscious of a sound of smooth dress material, 
 and a young lady rose from the music-stool, partially con- 
 cealed by the piano placed cornerwise near the window. 
 It was a gloomy morning, and the lady stood with her 
 back towards the light, and her face consequently in the 
 shadow. But Tyars saw at once that this was not Agnes 
 Winter ; indeed the sight (as pleasant a one as any man 
 could wish to look upon) brought a quick contraction of
 
 292 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 pain to eyes and lips. He knew only too well every 
 sweet curve and outline of head and form placed in grace- 
 ful silhouette against the lace curtains. 
 
 They knew that they had been both tricked, and the 
 sudden knowledge of it seemed to sweep all social formula 
 away, for they never greeted each other. Something in 
 the girl's attitude (for he could not see her glowing eyes) 
 told the man then that he had not this thing to bear alone. 
 His sorrow was hers ; that which weighed upon his broad 
 back almost crushed her slight young shoulders beneath 
 its weight. This great heavenly light, this opaque dark- 
 ness, had crept into her heart as into his, against the 
 defense of a stubborn will. It was so new to both, so 
 utterly surprising, so completely unlocked for, that both 
 alike were dazed. Since its advent, both had walked on 
 with uncertain steps, staggering vaguely beneath a new 
 and wholly bewildering responsibility ; something that 
 seemed to have no beginning and no end on earth ; some- 
 thing that tugged at the heart and cast a great veil of in- 
 difference over all pleasures and all trivial occupations ; 
 something that brings our every-day life suddenly forward 
 like a cunning stage-light cast from the wings, and builds 
 up behind the daily round of toil and pleasure a vague 
 shimmering perspective of which yon dimmest distance is 
 Heaven and nothing else. 
 
 When a strong man gets a fever, the doctor shakes his 
 head : when a strong heart has this pain it is pain indeed. 
 
 At last the girl moved. She came towards him, only a 
 few paces, and then stopped. She had emerged from the 
 shadow, and the whiteness of her face struck him like a 
 blow. 
 
 " Agnes, "she said, steadily, " has just gone up-stairs." 
 
 He nodded his head in a sharp, comprehensive way 
 which had been acquired at sea.
 
 Trapped. 293 
 
 " I did not expect to find you here," was his reply, less 
 inconsequent than might at first appear. 
 
 She crossed the room, passing close by him, so that a 
 breath of cool air reached him, and went towards the 
 mantelpiece. Her intention was evidently to ring the 
 bell, but her strength of purpose seemed to fail her at the 
 moment, and she stood undecided upon the white fur 
 hearthrug with her back turned towards him. 
 
 " Had you known ? " she began. 
 
 "I think," he completed, "that I should not have 
 come." 
 
 Her eyelids quivered for a second, and the faintest sug- 
 gestion of a very sad smile flickered across her lips. He did 
 not know that he was making matters worse, making her 
 burden doubly heavy. He did not know that this very 
 strength of hisiwas what she loved. He was very far 
 from suspecting that she had foreseen his answer before she 
 asked the strange question. He would have been intensely 
 surprised to learn that, although her back was turned 
 towards him, she saw his attitude, the quiescent strength 
 of each limb (denoting subtly the inner strength of the 
 soul) as he stood upright, patient, and gentle, tearing out 
 his iron heart and trampling it underfoot. He never saw 
 the shadowy little smile, nor knew its pathetic meaning. 
 
 And so he kept his secret, he held his peace despite a 
 gnawing temptation to speak. He allowed her to con- 
 tinue thinking, if so indeed she thought, that he was 
 sacrificing her to his own ambition, as Miss Winter honestly 
 believed. He never told her that he was compelled to 
 carry out his perilous scheme because he was bound in 
 honor. It was high-flown, unpractical, Quixotic, if you 
 wish. But that same old Don. Was he a buffoon or a 
 hero ? Forsooth, some of us hardly know. This world 
 of ours would be a sorry place were we all practical, and
 
 294 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 did we all fly low. And I venture to think that this man 
 with whom we deai was no exception there are others 
 like him. That he is no creature of the imagination, but 
 an honest nineteenth-century Englishman, who paid the 
 income-tax, and sometimes wore a silk hat, can easily be 
 ascertained, for these events are but five years old, and 
 there are men in many London club-rooms to-day who 
 will tell you of Claud Tyars. It is just because he is of 
 our own time that I have attempted to string together this 
 record in the hope that some may read it and gather from 
 the study a little pride in that they claim with such as he 
 a joint nationality and a co-inheritance of those strong 
 plain virtues which made, in days gone by, a great nation 
 out of a little island. 
 
 That singular sense of familiarity seemed to have come 
 to them again, as it had come once before. There was 
 no explanation, and they yet understood each other well 
 enough. It seemed as if they had known each other all 
 their lives, almost as if they had met in some other life. 
 She turned and looked across the room at him with drawn 
 and weary eyes in which there was yet a smile as if to tell 
 him that she was strong, that he need not fear for her. 
 And he met her gaze with that self-suppressing gravity. 
 He had set bounds for himself, and beyond these he would 
 not step an inch, not even for her. He would not tell her 
 that he loved her because, if you please, he considered it 
 wrong to do so under the circumstances. Here was a man 
 who not only had principles, but actually acted up to them 
 instead of seeking to make others do so. For we all have 
 principles applicable to the conduct of our neighbors. 
 
 " Can you tell me," he said at length, " whether this 
 is accidental or intentional ?" 
 
 "This meeting? " 
 
 "Yes."
 
 Trapped. 295 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " I cannot say," she answered, loyal to her friend. 
 She knew that if it was intentional, Agnes Winter was not 
 the woman to do such a thing wantonly. 
 
 He answered his own question. 
 
 "It must," he said, judicially, "have been intended. 
 Of course with every good motive but it was a little 
 cruel." 
 
 " She did not know," pleaded the girl. " She did not 
 understand. Perhaps we are not quite the same as other 
 people." 
 
 "You are not," he answered, slowly; "there is no 
 one like you." 
 
 It is probable that such words had been spoken to her 
 before, for there are men slimy parasites who seek to 
 raise themselves in the esteem of others by fulsome flat- 
 tery, and if she had passed through a few London sea- 
 sons without meeting some samples, she must have been 
 singularly lucky. But the words were spoken so simply 
 and with so much straightforward honesty that the ver- 
 iest prude could not have taken offense. Moreover, this 
 girl had apparently no thought of such a thing. 
 
 She glanced at him, and then her gaze fell on nothing 
 more interesting than a somewhat ancient carpet. This 
 was more or less appropriate, for in her dear gray eyes 
 there was ancient history the most ancient of all older 
 than any Egyptian record. Dreams ! Nothing but 
 dreams of what might have been if ... Ah, that little 
 word ! there is no crueller in the dictionary. If, my 
 brethren, life were not what it most assuredly is, we 
 might be happy. If human beings were only not human, 
 there might be bliss here below. If, moreover, I who 
 write these poor lines were only a gifted novelist, I might 
 know how to patch things up. 1 might do away, not only
 
 296 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 with the few yards of carpet that lay between them, but 
 with the larger, tougher circumstances that held them 
 apart. I might work up a series of marvelous and wholly 
 impossible events, draw most heavily upon the reserve of 
 your credulity, and close with the astounding untruth 
 that these two were happy ever after. But I am a 
 modest man. I am shy of taking upon myself the task of 
 improving the Creator's work, of offering suggestions to 
 the Almighty. We may rest assured that He has done 
 the best for us possible under the circumstances. This is 
 no work of imagination ; it is merely a somewhat lame 
 statement of facts, and if these facts are to be subverted 
 for the edification of readers, it would be hard to know 
 where to make the commencement. 
 
 Before either of these two persons had spoken again, 
 their opportunity of ever doing so was taken from them, 
 for Miss Winter was heard approaching, singing as she 
 came. She opened the door noisily, and came into the 
 room, rather too slowly, considering the emphasis with 
 which the handle had been turned. 
 
 " Ah ! " she exclaimed, without surprise, "you have 
 come. It is very good of you, for Oswin tells me you are 
 very busy." 
 
 She looked at him very keenly, but never glanced in 
 the direction of Helen, who was arranging some untidy 
 music on the top of the piano. 
 
 " Yes," he answered, rather vaguely, " I have a good 
 deal to do." 
 
 " It is," she hastened to say, in her most practical way, 
 " about Tim what is his name ? " 
 
 " Peters ? " suggested he. 
 
 " Peters yes. You never forget anything." 
 
 " I do not forget very much," he admitted, in the same 
 perfunctory way, but he looked over her head towards
 
 Trapped. 297 
 
 Helen, which made the quick-witted little woman of the 
 world think that perhaps the remark was not intended for 
 her information alone. 
 
 "A friend of mine," she continued, "a Mr. Mason, 
 wants a boy on board his yacht, and I thought that 
 Peters would do, if you are not taking him with you." 
 " No," quietly, " 1 am not taking him with me." 
 " Then I may send young Peters to see Mr. Mason ? " 
 " Certainly. I am much obliged to you for troubling." 
 He was at his stiffest, and Miss Winter could not help 
 admiring the innate good-breeding with which he attempted 
 to seem pleasant and conversational. She had seen from 
 the threshold that her plot had failed, and it was just one 
 of those plots which cannot afford to fail. Success would 
 have made her a benefactor to both, but success had not 
 come to her, and she recognized instantly the falseness of 
 her position. She knew this man well enough to foresee 
 that he would never forgive her ; for, as he himself had 
 said, he was not of those who forget. She knew that this 
 little plot, which had been hatched in a minute, and ex- 
 ecuted in ten, would alter the friendship between herself 
 and this man during the rest of their lives. And she had 
 always liked him ; from the first she had been drawn to- 
 wards him insensibly. There was something in his strong, 
 self-contained nature that appealed to her cheery woman- 
 hood, and now she felt his anger as she had never felt the 
 wrath of any one since her girlhood. Perhaps this feel- 
 ing unnerved her. It is just possible that something might 
 have been said or done just then which would have al- 
 tered everything. There are moments when our lives 
 hang on a balance, and in such times we cannot do better 
 than did Claud Tyars ; we cannot do better than throw 
 boldly in the weight of duty, which is the truest weight 
 and measure placed in our mortal hands.
 
 298 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Agnes Winter was fully aware that between herself and 
 Claud Tyars no explanation would take place. He was 
 not the sort of man to listen to or offer explanations. She 
 knew that he would never speak of this incident, and felt 
 that her own courage would fail her to broach the sub- 
 ject. 
 
 There was nothing for it but to let him go. She had 
 been actuated by the best motives. It was not her own 
 happiness, but that of her dearest friend for which she 
 had schemed. She had played a bold game, and now her 
 hand the losing hand lay exposed. There was nothing 
 to do but to accept defeat. She did it as pluckily as she 
 could, shaking hands and smiling into his grave face as 
 he left the room. 
 
 When he was gone the two women returned to their 
 separate occupations. Helen opened a music-book, and 
 arranged it upon the stand, as a preliminary to seating 
 herself at the piano. 
 
 Miss Winter had some letters to write. She drew a 
 little table towards the fire, and made a certain small fuss 
 in opening inkstand and blotting-book ; but she did not 
 commence writing, and somehow or other Helen did not 
 begin to play. She turned the pages, and seemed uncer- 
 tain as to the selection of a piece. 
 
 At last the elder woman looked up or, to be more cor- 
 rect, she raised her head, and looked into the bright fire, 
 touching her lips reflectively with the feathers of a quill 
 pen. 
 
 " He looks worn and tired," she said. 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl, softly, and in that little word 
 there was a whole world a woman's world, which is a 
 much larger thing than our world. Ours is a place where- 
 in to work until we are tired, and then to rest until we are 
 ready to work again. It is a place wherein a few pleasures
 
 Trapped. 299 
 
 are scattered here and there among the tasks, and some of 
 us seem to meet with but one or two of them, while we 
 come across a great deal of heavy labor. But women 
 the women at least of whom some of us cannot help writ- 
 ing have little actual work set them to do. The best of 
 them, moreover, find that pleasure fails to fill up all their 
 time, and so they dream. They make tasks for them- 
 selves, and love to execute them carefully, for these are 
 the labors of love. And in their leisure moments they sit 
 down and make for themselves this larger world, which is 
 beyond our comprehension, because our minds are neces- 
 sarily full of the hard, hammer-headed facts of daily life 
 daily competition, and the daily struggle to wrest a live- 
 lihood out of our neighbors' pockets. 
 
 Some men there are, however, fortunate enough to form 
 apart perhaps the greatest part of this unseen world to 
 some woman ; and it really matters very little that she 
 clothe him in a wondrous individuality of her own creation. 
 If he is true to her, and honestly endeavors to do his best 
 by her, a higher Hand than his will see that the veil be 
 not torn too ruthlessly from her eyes. 
 
 " All this to-do," you will say, " about a little word ! " 
 All this to-do, if you please, and infinitely more, for it was 
 all contained in the small word spoken by this girl. It 
 claimed possession, and even pretended to a monopoly, as 
 if this anxiety were hers, and she were jealous of its 
 possession ; as if this man's weal or woe, his incomings, 
 his outgoings, his words and his deeds, were hers hers 
 alone to sigh over, to weep, to rejoice, to despair over. 
 And just because it was her property, she refused to dis- 
 cuss it, even as you and I have probably one person in 
 the world whose virtues or faults we utterly refuse to dis- 
 cuss with any living soul.
 
 3oo Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXI. 
 EASTON'S CARE. 
 
 As the middle of February approached, Claud Tyars 
 was tranquilly engaged in his preparations. Several 
 ladies were pleased to express their disapproval of this 
 affectation of hard work, and failed to see why his eve- 
 nings should be devoted to a task for which he had plenty 
 of time during the day. But then ladies rarely see the 
 necessity of complete devotion, and never quite under- 
 stand that love of work or sport which exercises over 
 men an absorbing influence. This is doubtless the reason 
 why woman's schemes grow hoary and effete in their 
 childhood. This is why women are still talking of their 
 rights, and have not yet secured them. There are also, 
 however, many men who are no better in this respect than 
 the weaker sex men who imagine that the larger deeds 
 of life are done en passant. It takes a strong mind to 
 compass absorption, and a stronger to battle successfully 
 against it. In the course of our lives we occasionally 
 meet with a mind of this description a mind that can 
 shake itself free at times from the absorbing pursuit, and 
 take quite a natural interest in the smaller environments 
 of existence. But such men are rare ; and as the world 
 goes on, gathering detail day by day, they bid fair to be- 
 come extinct. It simply comes to this, that there is no 
 time to master the entirety of more than one subject, be 
 it work or be it play ; and if we attempt to handle matters
 
 Easton's Care. 301 
 
 of which we are only partially masters, some one else 
 with fuller knowledge will come and supersede us, hold- 
 ing us up to ridicule and contempt. 
 
 Claud Tyars did not possess one of the rare intellects 
 cited above. I do not claim that for him. He was no 
 genius no rara avis but merely a purposeful, some- 
 what stubborn Englishman, such as one may meet on any 
 club stairs in London, at most hours of the day or night. 
 The only remarkable thing about him was the possession 
 of a singular memory ; but as that, individually, had no 
 direct influence upon his life, it has not been made much 
 of in this record. The memory, as it happens, does not 
 stand alone like some other gifts, such as music, or draw- 
 ing, or a voice. It has not the power to make a man, of 
 its own individual strength, like one of these ; and yet if 
 it be given in conjunction with some slight talent, it will 
 raise that talent and its possessor almost to the level of 
 genius. 
 
 It would be hard to determine how far Tyars realized 
 his position. He was a disciplinarian of the firmest 
 mold, and it is probable that he had never, up to this 
 time, allowed for a moment the fact that he loved Helen 
 Grace. This determination to cultivate the blindness of 
 those who will not see was not dictated by cowardice ; 
 because Claud Tyars was, like most physically powerful 
 men, inclined to exaggerate the practise of facing disa- 
 greeable facts with both eyes open. He had refused to 
 realize this most inconvenient truth, because he was 
 oppressed by a vague fear that realization meant betrayal. 
 His attitude was one assumed often enough by many of 
 us. He wished to be in a position to deny. 
 
 He was, as I have attempted to show, a fairly deter- 
 mined man, and one anxious to act up to slowly-conceived 
 principles. His attitude towards Helen Grace had been,
 
 3O2 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 from a period previous to the fire at the Epic Theater, a 
 carefully-studied demonstration of indifference. And now 
 all this had crumbled to dust ; his lofty barricade had 
 been thrown down at the raising of a woman's hand. 
 From the very first there had been, between himself and 
 Agnes Winter, an antagonism of which the chief peculiar- 
 ity was a marked lack of enmity. They were friends, 
 but unquestionably antagonistic. 
 
 He now suspected that Miss Winter had known all 
 along that Helen Grace was not the same to him as other 
 women. Added to this was a suspicion that she calmly 
 and deliberately undertook the task of forcing him to say 
 as much to Helen herself. He could think this now with- 
 out vanity. And there was left to him, as he quitted 
 Miss Winter's house, the startling knowledge that she 
 had succeeded in her purpose. Most men, sooner or 
 later in their lives, find themselves outwitted by a woman. 
 It is usually in some trifling matter, and just one of those 
 trifles which affect greater questions to follow. It was 
 something new for Tyars to find himself in this position. 
 He had, you see, had remarkably little to do with women, 
 which probably accounted for this novelty. 
 
 Miss Winter's action puzzled him exceedingly. He was 
 inexperienced, and therefore ignorant of a great motive 
 influencing the thoughts of women all through their lives : 
 namely, the love of Love. This is a motive of which 
 men are singularly ignorant. Has any one ever met a 
 male match-maker ? Has any one come across a father 
 who is by turns conveniently blind and inconveniently 
 keen-sighted, as are nine mothers out of ten ? Have you, 
 my friend, ever been assisted in that little affair of yours 
 with you know who, by Tom or Dick or Harry ? 
 
 A French cynic (whose name is here suppressed, be- 
 cause his works and his sayings are so very cheap) was
 
 Eastern's Care. 303 
 
 of opinion that a woman first loves her lover, and then 
 loves Love. Like those of other nationalities this French 
 cynic occasionally sacrificed truth to smartness. He of- 
 tentimes failed to deliver an epigram by endeavoring to 
 be too epigrammatic ; and one regrets that he should at 
 times have expressed his thought in such a few words. 
 The old philosopher knew well enough that at the bottom 
 of all feminine passions there is the love of Love itself. 
 
 Claud Tyars had never studied women, for the simple 
 reason that he had never had cause to do so. It was 
 therefore a mystery to him why Agnes Winter should 
 have meddled in a matter distinctly personal to himself. 
 His anger against the lady was chiefly aroused by a chiv- 
 alrous respect for the feelings of Helen Grace ; and his 
 dominating thought during the few days following his visit 
 to Miss Winter, was that he was bound in honor to avoid 
 meeting Helen before he sailed. But at times the recol- 
 lection of that short interview would force its way into his 
 mind, leaving him irresolute. She knew now, so what 
 difference could it make ? He remembered each little in- 
 cident, each word spoken, and the tiniest inflection of 
 tone in the speaking. Every movement was before his 
 eyes, and he was haunted by the vision of Helen, as she 
 stood near the fire looking back over her shoulder at him, 
 with a smile in those soft, pathetic, old-world eyes of 
 hers. It was a smile that would haunt him ever after ; 
 for once his memory was a curse. 
 
 It never occurred to him to wonder over the singular 
 lack of surprise in his own mind at his present position. 
 Indeed there was to his simple, straightforward compre- 
 hension no cause for astonishment in the fact that he 
 should love Helen Grace ; and many a subtler man than 
 this athletic Briton has argued to himself that there is no 
 surprise in love. Most men are convinced that there is no
 
 304 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 alternative. Discipline is a necessity which the majority 
 of boys are taught to recognize before they learn anything 
 else, and whatever it may be to women, love is a discipline 
 to men. It seems very plain that there is for the majority 
 of us one woman placed in the world within our reach 
 (though many of us have to stretch up or down to meet 
 her), and we must love that woman simply because she 
 is there for the purpose. We may see her faults and 
 deprecate them these faults may clash continually with 
 our own, but still we love her and we cannot help it. We 
 simply bow to a necessity without defining it. It seems 
 that all the surprise lies in the other side of the question ; 
 namely, in the fact that we are loved. But Claud Tyars 
 was not one of those subtle persons who would distill all 
 the joy out of life by too deep analysis. It never oc- 
 curred to him to attempt a definition of Helen's feelings 
 towards himself. He had not asked her if she could ever 
 love him, she had told him nothing unasked ; and yet it 
 seemed to be all understood between them. It was one of 
 those many things which go sans dire among us who have 
 tongues to speak and ears to hear one of the cases which 
 the heart appropriates and understands with an under- 
 standing beyond that of the ears or eyes. They had 
 never spoken much together, these two. They had only 
 met at odd moments in odd, public places ; and almost all 
 their words have been set down here. But there was 
 something else which cannot be set down here, which 
 never has been set on paper yet ; something which, by 
 the mere presence or absence of a certain person, lends a 
 superhuman interest to trifles or deprives existence of 
 its charm. 
 
 These thoughts may have revolved, flitted, chased each 
 other through the mind of this Englishman ; but, true to 
 his birth, he never put them into shape : he never at-
 
 Easton's Care. 305 
 
 tempted definition. There are many things which cannot 
 be defined, and the chiefest of them I take to be a woman's 
 heart. There is the loftiest pride, and close beside it the 
 completest humility ; but one can never tell which of the 
 two will be up in arms before the other. With one of 
 them most women meet most difficulties ; but as far as I, 
 in a small way, have learnt to know them, no rule can be 
 laid down as to which arm they will take up under any 
 circumstances that may arise. 
 
 During the few days that followed his call at Miss 
 Winter's, Tyars avoided meeting Oswin Grace. There 
 was plenty of work to be done, and he did it with extraor- 
 dinary care, and a marked attention to detail. He heard 
 that the younger Peters had been engaged by the yachts- 
 man, and was to enter upon his new duties the second 
 week in March. The old carpenter was still sore, but 
 more resigned to being parted from his son. From the 
 persistence with which he spoke well of Miss Winter, it 
 appeared probable that this better state of mind had been 
 brought about by her influence. 
 
 There was, however, one person from whose society 
 Tyars found it impossible to withdraw. This person was 
 Matthew Mark Easton ; the keenest observer, as it hap- 
 pened, among his friends. Since the receipt of Pavloski's 
 letter the American had appeared to realize suddenly the 
 responsibility he was incurring. There is a period in 
 every scheme, whether it deal in peace or war, when this 
 sudden sense of responsibility is recognized ; and this 
 period usually follows on the first action. 
 
 At all hours of the day or night Easton kept dropping 
 in, either at the club or on board the exploring vessel. 
 There were a thousand minor points upon which he wished 
 to consult Tyars, a thousand trifling orders executed 
 
 which had to be reported to the leader. 
 20
 
 306 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 And he managed very cleverly. Any one with suffi- 
 cient leisure and astuteness to dog the footsteps and 
 follow out the motives of this keen-witted American dur- 
 ing that chill month of February five years ago, would 
 have been edified by a complete study of unobtrusive 
 watchful care. He never quite understood his friend ; 
 he never quite arrived at the inner wheels of his mind to 
 see that which was being slowly ground there. But he 
 was conscious of the grinding, and he sometimes wondered 
 what sort of man Claud Tyars would be when he had 
 passed through this phase of his life. Since boyhood 
 Tyars had always been singular. There had been no 
 turning-points in his life, no acute angles ; but there had 
 been one or two great broad curves around which as boy 
 and as man he had pressed with a strong slow impulse, 
 just as some of us have seen huge rivers like the Nile, or 
 the Volga, or the Danube press onward round curve and 
 over sunny plain with a force which comes we know not 
 whence ; but we can see that while it is slow and gentle, 
 it means to go on, and there is no resisting it. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton stood and watched, as you may 
 have watched these slow strong rivers, and knew that his 
 friend was passing on to some new country with a pur- 
 pose which he could not stay nor turn aside. Probably 
 he felt a little doubtful of Claud Tyars felt that he could 
 not rely upon him to act like other men. At any moment 
 the unexpected might supervene. 
 
 Deeply, however, as he felt his responsibility, anxious 
 as he was, he never lost spirit. He was one of those 
 men whose courage rises to the occasion, and while he 
 recognized fully that without Claud Tyars failure was in- 
 evitable, he would not blind himself into the belief that 
 the leader was absolutely safe. 
 
 This is perhaps the time to justify as far as possible
 
 Easton's Care. 307 
 
 the action of these three men. To begin with, it must be 
 clearly understood that escape from Siberia by the north 
 is a perfectly feasible thing. That it has been attempted 
 by a party of men quite inadequately prepared, almost 
 without money and entirely dependent on their own re- 
 sources, is an historical fact. At least it is as historical as 
 any fact connected with the darker side of Russian do- 
 mestic administration. That the attempt failed is equally 
 well known, but success was almost within the grasp 
 of these desperate fugitives, and only eluded them 
 by the want of such facilities as could easily have been 
 supplied by outside aid. That the attempt to effect such 
 an escape was on another occasion crowned with success, 
 is a fact upon which it is inexpedient to enlarge here. 
 This is, partially at least, a work of fiction, and it would 
 be cowardly and very despicable to endanger the liberty 
 of two brave men by taking advantage of confidence, in 
 order to claim the first telling of their history. In antici- 
 pation therefore of comment, and in view of shoulders 
 skeptically shrugged, it is perhaps wise to deny the charge 
 of improbability at once. This scheme of assisting escape 
 from the vast prison-land of Russia by the Arctic Ocean 
 is not an impossible dream conceived by the novelist in 
 order to find a picturesque background for his stage. For 
 surely the life that throbs and writhes and struggles all 
 around us the life going on beneath the thousands, nay 
 the millions of smoking chimneys in London, is sufficiently 
 interesting to write about, to read of, and to meditate 
 upon, without inventing impossible human beings and 
 impossible human lives. 
 
 In reply therefore to all skepticism as to the possibility 
 of escape from Siberia by the north, there are only four 
 words to say. It has been done ! 
 
 In reply to arguments on the improbability of two
 
 308 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Englishmen and an American taking up this scheme, and 
 spending thereupon their time, their money, and their 
 energies ; risking therein their lives, their reputations, and 
 in the case of Oswin Grace a career, it can only be pleaded 
 that it is an easy matter to find half a dozen Englishmen 
 ready at this moment to do the same. 
 
 And, speaking generally, as one wanders over the face 
 of the globe, gathering evidence here and there, picking 
 up little odds and ends of stories (the never-failing and 
 always fresh stories of the lives of men), it seems hard 
 to recognize that there is anything which some Englishman 
 or another will not undertake.
 
 Easton Takes Counsel. 309 
 
 CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 * 
 
 EASTON TAKES COUNSEL. 
 
 AT the risk of being accused of betraying the secrets of 
 the sex, this opportunity is taken of recording an observa- 
 tion made respecting men. It is simply this, that we all 
 turn sooner or later to some woman in our difficulties. 
 And when a man has gone irretrievably to the dogs, his 
 descent is explicable by the simple argument that he hap- 
 pened to turn to the wrong woman. Matthew Mark Eas- 
 ton had hitherto got along fairly well without feminine in- 
 terference, but this in no manner detracted from his respect 
 for feminine astuteness. This respect now urged him to 
 brush his hat very carefully one afternoon, purchase a 
 new flower for his buttonhole, and drive to Miss Winter's. 
 
 He found that lady at home and alone. 
 " I thought," he said, as he entered the room and 
 placed his hat carefully on the piano, " that I should find 
 you at home this afternoon. It is so English outside. 
 Excuse my apparent solicitude for my hat. It is a new 
 one. Left its predecessor at the Epic." 
 
 " The weather does not usually affect my movements," 
 replied Miss Winter. " I am glad you came this after- 
 noon, because I am not often to be found at home at this 
 time." 
 
 " Oh ! " he answered, coolly, as he accepted the chair 
 she indicated. " I should have gone on coming right 
 along till I found you in."
 
 3io Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Eastern's way of making remarks of this description 
 sometimes made an answer superfluous, and Miss Win- 
 ter took it in this light now. She laughed and said 
 nothing, obviously waiting for him to start some new 
 subject. 
 
 He sat quietly and looked with perfect self-possession, 
 not at the carpet or the ceiling, as is usual on such occa- 
 sions, but at her. At last it was borne in upon him that 
 he had not called for this purpose, pleasant as the exer- 
 cise of it might be ; so he spoke. 
 
 " Then," he said, conversationally, " you go out mostly 
 in the afternoons ? " 
 
 " Yes ; I am out a great deal. I have calls to make and 
 shops to look at, and I often take tea with Helen." 
 
 His little nod seemed to say, " Yes ; I know of that 
 friendship." 
 
 " And," he continued, with a vast display of the deep- 
 est interest, " I surmise that you go in a close carriage, 
 so that the weather does not hinder you." 
 
 " No ; I only have an open carriage, a Victoria." 
 
 "Ah! " 
 
 " It is a very convenient vehicle, so easy of access." 
 
 " Yes ; so I should surmise." 
 
 " And it is light for the horse." 
 
 " Runs easily ? " he inquired almost eagerly. 
 
 " Yes, it runs easily." 
 
 Then they seemed to come to a full-stop again. She 
 racked her brain for some subject of sufficient interest and 
 not too far removed from the safe topic of weather. 
 
 It was a ludicrous position for two persons of their ex- 
 perience and savoirfaire. At last Miss Winter gave way 
 to a sudden impulse without waiting to think to what 
 end the beginning might lead. 
 
 " How is Mr. Tyars ? " she asked.
 
 Easton Takes Counsel. 311 
 
 " He is well," was the answer, " thank you. His arm 
 is knitting nicely." 
 
 There was a little pause, then he added with a marked 
 drawl (an Americanism to which he rarely gave way) 
 
 " Ho w is Miss Grace ? " 
 
 Agnes Winter looked up sharply. They had got there 
 already, and her loyalty to friend and sex was up inarms. 
 And yet she had foreseen it surely all along. She had 
 known from the moment of his entering the room that 
 this point was destined to be reached. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton met the gaze of those clever 
 northern eyes with a half smile. His own quick glance 
 was alert and mobile. His look seemed to flit from 
 her eyes to her lips and from her lips to her hands with a 
 sparkling vitality impossible to follow. They seemed to 
 be taking mental measure each of the other in friendly 
 antagonism, like two fencers with buttoned foils. 
 
 She gave a little short laugh, half pleased, half embar- 
 rassed, like the laugh of some fair masker when she finds 
 herself forced to lay aside her mask. 
 
 " I wonder," she said, " how much you know ! " 
 
 The strange, wrinkled face fell at once into an expres- 
 sion of gravity which rendered it somewhat wistful and 
 almost ludicrous. 
 
 " Nothing I guess ! " 
 
 " How much you surmise . . ." she amended, uncon- 
 sciously using a word towards which he had a decided 
 conversational penchant. 
 
 "Everything. My mind is in a fevered state of sur- 
 mise." 
 
 He sat leaning forward with his arms resting on his 
 dapper knees, with a keen, expectant look upon his ner- 
 vous face. He was just a little suggestive of a monkey 
 waiting to catch a nut.
 
 312 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 The lady leant back in her chair meditating deeply. 
 She was viewing her position, and perhaps remembering 
 that her acquaintance with this man was but of three 
 months' growth. 
 
 " Is there anything to be done ? " she asked, after a 
 lengthened pause. 
 
 "I counted," he answered, "that I would put that 
 question to you." 
 
 She nodded her head gravely. 
 
 " I thought perhaps that as you had come to me, you 
 wished me to help you in something." 
 
 He looked distressed, for her meaning was obvious. 
 
 " No I came to you . . . because . . . well, because 
 you seemed the right person to come to." 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 "That is a mistake." 
 
 "Why?" he asked. 
 
 " Don't you see that I can do nothing, that I am pow- 
 erless ? " 
 
 He shook his head before replying tersely 
 
 " Can't say I do. I do not know how these things are 
 done in England, but . . ." 
 
 She interrupted him with a short laugh in which there 
 was a noticeable ring of annoyance. 
 
 " It is not a question of how they are done in England. 
 There can only be one way of doing it all the world over." 
 
 " And who is to do it, Miss Winter ? " 
 
 "You, Mr. Easton." 
 
 " And," he continued imperturbably, " what am I to 
 do? " 
 
 "Well . . . I should go to Mr. Tyars and say : 'Claud 
 Tyars, you cannot go on this expedition you have no 
 right to sacrifice the happiness of ... of another to the 
 gratification of your own personal ambition.' "
 
 Easton Takes Counsel. 313 
 
 " I can't do that," he said, deliberately. 
 
 "Won't," she corrected. 
 
 "Can't," he persisted, politely. 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 "I can't tell you." 
 
 "Won't, again," she commented. 
 
 " I do not see," he argued, defending himself in antici- 
 pation, " that any one is to blame. It is an unforeseen 
 accident ; a misfortune." 
 
 " It is a great misfortune." 
 
 " And yet," he pleaded, looking at her in a curious 
 way, " it could not have been foreseen. We are all of us 
 liable to such misfortunes. I had no reason to suspect 
 that Tyars was more liable than myself. It might have 
 happened to me." 
 
 " Yes," she answered, more softly, without raising her 
 eyes. " Yes, it might." 
 
 He had uttered the words in such a manner as to render 
 the thought infinitely ludicrous. She thought that such 
 a thing might happen to him. And yet somehow she failed 
 to laugh. Perhaps there was an undercurrent of pathos in 
 the thin pleasant voice, into which her thoughts had 
 drifted. 
 
 " I cannot say," she continued, " that I foresaw it, for 
 that was impossible. There was no time. But ... I 
 think I knew it the moment I saw them together, when 
 Oswin brought him to dine at Brook Street. They had 
 met before, some years ago, at Oxford, you know." 
 
 " Then," he said, in a relieved tone, " I surmise the 
 matter is out of our hands." 
 
 "It never was in our hands, Mr. Easton," corrected 
 the lady. 
 
 He looked wistfully uneasy, as if caught in the act of 
 enunciating high treason.
 
 314 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " No," he said, meekly. 
 
 " Such matters are rarely in the hands of outsiders, and 
 in those rare cases only to a very small extent." 
 
 " No yes," he conceded with additional meekness. 
 
 In his airy way Matthew Mark Easton was a wise man. 
 He held his peace and waited. In the expressive language 
 of his native land, it may be said that he let the lady 
 " have the floor." The question was one upon which he 
 eagerly allowed his companion to have the first and long- 
 est say. He was rather awed by the proportions of it, 
 treated generally, and by the intricacies of the individual 
 illustration of which he formed an unwilling figure. 
 
 " I have done my best," she said, " to put a stop to 
 this extremely foolish expedition. I notice you look sur- 
 prised, Mr. Easton ; that is hardly complimentary, for it 
 would insinuate that my efforts were so puny as to have 
 been overlooked entirely." 
 
 He denied this with an expressive gesture of the hand. 
 
 " Of course," she continued, "if men choose to risk 
 their lives unnecessarily, I suppose there is no actual law 
 to stop them. But they should first look round in their 
 own home circle, and see that their lives are entirely their 
 own to risk. Foolhardiness, entailing anxiety for others, 
 is little short of a crime. Men lose sight of this fact very 
 often in their desire to convince the world of their courage 
 and enterprise. Claud Tyars ought never to have gone 
 to Brook Street." 
 
 " But how was he to know ? " 
 
 " He knew," said the lady, deliberately, " that he loved 
 Helen. He knew that he had loved her ever since he was 
 a boy." 
 
 "But," argued Easton, "the fact of his loving her 
 could scarcely be looked upon as a crime so long as he 
 kept it to himself. Tyars is deep. I do not often know
 
 Easton Takes Counsel. 315 
 
 what he is driving at myself. He never asked Miss 
 Grace to reciprocate his feelings." 
 
 Miss Winter laughed in derision. 
 
 "What have I done ? I surmise I've made a joke," 
 said Easton. 
 
 " Excuse my laughter," she said. " But you obviously 
 know so little about it. Do you actually imagine that 
 Helen Grace does not know, and has not known all along, 
 that Claud Tyars looks upon her as the only woman in 
 the world, so far as he is concerned ? " 
 
 " I have hitherto imagined that, Miss Winter." 
 
 " Then you have never been in love." 
 
 He looked at her with twinkling eyes, and seemed to be 
 on the point of saying something which, however, he 
 never did, and she continued rather hurriedly 
 
 " Let me warn you," she said, " against a very com- 
 mon error. Men, and especially young men, are in the habit 
 of believing that women evolve a love for them out of their 
 own inner consciousness. They go about the world with 
 a pleased sense of uncertainty as to the number of maid- 
 ens who have fixed, hopelessly and unsought, their way- 
 ward affections upon them." 
 
 Easton acknowledged the truth of this statement by a 
 quick nod of the head. 
 
 " You may take it," continued the lady, " as a rule al- 
 most without exception, that girls never give their love to 
 a man unsought. The man may not speak of his love, 
 but he betrays it, and the result is the same. A girl may 
 admire a man, she may be ready to love him, but the only 
 thing that can attract her love is his. I know I am right 
 in this, Mr. Easton. It is the fashion to rant about the 
 incomprehensibility of women, but we understand each 
 other. If Mr. Tyars had been indifferent to Helen she 
 would never . ."
 
 316 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 She stopped, arrested by a quick movement of his 
 hand. 
 
 "Don't!" he said, with that peculiar deliberation 
 which is a transatlantic demonstration of shyness ; " don't 
 say any more on that point. There are certain things 
 which we men do not like discussing." 
 
 She gave a little laugh, and changed color like a girl. 
 
 ' I admire your chivalry," she said. " It is genuine, 
 and consequently rare." 
 
 " I did not know," he answered, simply, "that it was 
 chivalry. If it is, Miss Grace has taught it to me. It is 
 her due. She reminds me of an old picture I must have 
 seen somewhere when I was a little chap. Such girls 
 must have lived in England when we roamed in the 
 backwoods. We have none like them in my country. 
 Discuss Tyars as much as you like, but do not let us talk 
 about Miss Grace." 
 
 " I believe," said the lady, " that you are half in love 
 with her yourself." 
 
 "No," he answered, gravely, "I am not, because 
 . . . well, no matter that does not count." 
 
 " I wish," Agnes Winter went on to add, in that pecu- 
 liarly hurried way previously noticed, "that we knew 
 what to do." 
 
 "I," he said, " can only tell you one thing, namely, 
 that Claud Tyars will go on this expedition. Nothing 
 will prevent that. Besides he must go." 
 
 " Why ? " pleaded the lady, using unscrupulously all her 
 powers of fascination, all the persuasion of her eyes. 
 
 " I cannot tell you." 
 
 " You are as determined a man as Claud Tyars himself." 
 
 " I am, I reckon in some things." 
 
 " Surely you can trust me, Mr. Easton." 
 
 He moved uneasily in his seat, and she, taking advan- 

 
 Easton Takes Counsel. 317 
 
 tage of his hesitation, leant forward with her two hands 
 held out in supplication ; then he seemed to yield. 
 
 " Because," he said, in an even, emotionless voice, 
 " Claud Tyars has bound himself to go, and I will not let 
 him off his contract ! It is my expedition." 
 
 He hardly expected her to believe it, knowing Tyars 
 and himself as she did. But he was quite aware that he 
 laid himself open to a blow on the sorest spot in his heart. 
 
 " Then why do you not go yourself, Mr. Easton ? " 
 
 He winced under it all the same, though he made no at- 
 tempt to justify himself. She had touched his pride, and 
 there is no prouder man on earth than a high-bred North 
 American. He merely sat and endeavored to keep his 
 lips still, as Tyars would have managed to do. In a second 
 Miss Winter saw the result of the taunt, and her generous 
 heart was softened. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," she said ; " I know there must 
 be some good reason." 
 
 She waited in order to give him an opportunity of set- 
 ting forth his good reason, but he refused to take it, and 
 she never had the satisfaction of hearing it from his own 
 lips. 
 
 At this moment the front-door bell gave a good old- 
 fashioned peal in the basement, and Easton rose to his 
 feet at once. 
 
 " I believe," he said, "that it would be inexpedient for 
 me to be seen here by Miss Grace, or Oswin, or Tyars. 
 They would know what we had been talking about." 
 
 Miss Winter saw the correctness of his judgment. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, " I expect it is Helen. Come 
 into this second drawing-room. When you hear this door 
 opened, go out of the other and down-stairs. Good-by. 
 Come and see me again." 
 
 " I will," he said, vanishing into the inner room.
 
 318 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 EASTON MAKES A STAND. 
 
 THERE is one distinct drawback to the practise of mak- 
 ing disinterested endeavors. This lies in the simple fact 
 that no one (not even the best of friends) believes in the 
 motive of such endeavors. A disinterested man is like the 
 sea-serpent, inasmuch as those who have met him are so 
 systematically pooh-poohed that they begin to disbelieve 
 the evidence of their own senses. A disinterested woman 
 is still rarer, though one might find such a creature if one 
 took the trouble to search, and lived long enough to do so 
 systematically. 
 
 But the disinterested woman was a specimen of the hu- 
 man kind which had not yet come to classification in the 
 mind of Matthew Mark Easton. He effected his retreat 
 with masterly success, but was unfortunate enough to 
 carry away with him a wrong impression ; namely, that 
 Miss Winter had endeavored to frustrate his plans, not 
 for Helen's sake, but for her own. It was not Claud 
 Tyars whom she wished to keep in England, but Oswin 
 Grace, and in the mean time it was very convenient to as- 
 sign an impersonal reason to her antagonism. Easton 
 thought no less of Miss Winter because she adopted this 
 ruse. He had been reared in a keen competitive school, 
 teaching somewhat vague scruples ; and in matters of love 
 it is well known that the line is very lightly drawn that 
 separates the honorable from the dishonorable, 
 
 Easton was a keen analyst of the smaller factors of daily
 
 Easton Makes a Stand. 319 
 
 existence. He was an expert on the surface of the human 
 mind. Without making any great study of character, 
 without looking very deep for motives, his knowledge of 
 the superficial was exceedingly varied. Little conversa- 
 tional and social habits rarely escaped his notice. Had he 
 been a novelist he would have recorded with infinite sub- 
 tlety the small-beer of social intercourse from which is dis- 
 tilled the drachm of spirit called Individuality. But be- 
 yond that his powers would have been unable to reach. 
 He could not have drawn a character with any sequence, 
 although the same might be hidden in the unclassified mass 
 of his chronicles. And, after all, his method had its good 
 points. He may have made mistakes ; but you may 
 study human nature all your life, by any method whatso- 
 ever, and you will do the same. Many of us, you know, 
 are devoid of character. The majority of us without 
 doubt are in this position. We (the majority) are all su- 
 perficies and no depth, all small-beer and no spirit. And 
 so the superficial method is probably the safest. One 
 meets with more momentary motives than permanent 
 purposes, although in many cases the former in their 
 number tend directly or indirectly to the service of a 
 single purpose. These cases, however, are generally 
 women, and the gentle divergence of all small motives to 
 one great purpose is not the force of the character, but the 
 tendency of the soul. We may read character, but the 
 soul is illegible. One can foretell the career of character, 
 but no man can say whither the soul shall lead. 
 
 Easton had studied Miss Winter in his superficial way, 
 and during the conversation just recorded he had not failed 
 to observe the apparent care taken by her to avoid mention- 
 ing the name of Oswin Grace. Some astute readers may 
 think that there was a reason for this keen-sightedness. 
 Perhaps it was so, but that will be seen hereafter. And
 
 32O Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 in anticipation of possible criticism it may be well to rec- 
 ognize now the probability that some may think these 
 people too subtle in their motives, too secret, too much 
 given to concealment to be quite natural. Some may 
 opine that there are too many cross-purposes and crooked 
 answers in this narration to be quite true to life. But it 
 is this very truth that makes it so, for this is no flight of 
 poesy, no idyll of the nineteenth century, but a plain rec- 
 ord of such incidents as influenced the lives of certain 
 people, some of whom will read this page, while others 
 have learnt the meaning of it all ; and, having received 
 understanding, are aware of those flaws in mortal life 
 which make existence what it is. And in self-defense 
 let me ask you if you have never played this same game 
 of cross-purposes and crooked answers. Let me ask if 
 you and your friends are in the habit of boldly publishing 
 the inward thoughts of your hearts in order to save others 
 from harboring error if you have met a maiden willing 
 to expose the inward secret of her soul in order to save 
 others from mistakes. It is a fruitful topic, this one of 
 mistakes, and some day I shall write an astounding essay 
 upon it for an influential magazine, when requested to do 
 so by its editor. Without mistakes the world would be a 
 very different place from what it is. Looking at it from 
 a political economical point of view this state of infallibility 
 would be most disastrous, for the labor-market would be 
 overstocked even more than it is at present. In every 
 bank, in all large offices, are there not a number of clerks 
 whose sole duty is to seek for and correct the mistakes of 
 others? And contemplating it from a social standpoint, 
 many of us would find time hanging very heavily on our 
 hands had we not such fruitful employment in the correc- 
 tion of our own mistakes, the patching up of our own 
 blunders, the elucidating of our own muddles.
 
 Easton Makes a Stand. 321 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton was a quick thinker if not a deep 
 one, and it is those who think quickly who give quickly. 
 This man had something to give, something to tear away 
 from his own heart and hold out with generous smiling 
 eyes, and before Miss Winter's door had closed behind 
 him the sacrifice was made. He called a hansom-cab and 
 drove straight to Tyars' club. He found his friend at 
 work among his ship's papers, folding and making up in 
 packets his receipted bills. 
 
 " Morning," said the Englishman. " These papers are 
 almost ready to be handed over to you. All my stores 
 are on board ! " 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Tyars looked up sharply, and as sharply returned to his 
 occupation. Easton was grave an unusual occurrence, 
 and Tyars knew that he had come with news of some sort. 
 He waited, however, for the American to begin, and 
 continued to fold and arrange his papers. 
 
 " I have," said Easton, sitting down and tapping the 
 neat toe of his boot with his cane, " hit quite accidentally 
 upon a discovery . . ." 
 
 " Poor chap ! " muttered Tyars, abstractedly. 
 
 " Which will make a difference in your crew." 
 
 " What ? " exclaimed Tyars, pausing in the middle of 
 a knot. 
 
 " One rule," continued Easton, his queer little face 
 twisting and twinkling with some emotion, which he was 
 endeavoring to conceal, " was that no sweethearts or 
 wives were to be left behind." 
 
 " What are you driving at? " asked Tyars, curtly, in a 
 singularly lifeless voice. 
 
 He was studying a long ship-chandler's bill with the 
 keenness of an accountant. 
 
 " I surmise that my recollection of that rule is correct." 
 21
 
 322 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " I suppose so." 
 
 " Well " Easton paused. " Well, old man, I have 
 discovered a sweetheart." 
 
 " Don't be an ass ! " 
 
 There was something in the tone of his voice that 
 caused Easton to glance at him keenly and then drop 
 entirely the semi-bantering manner and assume one of 
 the utmost gravity. 
 
 " I objected to Grace at first," he said, " because he 
 had too many women-folk about him." 
 
 Tyars threw the papers in a heap and rose suddenly 
 from his seat. He walked to the mantelpiece and 
 selected a cigarette from a tin box standing there. 
 
 "Of course," he said, striking a match, "your dis- 
 covery can only relate to one person." 
 
 " Yes ; you know whom I mean." 
 
 Tyars nodded his head in acquiescence and continued 
 smoking. The little American sat looking in a curious 
 way at this large, impassive, high-bred Englishman, as if 
 gathering enjoyment and edification from the study of him. 
 
 " Well," he drawled at length, " you say nothing ! " 
 
 " There is nothing to say." 
 
 " On the contrary," returned Easton, " there is every- 
 thing to say. That is one of the great mistakes made by 
 you English people. I have noticed it since I have been 
 in this country. You take too much for granted. You 
 let things say themselves too much, and you think it very 
 fine to be impassive and apparently indifferent. But it is 
 not a fine thing, it is silly and unbusinesslike. Do you 
 give up Oswin Grace ? " 
 
 " Certainly ; if you can get him to stay behind." 
 
 " Ya as ; he is another Englishman. He will run his 
 head against a wall if he can. That is to say if there is a 
 thick enough wall around."
 
 Easton Makes a Stand. 323 
 
 Tyars laughed, and turned to flip his cigarette-ash into 
 the fire. 
 
 " I have tried," he said, " to make him give it up." 
 
 Easton looked up in surprise. 
 
 " Indeed ! upon what grounds ? " 
 
 " Upon the grounds that he had ties at home which 
 rendered him unfit for such service." 
 
 " Sister ? " inquired the American. 
 
 " Yes "slowly" sister." 
 
 There was a little pause, and then Easton said thought- 
 fully 
 
 " It is remarkable how much stronger an argument 
 somebody else's sister is in these cases." 
 
 " U m," opined Tyars, somewhat indifferently. He 
 evidently did not know much about the matter. 
 
 "What did Grace say?" inquired the American, 
 calmly. 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. He turned very white about the 
 cheeks, and was evidently in a desperate fright." 
 
 " I suppose he is a good man. The man you want ? " 
 
 " Yes ; he is the man I want." 
 
 Easton meditated for a few moments. 
 
 " And still you will give him up ? " 
 
 " Yes ; there are plenty of men to be had." 
 
 "Tyars, will you speak to him again," said Easton, 
 rising and taking up his hat, " and use . . . that other 
 argument ? " 
 
 Tyars hesitated. " I am not quite sure that it is my 
 business," he said. "I hate meddling in other people's 
 affairs, and after all I suppose Grace knows best what he 
 is doing." 
 
 " Men rarely know what they are doing under these 
 circumstances," observed Easton. 
 
 He waited patiently, hat in hand, to hear what Tyars
 
 324 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 had to say. While he stood there, Muggins, the bull- 
 terrier, rose from the hearthrug, stretched himself, and 
 looked from one to the other in an inquiring and anticipa- 
 tory manner. He took it to be a question of going for a 
 walk, and apparently imagined that the casting vote was 
 his. 
 
 "All right," said Tyars, suddenly, " I will speak to 
 him again ! " 
 
 " To-day," pursued Easton, following up his advantage, 
 " or to-morrow at the latest." 
 
 " Yes ; to-morrow at the latest." 
 
 Then the American took his departure, and Muggins 
 curled himself up on the hearthrug again with a yawn of 
 disappointment. 
 
 There are moments in the lives of most men when they 
 feel themselves impelled by some vague instinct to seek 
 advice. It does not by any means follow that they are 
 prepared to be guided by such advice, nor are these oc- 
 casions invariably critical. Indeed most men make the 
 greater decisions of their lives quite alone, seeking the 
 advice of none, following no example. But in the minor 
 crises of existence, ' and more especially in regard to 
 matters affecting others more than ourselves, the instinc- 
 tive gregariousness of our nature asserts itself. 
 
 Claud Tyars admired Miss Winter more than he admired 
 any woman. The power of her clear practical intellect 
 was full of fascination for him, and she was the woman 
 he would have chosen to consult in such questions as men 
 habitually consult women. In this case it happened that 
 she was just the one person whose advice it was impos- 
 sible to seek. Helen Grace could have counseled him 
 wisely and sweetly, but for reasons of his own he set 
 aside unhesitatingly the idea of questioning her, and he 
 knew that she would never proffer advice unasked.
 
 Easton Makes a Stand. 325 
 
 This man was, as he had told Helen Grace, quite alone 
 in the world. Coming as he did from a solitude-loving 
 stock, he was placed in that grade of life to which solitude 
 is most readily obtainable. The upper middle-class gentle- 
 man of England lives a larger portion of his life alone than 
 almost any class of men on earth. Those above him are 
 usually forced by their rank to occupy positions of promi- 
 nence in the world, are therefore public servants, and con- 
 sequently at the public beck and call. Those beneath 
 him are not rich enough to purchase solitude. They live 
 in small houses surrounded by wife and children, within 
 call of the servants, and not beyond the smell of cooking. 
 
 Since meeting Matthew Mark Easton, Tyars had with- 
 drawn himself from society gently and persistently, with 
 the view of furthering his Quixotic scheme, and in this 
 project circumstances were again favorable to him. He 
 occupied that safe retreat between the haunt of the insup- 
 portable society journalist and the kind-hearted curiosity 
 of the bourgeois. In all large communities the art of 
 " doing without " is highly cultivated. It is only in very 
 small circles and in Scotch song-books that people are 
 missed for longer than a few days. It is a great pity that 
 we have such difficulty in recognizing our own unimpor- 
 tance. If we did so we should be much more independent 
 and study our own inclinations before the consideration 
 of feelings erroneously supposed to exist in the hearts 
 of our friends and relations. 
 
 Claud Tyars was never missed, and to do him justice 
 he was supremely indifferent on this point. It was only 
 at odd moments on shore when he happened to be idle 
 during some rare periods that he gave any thought to the 
 loneliness of his life. And in one respect he was essen- 
 tially British : namely, in the calm readiness with which 
 he undertook to settle all questions for himself. When
 
 326 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 these questions affected his fellow-men he rarely saw rea- 
 son to hesitate, for most Englishmen learn as soon as they 
 leave the nursery what is right and what is wrong ; what 
 is gentlemanly and what the reverse. But this knowledge 
 from its source can only serve as a guide to conduct in re- 
 gard to men. At the period when it is really instilled, 
 namely, during the first few years at school, woman 
 occupies a remarkably obscure position in the youthful 
 mind. At no time of man's life is woman so unimportant, 
 and therefore the boy learns and only cares to learn be- 
 havior towards his fellow-men ; moreover, that which he 
 then learns will go with him through all the fair weather 
 and the foul, through all the storm, and through what little 
 sunshine there may be, till the evening of his life, and the 
 glow of it will linger over his memory as the hushed glow 
 of sunset lingers over a fading landscape and gives it 
 character. 
 
 It is only later in life that we learn our manners, our 
 bows and smirks, our entrances upon and exits from the 
 broader stage of existence. It is then that we awaken to 
 the truth that while men may be served with honesty, 
 women must be treated with chivalry. At the same time 
 we find out that chivalry and honesty are not akin, nor 
 near thereto. It is not always kind to be honest, and if 
 any man hesitate in the choice, let him be chivalrous and 
 he will scarcely rue it. 
 
 Claud Tyars had not learnt chivalry at the best school, 
 his mother's knee, for he had never stood there, and it 
 was therefore no subtle superficial acquirement, but the 
 honest instinctive love of fair play between strong and 
 weak that prompted him to accede to Easton's request.
 
 And Tyars Makes an Effort. 327 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 AND TYARS MAKES AN EFFORT. 
 
 LIKE most persons living and acting alone gathering as 
 it were with their own hands the harvest of their own seed 
 Claud Tyars was remarkable for quickness of action. 
 Having once determined to make another effort to rid him- 
 self of his invaluable lieutenant, he lost no time in putting 
 his thoughts into deeds. In an hour's time he was clam- 
 bering up the smartly-painted side of the exploring ship 
 Argo. It happened to be raining hard the first tepid rain 
 of spring, a few weeks in advance of the calendar and he 
 was clad in a long oilskin coat of which one sleeve hung 
 limp, for his arm was not yet sufficiently healed to bear 
 movement. Perhaps these facts accounted for a certain 
 slowness of gait amounting almost to reluctance as he 
 walked aft towards the companion. He groped his way 
 down the little twisting steps with a clatter of strong boots 
 on the brass-bound tread. 
 
 Oswin Grace was seated in the bright little cabin at a 
 table writing out lists of stores. Many of these same 
 stores were piled on the deck around him, and there was 
 a pleasant odor of paraffin-oil in the air. 
 
 "Morning, old man!" he said abstractedly, drawing 
 the scattered papers towards himself in a heap so as to 
 make more room on the table. At times Oswin Grace 
 felt almost familiar with his self-contained chief. 
 
 "Good morning," answered Tyars.
 
 328 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 He turned to hang up his gleaming oilskin on a hook 
 just outside the cabin-door, then came back, drawing off 
 his wet gloves, which he presently threw down on the 
 deck in front of an eager little copper stove. There was 
 already a sense of homeliness in the manner with which 
 the two men lived and moved and had their being in this 
 little cabin, and Tyars suddenly became conscious of this. 
 He suddenly realized that the cabin, the ship, his whole 
 existence would not be quite the same without the com- 
 panionship of this broad-shouldered little English sailor. 
 He suddenly became aware of the perfect harmony exist- 
 ing between himself and the man who had given up an 
 honorable career to follow him. Perhaps he caught a 
 passing gleam of light from the other's soul, and saw for 
 a moment into the heart of Oswin Grace, understanding 
 the difficulties that lay hidden there. Sometimes these 
 little glimpses of life from another point of view are 
 vouchsafed to us, and we hover on the brink of seeing 
 ourselves as others see us. Perhaps Claud Tyars recog- 
 nized then the great difficulty attached to the occupation 
 of a subordinate position, especially in subordination to 
 a man like himself. An incompetent second-fiddler may 
 make matters extremely inharmonious. Tyars leant over 
 the table and examined one or two accounts in a desul- 
 tory manner. 
 
 "Grace ! " he said. 
 
 " Adsum," replied his companion, cheerfully, without 
 ceasing his work. 
 
 Tyars closed the cabin-door with his elbow. 
 
 " I do not see," he said, slowly and uncomfortably, 
 " how you can very well go with us." 
 
 Grace laid aside his pen and raised his keen gray 
 eyes. His brow was wrinkled, his lips set, his eyes full 
 of fight.
 
 And Tyars Makes an Effort. 329 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because . . ." 
 
 Tyars hesitated, and the two Englishmen remained 
 thus for some seconds, each reading the thoughts of the 
 other as best he might, and very imperfectly at the best. 
 
 "Because," suggested Grace in a hard voice, " I am 
 in love with Agnes Winter ? " 
 
 Tyars nodded his head and stooped to pick up his gloves, 
 holding them subsequently close to the bars of the stove, 
 where they steamed gaily. There was a silence of some 
 duration, and every second increased the discomfort of 
 Claud Tyars. 
 
 " And you," continued Grace at length very deliber- 
 ately, " love Helen ! " 
 
 Tyars stood upright so that his head was very near the 
 beams. He thrust his gloves into his pocket and stood 
 for some seconds grasping his short pointed beard medi- 
 tatively with his uninjured hand. 
 
 "Yes," he said, " I do." 
 
 Grace returned to his ship-chandler's bills with the air 
 of a barrister who, having established his point, thinks it 
 prudent to allow time for it to sink into the brains of 
 judge and jury. 
 
 " I do not mind telling you," he added carelessly, al- 
 most too carelessly, "that Miss Winter is perfectly in- 
 different on the subject." 
 
 " Do you know that for certain ? " asked Tyars, 
 sharply. 
 
 " She told me so herself," answered Grace, with a 
 peculiar little laugh which was not pleasant to the ear. 
 
 He waited obviously for a reciprocal confidence on the 
 part of Tyars, but he waited in vain. The habit of non- 
 communicativeness is one of very quick growth and its 
 roots are deep. The silence of Qswin Grace asked as
 
 33o Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 distinctly as words could have done, " Is Helen as indif- 
 ferent as Agnes Winter ? " and Tyars was conscious of 
 the question. He even made an effort to tear down the 
 barrier that fenced his heart round, but an old habit is a 
 strong antagonist. He could not overcome that deep-seated 
 dislike to the discussion of all things appertaining to 
 thoughts or feelings, which is so characteristic of the 
 Anglo-Saxon race. But he tacitly abandoned all attempts 
 then and for ever to induce Oswin Grace to relinquish 
 his purpose. It was a tame ending to all his resolutions, 
 but his hands were tied, the wind was knocked out of 
 his sails, the tables were turned upon him. 
 
 Claud Tyars was not one of those fatuous young men 
 who imagine that they can conceal anything for very long 
 from the world. But he had hitherto been under the 
 impression that his love for Helen Grace was a matter 
 known only to himself and Helen, suspected only by Miss 
 Winter. And after all, if a man makes a point of avoid- 
 ing entirely the woman he loves, and thus does away 
 with the danger of betraying himself in her presence by 
 manner, speech, or silence, he is assuredly justified in 
 priding himself on the security of his secret. Tyars 
 could tell on the fingers of his two hands the number of 
 times he had spoken to Helen Grace since his return to 
 England, and one hand would suffice to numerate the in- 
 terviews which had taken place in the presence of Oswin. 
 It is possible that in the elaboration of his plans for con- 
 cealing his love from Helen herself and keeping it hidden 
 from the keen eyes of Miss Winter and Matthew Mark 
 Easton, he had overlooked the man who, while quietly 
 working at his side, was acquiring a fuller cognizance of 
 his plans, and hopes, and fears than that possessed by 
 the American himself. This was very likely, because it 
 is a mistake we make every day of our lives. We are
 
 And Tyars Makes an Effort. 331 
 
 always looking into distances and neglecting that which 
 is near at hand. 
 
 Oswin Grace was the first to speak, quietly shelving 
 his own affairs with that philosophy of resignation which 
 is best understood by those who have been brought to 
 manhood under discipline. 
 
 " Of course," he said, " I have no desire to meddle 
 with your affairs. I ask no questions, and I look for no 
 spontaneous confidences. It will be better for you to 
 lose sight altogether of the coincidence that I am her 
 brother." 
 
 Tyars had seated himself on the corner of the cabin- 
 table, with his back half turned towards his companion. 
 He had picked up a piece of straw, of which there was a 
 quantity lying on table and floor, and this he was biting 
 meditatively. It was as yet entirely a puzzle to him, 
 and this was only a new complication. He could not 
 understand it, just as better men than Claud Tyars have 
 failed to understand it all through. For no one, I take it, 
 does understand love, and no man can say whither it will 
 lead. 
 
 " There need," 'continued Oswin Grace, perforating 
 a series of small holes in his blotting-paper with the point 
 of a cedar-wood pencil, "be no nonsense of that sort. I 
 am not going to take it upon myself to watch over Helen's 
 interests ; they are much safer in your hands than in 
 mine." 
 
 Still Tyars said nothing, and after a little pause Grace 
 went on in measured, thoughtful tones, carrying with 
 them the weight of deliberation. 
 
 "There is one point," he said, "upon which I think 
 there must be an understanding." 
 
 "Yes," said Tyars, anxiously. 
 
 " Any risks extra risks, such as boat- work, night-
 
 332 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 work up aloft these must be mine. From what you 
 have said I gather that your intention was to be skipper, 
 and yet do the rough work as well. When anything 
 hazardous is to be done, I shall do it. You must stick to 
 the ship." 
 
 The big man gave a little annoyed laugh. 
 
 " It is your duty not only towards her, but towards 
 the rest of us. A skipper has no right to risk his life if 
 he can get some one of less value to risk his." 
 
 "I am not aware of any intention to deprive you of 
 your share of the dirty work." 
 
 " You are not conscious of it, you mean, old fellow ! " 
 corrected Grace, " but I am. I have been conscious of it 
 all along. I have got my knife into you now, and if you 
 do not submit I shall woggle it about and cause you some 
 discomfort." 
 
 The words were spoken pleasantly, almost playfully ; 
 but Tyars turned in some vague astonishment to look at 
 his companion, and saw a look in the keen gray eyes 
 which he had not perceived there since Oswin Grace 
 took command of the Martial over his head. It was not 
 defiance, for English eyes do not look defiance except in 
 books ; but it breathed that high-born quiet determination 
 which knows exactly where to draw the line between 
 discipline and servitude. 
 
 Tyars laughed and turned away his glance. It was a 
 bold stroke, and Oswin Grace had dealt it diplomatically ; 
 for the feeling of tension that had been in the atmosphere 
 of the little cabin seemed to relax, and a fuller under- 
 standing crept in between the two men. 
 
 " I have no doubt," said Tyars, seating himself at the 
 table and beginning to open his letters, " that we are all 
 constructing a very fine mountain out of materials in- 
 tended for a mole-hill. 1 for one have no intention of
 
 And Tyars Makes an Effort. 333 
 
 leaving my bones in the far North. There is no reason 
 why we should not all be back home by this time next 
 year." 
 
 " None at all," agreed Oswin, somewhat perfunctorily, 
 adding with a suspicion of doubt the next minute, " Sup- 
 pose we succeed ? " 
 
 " Well, what then ? " 
 
 " Suppose we get there all right, rescue the men and 
 go on safely ; we get over the elemental danger, and 
 then we have to face the political, which is worse." 
 
 " I do not see it," replied Tyars. " We sell the ship 
 at San Francisco. Half the crew expect to be paid off 
 there, the other half will disperse with their passage- 
 money in their pockets, and very few of them will find 
 their way back to England. Our doctor is a German 
 Socialist, with several aliases ; our second mate a simple- 
 minded Norwegian whaling-skipper. The exiles do not 
 know a word of English, or pretend they do not, and 
 none of the crew speak Russian. There will be abso- 
 lutely no intercourse on board, and only you, the doctor, 
 and myself will ever know who the rescued men really 
 are. The crew will imagine that they are the survivors 
 of a Russian ivory-hunting expedition, and if the truth 
 ever comes out it will be impossible to prove that you and 
 1 knew better." 
 
 " But it will not be easy to keep the newspapers 
 quiet." 
 
 " We shall not attempt to keep them quiet. It will 
 only be a local matter. The San Francisco papers will 
 publish libelous woodcuts of our countenances and a col- 
 umn or two purporting to be biographical, but the world 
 will be little the wiser. In America such matters are in- 
 teresting only in so much as they are personal, and there 
 is in reality nothing easier than the suppression of one's
 
 334 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 personality. There is no difficulty in kicking an inter- 
 viewer out of the room, just as one would kick out any in- 
 truder ; and we are quite indifferent as to whether the 
 American newspapers abuse us or not after having been 
 kicked. As to the details of the voyage, I shall with- 
 hold those with the view of publishing a book, which is 
 quite the correct thing to do nowadays. The book shall 
 always be in course of preparation, and will never ap- 
 pear." 
 
 In this wise the two men continued talking, planning, 
 scheming, all the morning, while they worked methodi- 
 cally and prosaically. Whatever mistakes they may have 
 made, however Quixotic they may have been, there was 
 no fault to find in the manner in which they fitted up 
 their ship and mapped out each detail of their expedition. 
 Whatever else they may have been, they were good sail- 
 ors ; and that is sufficient praise for most men. 
 
 They carefully confined their conversation to the future, 
 and avoided all reference to those subjects which had been 
 so lamely and scrappily discussed earlier in the day. Hav- 
 ing set their hands to the plow, they seemed, alike, 
 nervously determined to look always ahead, ignoring and 
 quelling all thought of what they were leaving behind 
 them.
 
 The Eleventh of March. 335 
 
 CHAPTER XXXV. 
 
 THE ELEVENTH OF MARCH. 
 
 EVEN the watched pot boils in time. There comes an 
 end to all things. The painter finally lays aside his 
 brush ; the writer at last presses his blotting-paper over 
 " Finis." The composer must some day dot in the last 
 chord to his opera. And these men in reaching the close 
 of their labor complete an era of their lives. The printer 
 also sets up " Finis " in his type, but that action is no 
 item in his existence. It is only the end of a creation that 
 leaves its mark upon the heart ; it is only those who 
 create who lose something when their work is done 
 who pass on in life with a sense of vacancy somewhere 
 in their being. For that creation, whether it be picture, 
 book, or opus, is part of the man ; it has the scent and 
 impress of his Soul, and from his Soul a portion of its vir- 
 tue has gone out. And yet the completed work is always 
 there the creator is always conscious of its presence, of 
 its companionship in the world though it stand neglected 
 on a shelf, or hang unseen in a picture-seller's back 
 shop. 
 
 Men who have conceived and have finally brought to 
 completion some great scheme are partakers in this feel- 
 ing. They too know the joy of creation perhaps they 
 taste the sweetness of success. It is to be hoped that 
 they do, because success is their guiding-star ; it is more
 
 336 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 necessary to them than to the artist, who finds joy in the 
 act of producing alone. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton did not claim for his scheme the 
 magnitude of a life-long dream. It had been conceived in 
 idleness, and of leisure it was the fruit. But he had lived 
 with it night and day for nearly three years, until he had 
 fallen into the habit of thinking of little else. He had ac- 
 quired that lamentable custom of looking on men and things 
 from one point of view only taking interest or feeling in- 
 difference in both only as possible factors. But he was 
 unconscious of it all. Like most eloquent men he was ig- 
 norant of the distance that he might carry others by his 
 words, and remain unmoved himself. He had carried 
 Claud Tyars, who in turn had dragged him after, not by 
 eloquence, but by the silent force of an absorbed will. 
 
 When Easton woke up on the eleventh morning of 
 March he was conscious of a certain unsteadiness of pur- 
 pose in minor matters. He failed to dress himself with 
 the quick completeness which usually characterized his 
 toilet. He meditated over his ablutions and dawdled 
 with his razor. His hand was not only slow, but dis- 
 tinctly shaky, and he came very near to bloodshed. He 
 stepped to the window and contemplated the heavens of a 
 pearly green such as goes by the name of blue sky in 
 London and this was a man who never displayed the 
 slightest interest in barometrical matters. 
 
 This day, the eleventh of March, was fixed for the sail- 
 ing of the Argo exploring vessel, and Easton's chief 
 thought on the subject was a vague wonder as to what he 
 would do with himself after she had gone. This little man 
 rather prided himself upon the possession of a hard and 
 impregnable nineteenth-century heart. He took a certain 
 small pleasure in the reflection that he was as nearly in- 
 dependent as it is possible for any human being to be.
 
 The Eleventh of March. 337 
 
 Although he was naturally of a gregarious and sociable 
 habit, he held in reserve the thought that the practise of 
 sociability was with him merely a matter of expediency, 
 and not of necessity as it is with some. He could drop all 
 his acquaintances at a moment's notice and never feel the 
 loss. In fact he had of late cherished the idea of going to 
 San Francisco to await the arrival of the Argo. He at all 
 events was sanguine of success. 
 
 And yet he was distinctly disturbed this morning of the 
 eleventh of March disturbed, that is to say, for a man 
 devoid of human tie or sympathy. It is possible that he 
 was surprised at himself, and perhaps annoyed, for he 
 whistled persistently and somewhat aggressively while he 
 dressed. 
 
 The Argo was to pass out of the tidal basin into the 
 river at one o'clock, and at half-past twelve Easton drove 
 up to the dock-gates. He brought with him the last items 
 of the ship's outfit in the shape of a pile of newspapers, 
 and a bunch of hot-house roses for the cabin-table, for 
 there was to be a luncheon-party on board while steaming 
 down the river. 
 
 He found Admiral Grace strolling about the deck with 
 Tyars, conversing in quite a friendly way, and endeavor- 
 ing honestly to suppress his contempt for seamanship of 
 so young a growth as that of his companion. The ladies 
 were below, inspecting the ship under Oswin's guidance. 
 
 The little vessel lay snugly under the high stone quay, 
 and presented the appearance of some quaint, old-fashioned 
 little man-of-war, so spotless were her decks, so mathe- 
 matically correct the coiling of every rope, so bright her 
 brass-work. One could have guessed that her first officer 
 had served under the white ensign. 
 
 A few idlers stood on the quay with that peaceful sense 
 of contemplation which comes to men who pass their lives 
 22
 
 338 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 near water, and exchanged gruff monosyllables of approval 
 at long and uncertain intervals ; varying the same with an 
 interchange of quids, and sociable expectoration. 
 
 Easton joined the two sailors after having dropped the 
 roses and newspapers through the open cabin-skylight, 
 and his presence was somewhat a relief to both. 
 
 "She is," he said, addressing himself to the admiral 
 with transatlantic courtesy, " a strange mixture of the 
 man-of-war and the yacht do you not find it so, sir ? " 
 
 " She is," answered the old gentleman, guardedly, " one 
 of the most complete vessels I have ever boarded though 
 her outward appearance is of course against her." 
 
 " One can detect," continued the American, looking 
 round with a musing eye, "the influence of a naval 
 officer." 
 
 The old gentleman softened visibly. He had been 
 guilty of allowing it to be understood by several of his 
 friends that his son Oswin was virtually in command of 
 this vessel, while Claud Tyars was merely the leader of 
 the expedition. The remembrance of this lapse had been 
 brought back rather rudely to his conscience during the 
 short colloquy that had been interrupted by the advent of 
 Easton, and the admiral was just beginning to smart under 
 a realization of Oswin's comparative unimportance. This 
 impression had certainly not been conveyed with intention 
 for Tyars was perfectly ignorant of its existence. The 
 simple truth was that he was a commander by nature, 
 while Oswin Grace was cast in a different mold. The 
 naval officer was an excellent subordinate, and in order to 
 excel in this difficult line it is essential to appear unim- 
 portant. The value of a good subordinate should be 
 known alone to his immediate superior the general pub 
 lie should be unsuspicious of his worth. This was pre- 
 cisely the position of Oswin Grace, and looking at it from
 
 The Eleventh of March. 339 
 
 a naval point of view, it was not untinged with humiliation. 
 Contemplated from a common-sense standpoint it could 
 scarcely have been improved upon ; but old gentlemen 
 (like young ones) do not always take this point of 
 view. 
 
 " Even to a landlubber like myself," said Easton glibly, 
 "that influence is apparent." 
 
 At this moment the ladies appeared, escorted by Oswin 
 Grace Miss Winter first, with a searching little smile in 
 her eyes. Easton saw that she was very much on the 
 alert. 
 
 " I feel quite at home," she said to him, looking round 
 her, " although there are so many changes." 
 
 " So do I ; the more so because the changes have been 
 made under my own directions." 
 
 They walked aft, leaving the rest of the party standing 
 together. As they walked Oswin Grace watched them 
 with a singular light in his clear gray eyes, singular be- 
 cause gray eyes rarely glisten, they only darken at times. 
 Miss Winter and her companion, in silence, watched the 
 pier-head hand cast off the last hawser the last link be- 
 tween the Argo and terra-firma. It happened that the 
 rest of the party were doing the same in a mechanically 
 interested way. 
 
 " Does she seem to you," asked Easton, suddenly, 
 " like an unfortunate ship ? " 
 
 The Gravesend pilot who was standing near to them 
 shouted some instructions to the master of the tug in such 
 stentorian tones that Miss Winter was compelled to wait 
 a few moments until he had finished his observations. 
 
 As she answered, the paddles of the tug revolved with 
 a splash ; the tow-rope seethed out of the water, and the 
 Argo moved perceptibly. 
 
 " No," she answered, "there is a reassuring air of
 
 340 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 of something stronger than savoir-faire about the ship 
 which I like." 
 
 " Savoir-faire," he suggested, " not only savoir-dire." 
 
 "Yes," she answered, with a comprehensive little 
 nod ; and they stood watching the tactics of the ship's 
 crew and the dock-hands without understanding very 
 much. 
 
 Oswin Grace had gone forward on to the diminutive old- 
 fashioned forecastle. Claud Tyars stood beside the pilot, 
 while the whaling-captain was not far off. There was 
 singularly little shouting. Tyars and Grace never opened 
 their lips. Once Tyars made a little movement with his 
 hand which was rotatory in its tendency. Grace an- 
 swered with a nod, and spoke quietly to a man beside him, 
 who immediately set a small steam-winch to work. For 
 some moments there was no sound except the convulsive 
 grunts of the winch, and these were finally arrested by a 
 motion of Tyars's hand. These two men had slept the 
 night before in the West End of London ; they had put on 
 their clothes there a few hours before, and in the way in 
 which they wore these clothes (by no means maritime in 
 cut) there was that ineffaceable stamp of the British sports- 
 man with which one comes into contact in many strange 
 places. 
 
 Presently the vessel glided smoothly between the slimy 
 gates out into the open river. The tow-line was cast off, 
 and the Argo's engines started. The vessel swung slowly 
 round on the greasy waters, pointing her blunt stubborn 
 prow down the misty river. She settled to her work 
 with a docile readiness, like a farmer's mare on the out- 
 ward road. 
 
 " This is a new experience for you," said Easton, with 
 the faint American tinge which came to his tongue in 
 unguarded moments.
 
 The Eleventh of March. 341 
 
 "Yes," Miss Winter answered, "I did not want to 
 come." 
 
 " Ah ! " he looked up aloft where a boy was at work 
 on a tiny yard-arm. She did not however continue, so he 
 encouraged her. " Why did you not want to come ? " 
 
 " I knew we should be horribly in the way. 1 am al- 
 ways conscious of being in the way on a ship that is not 
 securely tied down all round moored, I mean." 
 
 " I do not detect any signs of annoyance on the part of 
 the executive. ' ' 
 
 "No," admitted Miss Winter. "One would say that 
 it had all been carefully rehearsed." 
 
 " Then what is the true reason ? " he inquired, coolly 
 almost too coolly for a man of his temperament. 
 
 " I do not know. I am nervous. I dislike the drama- 
 tic . . ." 
 
 " The unrehearsed ? " he suggested. 
 
 She gave a little laugh and turned away to look at a 
 brown-sailed barge which was scudding across the river 
 astern of them. 
 
 " Yes, the unrehearsed." 
 
 " But," he said, "there is no ckama. We are a light- 
 comedy company. We make nice little jokes and laugh at 
 them enthusiastically. I surmise, at least, that we shall 
 do so. The corners of my mouth are beginning to turn up 
 already." 
 
 " I came on board," said Miss Winter, gravely, " with 
 a broad smile which I expected to last me all day but it 
 appears to have faded." 
 
 He looked at her critically in his peculiar twinkling way, 
 not untinged however with concern. 
 
 "Yes," he admitted, "it has. You must polish it up 
 for luncheon. I intend to be intensely funny, and I guess 
 you will have to laugh."
 
 342 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " I suppose Mr. Tyars will be of no assistance." 
 
 " Not of the very smallest. He is not good at that 
 sort of thing deep people, I take it, never are ; it is only 
 shallow water that sparkles in a breeze." 
 
 " I am still of opinion that it is a pity we came," said 
 the lady, making a little movement to join the other group. 
 Perhaps she was conscious of Oswin's occasional glances 
 in her direction, but if she was there was nothing in her 
 manner to betray it. 
 
 " I always was of that opinion," admitted the Ameri- 
 can, following her, " but I could not prevent it." 
 
 Then they joined Admiral Grace and Helen. Pres- 
 ently, and before any conversation had passed, Tyars 
 and Oswin came up together. Helen was standing 
 slightly apart, and the delicately embarrassed interest 
 which she was still showing in everything, was not the 
 strangeness of a landswoman to all things maritime ; it 
 was a new-born shyness which she could not have de- 
 fined herself a sudden maidenly fear of betraying too 
 great an interest in any one man, or the handiwork of 
 any one man. Whatever it may have been, it lent an 
 additional fascination to her grave young face for the con- 
 trolled shyness of a man or woman is always pleasant to 
 meet. To Helen Grace it was infinitely becoming, it sug- 
 gested in some subtle way the glow of youth, the fresh 
 savor of inexperience. She must have looked like that at 
 her first ball, when gaslight had no suggestion of its native 
 coal ; when smiles were only smiles, and never masks ; 
 when she had been happy to take the surface of things. 
 
 Tyars approached her, and stood by her side with that 
 grave attention which a preoccupied man accords to 
 those women who command his respect. Then suddenly, 
 in his abrupt way, he spoke. 
 
 " You will never see this ship again," he said.
 
 The Eleventh of March. 343 
 
 She made a little movement with her head and throat, 
 as if a sudden chill had caused her to shiver. 
 
 " What do you mean ? " 
 
 " We are going to sell her out there at San Francisco." 
 
 " Ah yes," she murmured with evident relief. 
 
 The effort to talk of commonplace matters in a common- 
 place way was a trifle en evidence on both sides. 
 
 " Do you admire the ship ? " he asked, looking steadily 
 at her as one looks at one's partner when the game hangs 
 on a balance. " What is your opinion of her ? " 
 
 The girl made an effort. 
 
 " Oh," she replied with a clear, firm smile, " Of course 
 I know nothing about it ; but my first impression was 
 surprise at her diminutiveness. She still seems to me 
 absurdly small. I am wofully ignorant on nautical mat- 
 ters, and size appeals to me as safety." 
 
 " In this case size has little to do with safety. In fact, 
 the smaller we are the stronger we shall be, as long as we 
 can carry all we wish. We have sent on our coal, you 
 know, by another steamer." 
 
 " To wait for you? " 
 
 " Yes, to wait for me for us." 
 
 It was a foolish mistake to make, but it was just one of 
 those mistakes which the tongue sometimes takes it upon 
 itself to perpetrate, and the brain, however alert it may 
 be, is for the moment paralyzed. It is a dangerous pas- 
 time to think of one thing and to talk of another. Some 
 of us pride ourselves that we can keep up one conversation 
 and listen to another at the same time. 
 
 Claud Tyars had been talking with his brain while his 
 tongue was listening to his heart ; and it was singular how 
 complete his betrayal was. So small a slip might easily 
 have passed unnoticed, but before he had even time to 
 alter the pronoun Helen changed color. He heard the
 
 344 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 quick, gasping breath, and although he did not dare to 
 look in her direction, he was conscious of her quickly 
 averted face. 
 
 Taking into consideration the social experience they 
 must both have possessed considering that they had 
 danced together eight years before they were singularly 
 gauches. They did a very unwise thing ; they allowed 
 the incident to be magnified into a silence one of those 
 horrid silences which come in times of pressure, when 
 there is a strain in the atmosphere. 
 
 Parting words may be very sad, very weighty, very 
 eloquent, but they are infinitely kinder than parting 
 silences. Which think you to be more weighty ; the few 
 broken words of a dying man the recommendations, the 
 instructions, the advice or the breathless silence when 
 he sinks back on the weary pillow, and in the concentra- 
 tion of his eyes one can read all that is unsaid all that is 
 never said in this world, and for which there can be no 
 need in the next? It was Claud Tyars who finally spoke. 
 
 " Come," he said with a peculiar twisted smile ; " lun- 
 cheon is ready. Let us lead the way, and the others will 
 follow."
 
 Off ! 345 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 OFF! 
 
 HAD an acute but uninitiated observer been introduced 
 into the little cabin of the Argo during the consumption of 
 the delicate repast provided by her officers, he or she 
 could scarcely have failed to notice a certain recklessness 
 of hilarity among the party assembled. Admiral Grace 
 was the only one who really did justice to the steward's 
 maiden and supreme effort, and he in consequence was 
 singular in failing to appreciate the witticisms of Matthew 
 Mark Easton and Oswin Grace. This was perhaps owing 
 to the fact that when we have passed the half-way mile- 
 stone in life we fail to appreciate the most brilliant con- 
 versation if it be served up with savory viands and choice 
 wine. This, I say, was perhaps the reason ; for we can- 
 not always tell how much silent old gentlemen see and 
 note while enjoying the fullest flavor of their sherry. It 
 is just possible that Admiral Grace did not think very 
 much of the wit taken as wit pure and simple. His 
 position was not unique. You and I, mon vieux, know 
 perhaps something about it. We also may have found 
 ourselves in the midst of a party of young people who 
 seem to have an object in attempting very lamely to de- 
 ceive each other. We also may have listened to very 
 feeble witticisms recognized by silvery laughter that 
 follows too quickly on the heels of the sally to be natural, 
 and we also may have turned philosophically to the menu
 
 346 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 with a feeling that something was going on something 
 vague and subtle, fit only for young minds to understand. 
 
 Once or twice Easton's words recurred to Miss Winter : 
 " I intend to be intensely funny, and I guess you will 
 have to laugh." This was her cue, and she acted up 
 to it. 
 
 On the finite principle the meal came to an end also, 
 and a move was made. There was nothing else to do 
 but to go on deck, which was not so unpleasant a resort as 
 it might have been with an east wind. The admiral and 
 Easton were accommodated with cigars, the ladies with 
 deck-chairs, under the friendly cover of a windsail . There 
 happened to be very few steamers going down the river, 
 and the Argo glided forward on the unctuously moving 
 water with that semi-helpless clumsiness which charac- 
 terizes the movement of a steamer on the bosom of a 
 strong tide. In certain reaches of the river they were 
 quite alone, and only at times they passed a Medway sail- 
 ing-barge floating down to Sheerness. Occasionally a 
 bluff weather-beaten fish-carrier, or a tall-funneled tug 
 would steam busily past them, up-stream ; but for the 
 time all the ocean traffic seemed to be suspended. Doubt- 
 less the inward-bound liners were lying miles below, at 
 Gravesend, conscious of having missed a tide. The 
 denser forest of tall chimneys had been left behind, and 
 only at intervals was either bank disfigured by slow 
 smoking monuments of industry. The left bank lay low 
 and dank, while to the right the watershed of Kent began 
 already to rise in tree-covered slopes. 
 
 " Where are we ? " asked Miss Winter, with a certain 
 determined cheerfulness. 
 
 It was Tyars who answered. 
 
 " We have passed Greenwich and Woolwich ; over 
 there is Plumstead Marsh."
 
 Off ! 347 
 
 Miss Winter followed the direction of his outstretched 
 hand. She belonged to the essentially sedentary circle 
 of the West End of London, and to her Woolwich and 
 Greenwich were merely names ; the one connected with 
 an arsenal, the other with a bygone custom of dining on 
 a simple little fish. To her such names as Cubit Town, 
 Plumstead, Rainham, and Purfleet were totally unknown, 
 There was a little silence during which both ladies looked 
 around them with simulated interest. Tyars seemed to 
 divine an unasked question. 
 
 " Over there is Gravesend. It is just behind that high 
 land. The smoke you see there is from the town ; we 
 shall be there in an hour," he said. 
 
 " And do you stop anchor, or whatever it is ? " in- 
 quired Miss Winter, looking away from Helen with an 
 almost noticeable persistence. 
 
 " No we go on to sea to-night," Tyars answered 
 crisply, with a quick glance in the direction avoided by 
 Miss Winter. Then he turned and looked at his interlo- 
 cutress as if to enjoy the triumph of having baffled her. 
 For a moment she was conscious of a subtle humiliation- 
 she felt as if she were forming part of a victor's triumphal 
 procession. The next instant she smiled into his eyes. 
 A woman rather likes the degradation of being overcome 
 by a man ; it keeps up her healthy respect for the sex 
 a respect which few of us cultivate with conspicuous 
 success. 
 
 " As I was telling Miss Grace before lunch," continued 
 Tyars, before the pause grew irksome, "you will not see 
 this old ship again." 
 
 " So Oswin told me. You both speak of it in a very 
 heartless way. I always understood that sailors were so 
 devoted to their ships." 
 
 " Seems," said Oswin, " rather like hiring a man to
 
 348 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 save your life, and dismissing him with a shilling extra and 
 a smile when he has done it." 
 
 " We could not bring the ship back so far from senti- 
 mental motives," said Tyars, in a matter-of-fact way ; 
 and he spoke with that hardness which is only found in 
 certain ranges of society, and strange to say, one finds it 
 in the same social altitude in France as in England. Its 
 chief characteristic is negative, for it conveys a subtle 
 and yet flat refusal to admit that there is anything in life 
 worth getting flurried about. It will not recognize the 
 existence of any emotion which cannot be lived down. 
 And yet these people, educated descendants of educated 
 men and women, are just those who know how to suffer 
 most. Education and hereditary refinement are the seed 
 and hot-bed of that sensibility to which pain can be most 
 cruel. This is no doubt only another illustration of that 
 serene adaptability to circumstances which characterizes 
 the workings of Nature in everything. If the body can 
 adapt itself, if one eye can assume the responsibility of 
 two, if one lung can do its fellow's work in addition to 
 its own, why should not the heart learn to adapt itself to 
 new emotions ? For new emotions must be provided ; is 
 there not a quill-wielding army seeking daily for them ? 
 And these new emotions bring new antidotes. There are 
 many cures as there are many maladies of the heart the 
 ridicule cure, the cynicism cure, the novelty cure, the ex- 
 citement cure, but surest of all the Irving down. As in 
 physical diseases there are certain tough hearts to which 
 only the strongest anticor can penetrate, and for these the 
 living-down cure is alone effectual. Claud Tyars was just 
 the man to adopt at once and with forethought the most 
 stringent measures. In this he only followed the in- 
 stincts of the class of which he was an unusually per- 
 fect specimen the hard-limbed product of English public
 
 Off ! 349 
 
 school and university. If one takes a square inch of bone 
 from the leg of a thoroughbred horse and place it in com- 
 parison with the same portion taken from the limb of a 
 dray-horse, the magic touch of breed and blood can be 
 detected at once. The thoroughbred bone is hard and 
 close and white like ivory ; the other is gray and porous. 
 So is it with human hearts that of the man or woman 
 descended from refined and educated ancestors is purer 
 and whiter and more delicate ; but it is also harder. 
 Claud Tyars was no doubt a hard-hearted man, else 
 he would not have slipped so readily into the post of 
 command which seemed to be waiting for him. He had 
 a strong belief in the subservience of the emotions to con- 
 venience. He was the very antitype to those individuals 
 who fall in love with barmaids or run amuck among the 
 prejudices of their relatives. And so, after all, he assisted 
 Miss Winter and Matthew Mark Easton beyond their ex- 
 pectation. Presently he left the group, for he had other 
 duties to attend to, although the pilot was in charge. There 
 was no confusion, no shouting on board this little ship, but 
 all went smoothly with that mixed discipline of the yacht 
 and the man-of-war which Easton had commented upon. 
 
 The moments dwindled on with the slow, dragging 
 monotony which characterizes latest moments, and 
 makes us almost impatient to see the last of faces which 
 we shall perhaps never look upon again. Presently the 
 town of Gravesend hove in sight, and all on the quarter 
 deck of the Argo gazed at it as they might have gazed on 
 some unknown Eastern city after traversing the desert. 
 And then after all all the waiting, the preparation, the 
 counting of moments, and the calculating of distances the 
 bell in the engine-room came as a surprise. There was 
 something startling in the clang of the gong as the engi- 
 neer replied.
 
 350 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 Helen was the last to rise. She stood holding the shawl 
 which Oswin had spread over her knees, and looked round 
 with a strange intense gaze. There are moments when 
 the human brain becomes sensitized like a photographer's 
 dry plate, and the impressions received during those mo- 
 ments are clear, distinct, and imperishable like a finished 
 photograph. 
 
 The steamer was now drifting slowly on the tide with 
 resting engines. There were two boats rowing towards 
 her from Gravesend Pier, one a low, green painted wherry 
 for the pilot, the other a larger boat with stained and 
 faded red cushions. The scene the torpid yellow river, 
 the sordid town and low riverside warehouses could 
 scarce have been exceeded for pure unvarnished dismal- 
 ness. 
 
 Already the steps were being lowered. In a few mo- 
 ments the larger boat swung alongside, held by a rope 
 made fast in the forecastle of the Argo. A general move 
 was made towards the rail. Tyars passed out on to the 
 gangway, where he stood waiting to hand the ladies into 
 the boat. Helen was near to her brother ; she turned to 
 him and kissed him in silence. Then she went to the 
 gangway. There was a little pause, and for a moment 
 Helen and Tyars were left alone at the foot of the brass- 
 bound steps. 
 
 "Good-by," said Tyars. 
 
 There was a slight prolongation of the last syllable as 
 if he had something else to say ; but he never said it, 
 although she gave him time. 
 
 "Good-by," she answered at length, and she too 
 seemed to have something to add which was never added. 
 
 Then she stepped lightly into the boat and took her 
 place on the faded red cushions. 
 
 The Argo went to sea that night. There was much to
 
 Off ! 35i 
 
 do, although everything seemed to be in its place, and 
 every man appeared to know his duty. It thus happened 
 that Tyars and Grace had not a moment to themselves 
 until well on into the night. The watch was set at eight 
 o'clock. For a moment Tyars paused before leaving his 
 chief officer alone on the little bridge. 
 
 " What a clever fellow Easton is ! " he said. " I never 
 recognized it until this afternoon." 
 
 " Um-m," returned Oswin Grace, without lowering his 
 glasses.
 
 352 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 A HORRIBLE TASK. 
 
 THERE are many people who go through life without 
 ever knowing what it is to fight a gale of wind. Dwellers 
 in cities know indeed that the wild winds blow when they 
 hear the hum of strained wires overhead, when the dust 
 rises in whirls at every street corner, when the sanitary em- 
 ployes have difficulty in capturing small truant paper-bags 
 that refuse to recognize their cart or power, and when it 
 is really inconvenient to wear high hats and light-minded 
 skirts. 
 
 Those who live at the edge of the sea will never admit 
 that they know little about a gale of wind, when at 
 equinoctial periods their windows require cleaning every 
 day, when face and hair are sticky with salt rime, and 
 there is a pleasant sharpness of taste on either lip. Their 
 gale is a matter of staying indoors, of avoiding the sea- 
 wall, and carefully closing all windows. The sea is yel- 
 low and disturbed ; far away it is of a peculiar light green, 
 like dead pea-pods, and from its bosom there arises a thin 
 white veil of spray, and there is no perspective. Sky and 
 water meet in a gray uncertainty a short way beyond the 
 pier-head. Occasionally a dripping coaster, some close- 
 reefed brig mayhap, or a tiny schooner, moves across the 
 near horizon, making better weather of it than one would 
 think. 
 
 Sailors of course have the monopoly of wind and
 
 A Horrible Task. 353 
 
 weather. They alone are competent to judge whether it 
 be a whole gale or half, or a mere capful of wind. It is 
 their trade and calling to tussle with the elements. And 
 Boreas is their chiefest enemy ; without the double 
 warmth of oilskins and hope I think there would be very 
 few sailors. 
 
 This preliminary leads where most thin and watery 
 pathways do', into a gale of wind, and such a gale as few 
 mortals ever have to meet. The tropics are gifted in this 
 way ; there have you cyclones, typhoons, tornados, ara- 
 cans,vuthans, white squalls and black squalls, northeasters, 
 monsoons, and the wild changes thereof. Of these most 
 of us must perforce judge from the standpoint of our own 
 paltry breezes, our bises, our siroccos and thin south- 
 westers, our mistrels and Danubian squalls. All these 
 long-named winds are cruel, but killing is not their mis- 
 sion. There is, however, a breath of heaven of which 
 the sole message is death. It is a wind with no fine- 
 sounding name, for it belongs to the North, where men 
 endure things and have no thought of naming them. It 
 blows for six months of the year, with here' and there a 
 breathing space wherein to gather fresh impetuosity. It 
 veers from south-southwest to northwest-by-north, and 
 it is born upon the gray ice-fields round the pole. For 
 many hundred miles it raves across the frozen ocean, 
 gathering deathly coldness at every league. On its 
 shoulders it carries tons of snow, and then striking land 
 it rages and tears, howls, moans, and screams across 
 Northern Europe into far-frozen Asia. In passing it 
 clothes all Russia in white, and still has plenty to spare 
 for bleak Siberia, Northern China, and Japan. I have 
 crouched and shivered beneath its breath, and the only 
 thought that was not frozen up was that the prevalence 
 of such a wind must assuredly depopulate any land. As 
 23
 
 354 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 a matter of fact this is almost the case, although a few 
 northern races manage to live on in such numbers as to 
 save extermination, and that is all. More than a third of 
 them are partially or wholly blind. Their existence is a 
 constant and unequal struggle against this same wind and 
 its pitiless auxiliaries snow and frost. The earth yields 
 no increase here. A little sparse vegetation, sufficient 
 only to nourish miserable reindeer and a few horses ; a 
 scattering of pine-trees, and that is all. Although no 
 sanctifying Spirit can be said to walk upon the waters, 
 the sea alone sustains life, for men, dogs, and reindeer 
 eat fish, not dried but frozen, when they can get it. 
 
 It was across this country, and in face of this wind, that 
 a party of men and women made their way in the late 
 summer five years ago. By late summer one means the 
 first fortnight in July in these high latitudes. These 
 travelers were twenty-one in number, sixteen men and 
 five women. One woman carried a baby a jail-bird 
 born in prison unbaptized. It did not count, not 
 even as half a person, to any one except its mother. 
 Men and women were dressed alike in good fur cloth- 
 ing, baggy trousers tucked into felt boots, long blouse- 
 like fur coats, and caps with ear-flaps tied down. Boots, 
 trousers, coats, and even caps bore signs of damage by 
 water. When Northern Siberia is not frozen up it is in a 
 state of flood, and traveling, except by water, is almost 
 impossible. These people had come many miles by this 
 comparatively easy method at imminent risk, for they had 
 traveled north on the bosom of the flood. Since then they 
 had literally burnt their vessels in order to cut off pursuit. 
 
 The men dragged light sledges, three to a sledge, and 
 four resting. The women carried various more precious 
 burdens, delicate instruments such as compasses and 
 aneroids. Beneath the fur caps throbbed some singular
 
 A Horrible Task. 355 
 
 brains, from under the draggled brims looked out some 
 strange faces. There was a doctor among them, two 
 army officers, a judge, and others who had not been al- 
 lowed time to become anything, for they were exiled while 
 students. 
 
 The whole party pressed forward in silence with tight- 
 locked lips and half-closed eyes, for the rushing wind 
 carried a fine blinding snow before it. Only one person 
 spoke at times. It was the woman who carried the baby, 
 and she interlarded her inconsequent remarks with 
 snatches of song and bursts of peculiar cackling laughter. 
 Suddenly she sat down on a boulder. 
 
 " I will sit here," she said, " in the warm sun." 
 
 The whole party stopped, and one of the women an- 
 swered 
 
 "Come, Anna," she said, " we cannot wait here." 
 Still speaking she took her arm and urged her to rise. 
 
 " But," protested she who had been addressed as Anna, 
 " where is the picnic to be ? " 
 
 "The picnic, Anna Pavloski," said a small, squarely- 
 built man, coming forward and speaking in a wonderfully 
 deep and harmonious tone of voice, " is to be held farther 
 on. You must come at once." 
 
 " I think," she replied, gently, " that I will wait here 
 for my husband. I expect him home from the office. He 
 will bring the newspaper." 
 
 They were all grouped round the woman now except 
 one man, and he stood apart with his back turned towards 
 them. He had been dragging the foremost sledge, and 
 the broad band of the trace was still across his shoulders. 
 He had been leading the way, and seemed in some subtle 
 manner to be recognized as chief and pioneer. 
 
 Again the woman who had first spoken persuaded ; 
 again the broad-shouldered man spoke in his commanding
 
 356 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 gentleness. It was, however, of no avail. Then after a 
 few moments of painful hesitation, he left the group and 
 went to where the leader stood alone. 
 
 " Pavloski," he said. 
 
 " Yes, doctor." He never turned his head, but stood, 
 rigid and stern, looking straight before him, scowling with 
 eyes from which the horror would now never fade, into 
 the gray hopeless distance. No marble statue could 
 reproduce the strong cold despair that breathed in every 
 limb and feature. 
 
 " Something," said the doctor, " must be done. We 
 are behind our time already." 
 
 " I suppose it is my duty to stay with you ? " said 
 Pavloski ; " I cannot leave the party ? I cannot stay 
 behind ? " 
 
 The little man made no answer. His silence was more 
 eloquent than any words could have been. A dramatic 
 painter could scarcely have found a sadder picture than 
 these two friends who dared not to meet each other's 
 eyes. And yet, in a moment, it was rendered infinitely 
 sadder by the advent of a third person. 
 
 Swathed as she was in furs, it was difficult to distin- 
 guish that this was a woman at all, and yet to a close 
 observer her movements, the manner in which she set her 
 feet upon the ground, the suggestion of graceful curves in 
 limb and form, betrayed that she was indeed a young girl. 
 Her face confirmed it gay blue eyes and a rosebud mouth, 
 round cheeks delicately tinted despite the wild wind, and 
 little wisps of golden hair straggling out beneath the 
 ear flaps, and gleaming against the dusky face. 
 
 "I," said this little woman, "will stay with her. 
 Sergius, I will try and take her back. We will give our- 
 selves up. It does not matter. Now that Hans is dead 
 I have nothing to live for. I have no husband."
 
 A Horrible Task. 357 
 
 Poor little maiden, she had never had a husband ; the 
 fatherly Russian Government had seen to that ! But she 
 chose to call Hans Onetcheff her husband. This same 
 Onetcheff had been administratively exiled by mistake, 
 and being delicate had died, at the mines, of prison con- 
 sumption. 
 
 The little doctor winced. He was not a Nihilist at all, 
 and never had been ; but in personal appearance he had 
 resembled one. There was something horribly real in the 
 words that came from the girl's rosy lips. She shouted 
 them, for the wind was so furious as to render conversa- 
 tion impossible ; and in order to make herself heard, she 
 raised her round cherub-like face with a very fascinating 
 childishness of manner. Sergius Pavloski shook his head 
 and moved a step or two towards the group half hidden 
 by a fine driving snow. 
 
 " No," he answered. " We arranged it before leaving 
 London. There is only one thing to be done." 
 
 The doctor and the girl exchanged a look of horror, and 
 hesitated to follow him. 
 
 " It was agreed," he continued, mechanically, "that 
 the lives of all were never to be endangered for the sake 
 of one. Tyars said that." 
 
 Slowly the two followed him. As they approached the 
 group some of these stepped silently back, some walked 
 away a few paces and stood apart with averted faces. 
 
 " Can you tell me," saidthe woman, looking up suddenly, 
 and leaving the baby's face and throat fully exposed to 
 the cruel wind, " whether I can find a lodging near here? " 
 
 She addressed Pavloski, who was standing in front of 
 her. He made no answer, but presently turned away 
 with a convulsive movement of lips and throat, as if he 
 were swallowing something with an effort. Then he 
 raised his voice, and addressing his companions generally,
 
 358 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 he said with the assurance of a man placed in a position 
 to exact obedience 
 
 " Will you all go on ? Keep the same direction, north- 
 by-west according to the compass. I shall catch you up 
 before evening." 
 
 He stood quite still, like a man hewn out of stone up- 
 right, emotionless, and quite determined awaiting the 
 fulfilment of his commands. All around him his compan- 
 ions waited. It almost seemed as if they expected the 
 Almighty to interfere. Even to those who have tasted 
 the bitterest cup that life has ever brewed, this seemed 
 too cruel to be true too horrid ! And the wind blew all 
 around them, tearing, raging on. Some of them staggered 
 a little, but none made a movement to obey the command 
 of their leader ; each seemed to dread setting an example 
 to the others. 
 
 At last one man had the courage to do it. It was he 
 who had spoken to Pavloski, the man whom they called 
 doctor. He went towards one of the sledges and pro- 
 ceeded to disentangle the traces thrown carelessly down 
 when a halt had been called. The men stepped silently 
 forward and drew the cords across their shoulders. 
 
 The women moved away first, stepping softly on the 
 silent snow, and like phantoms vanishing in the mist and 
 windy turmoil. The men followed, dragging their noise- 
 less sledges. The doctor stayed behind for a moment. 
 When the others were out of earshot he went towards 
 Pavloski and laid his mittened hand upon his arm. 
 
 " Sergius," he said with painful hesitation, " let me do 
 it I am a doctor it will be easier." 
 
 Pavloski turned and looked at the speaker in a stupid, 
 bewildered way, as if the language used were unknown 
 to him. Then he smiled suddenly in a sickening way ; it 
 was like a cynical smile upon the face of the dead.
 
 A Horrible Task. 359 
 
 " Go ! " he said, pointing to windward, where their 
 companions had disappeared. " Go with them. Let 
 each one of us do his duty. It will be a consolation what- 
 ever the end may be." 
 
 The doctor was bound in honor to obey this man in all 
 and through all. He obeyed now, and left Sergius Pav- 
 loski alone with his mad wife and his helpless babe. As he 
 moved away he heard the woman prattling of the sun, 
 and the birds, and the flowers. 
 
 He turned his face resolutely northwards and pressed 
 forward into the icy wind ; but a muffled gurgling shriek 
 broke down his strong resolution. Without stopping, he 
 glanced back over his shoulder with a gasp of horror. 
 Sergius Pavloski was kneeling with his back to the north ; 
 but he was not kneeling on the snow, for the doctor saw 
 two furclad arms waving convulsively, and between the 
 soles of Pavloski's great snow-boots he caught sight of 
 two other feet drawn up in agony. 
 
 "Good God," exclaimed the man aloud, "forgive 
 him ! " 
 
 And with bloodshot eyes and haggard lips he stumbled 
 on, not heeding where he set his feet. He fell, and rose 
 agin, scarce knowing what he did. Despite the freezing 
 wind, the perspiration ran down his face, blinding him. 
 It froze, and hung in little icicles on his moustache and 
 beard. 
 
 " Good God," he mumbled again, "forgive him ! " 
 
 And in the agony of his strong mind his brain lost all 
 power of concentration. His lips continued to frame 
 those four words over and over and over again until they 
 became bereft of all meaning, and lapsed into a mere rhyth- 
 mic refrain, keeping time with the swing of his sturdy 
 legs.
 
 360 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 ON THE NEVA. 
 
 IT is a thousand pities that Englishmen, Americans, 
 Russians, Scandinavians, and others of a Northern nation- 
 ality are so difficult to write about. The manner in 
 which these large men persistently ignore the emotions, 
 and continuously refuse to play to the gallery, as it were, 
 simply forces the astute novelist to seek material elsewhere. 
 And so we have the Anglo-Italian, the Anglo-French, the 
 Anglo-South American novel. They are so picturesque, 
 these Giovannis, and Pippis, and Andres. They bubble 
 over so conveniently with love rhapsodies ; they are so 
 deft with their knives ; and their per bacchos and sacres 
 and carrambas look so well in italics lending a local color, 
 you know. And then it is so easy to know what they are 
 about, because they are so frankly emotional. They weep 
 so often, and usually on the bosom of an aged mother, or 
 beneath the shadow of the " Porta del Popolo," or some 
 other porta that sounds local in its tendency ; while an 
 honest English young man called John or Andrew never 
 gives one a chance. One cannot make obvious to the 
 gallery the emotions that are passing within his breast, 
 because he absolutely refuses to gesticulate, to cast him- 
 self about upon the furniture, or to apostrophize the 
 heavens. And the greater portion of English-speaking 
 novel readers is, so to speak, the gallery. 
 
 There is small consolation to be derived from that self-
 
 On the Neva. 361 
 
 complacency born of a conviction that virtue is sometimes 
 unrewarded. The little boy who tells the truth generally 
 has a bad time, while the small follower of Ananias walks 
 in the sunshine of popularity. We do not generally admit 
 this unfortunate fact in mixed circles on account of the 
 children, but it is there nevertheless. And the children 
 grow up some of them alas ! grow up into novelists, 
 others into felons. The seed is sown in the one as in the 
 other, and neither seem capable of helping it. It is with 
 the novelists that we have to do. Young Ananias pos- 
 sesses an imagination, and he proceeds to tell most 
 iniquitous ... No ! I mean he goes on to describe men 
 and women, who not only have never lived, but to whom 
 life would be impossible in this matter-of-fact planet. He 
 draws lurid pictures of adventure in countries which he 
 has only seen casually on the map he describes deeds of 
 bravery and feats of agility which any common-sense 
 person must recognize at once as quite impossible. Per- 
 haps he has a far-reaching, an unclean mind ; he proceeds 
 to wallow in realistic details which are not only sickening, 
 but totally untrue to nature. Never mind ! Ananias 
 gets on famously, comes out in weekly-parts in the cheap 
 newspapers, and finishes up in a yellow-back novel on 
 the railway book-stalls, depicting the murder of one fault- 
 lessly dressed gentleman by another an every-day occur- 
 rence, of course. 
 
 Now the unpopular good boy drones away his time in 
 descriptions of events that really happen or have happened. 
 He sets down men and women as he has seen and known 
 them, he narrates their deeds in such language as he com- 
 mands, and neglects to conjure up impossibilities for them 
 to perpetrate. He sacrifices dramatic construction on the 
 altar of Truth, and fails to make use of certain well-known 
 devices. He does not, for instance, cause a son to nar-
 
 362 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 rate at length to the mother whose skirt he has never left 
 the sad story of his own life in the first volume. He does 
 not make husband and wife exchange terrible confidences 
 after twelve or thirteen years of married life said con- 
 fidences being of such a nature that unless they had hab- 
 ited different parts of the globe mutual concealment would 
 have been quite impossible. No ; this blind fictionist 
 makes his fiction possible ; he tells the truth, and of course 
 he is unpopular. 
 
 If Matthew Mark Easton had arrived in St. Petersburg 
 in any other manner it should have been narrated here. 
 If he had come down in the middle of the Admiralty gar- 
 dens in a Nihilistic balloon in the dead of night the details of 
 his descent should have been set down here. If he had 
 exchanged mysterious meaningless paraphrases with pic- 
 turesque conspirators those observations should have been 
 faithfully given here in italics. But he did none of these 
 things. He merely arrived by train from Libau, and took 
 a droschky to the Hotel de France, for which he paid 
 seventy kopecks. His passport was in perfect order, al- 
 though smeared most lamentably by the clerk of the 
 Russian consulate who vised it in London. This small 
 American was an experienced and clever traveler, as 
 most of his countrymen are, and was as much at home in 
 St. Petersburg as he might have been in Boston or London. 
 Moreover, he had been in St. Petersburg and in the Hotel 
 de France before. His nationality was also in those days 
 fraught with a certain weight of favorable prejudice, for 
 that was three years ago, before the Siberian question 
 had attracted transatlantic attention. 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton therefore made himself quite at 
 home in the Hotel de France, and dined very comfortably 
 at the table d'kdte, of which certain small eccentricities 
 failed to surprise him. He lighted his interprandial cigar-
 
 On the Neva. 363 
 
 ette at the candle placed between each two guests for the 
 purpose, and fell very naturally into Slavonic habits ; but 
 it is perhaps worth noticing that he somewhat carefully 
 concealed his knowledge of the Russian language. This 
 alone was proof of his intimacy with the internal economy 
 of the White Empire ; for old travelers there know that 
 it is better to reserve one's Russian for a necessity, even 
 if he have no other purpose than enjoyment in his wander- 
 ings. After dinner he retired to his room, not however 
 without being forced to ward off several singularly leading 
 questions put to him by a bland landlord. These ques- 
 tions were obviously of one and the same purpose ; namely, 
 to discover the reason of Easton's presence in Russia. 
 Had he been there before? Did he admire the town? 
 Was not the Newski Prospect unrivaled? Where was he 
 going after he quitted the Northern capital? To all of 
 these Matthew Mark Easton replid vaguely and almost 
 densely, with a singularly strong American accent. He 
 was not surprised to be awakened the next morning by 
 the wildest carillon that ever pealed from cathedral spire, 
 for he had heard the remarkable performance of St. 
 Michael's bells before. 
 
 After breakfast he wandered forth, guide-book in hand, 
 having refused the services of a polyglot individual who 
 professed to be the brother-in-law of the hall-porter. The 
 landlord himself directed Easton to the Newski Prospect, 
 which however was not considered interesting until the 
 afternoon. Nevertheless he went that way, and finally 
 found himself on the English quay. He crossed the Neva, 
 still in the same tourist's gait, and lost himself among the 
 smaller commercial streets of the Vasili Ostroff . Presently 
 by the merest accident he found himself opposite a small 
 warehouse bearing the name " L. Ogroff " in painted 
 letters above the blind windows of what had once been a
 
 364 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 shop. He pushed open the curtained door, and addressing 
 himself to a pleasant-looking girl who was seated at a 
 counter adding up the columns of a ledger, he mentioned 
 the name " Lor is Ogroff." 
 
 " Yes," answered the girl in perfect English, he is in. 
 Who are you? " 
 
 " Matthew Mark Easton." 
 
 " Ah ! Come in." 
 
 She pointed to a little swing-door in the counter, and 
 did not offer to open it as a born and bred servitor would 
 have done. Then she led the way into an inner room 
 which was lined with shelves containing long wooden 
 boxes like miniature coffins. There were upon the table 
 some rolls of common cloth. 
 
 "Mr. Ogroff is apparently a tailor," hazarded Easton 
 in a conversational way, seeing that the girl was pretty 
 and pleasant-looking. 
 
 "Yes, "she answered, with a short laugh; " a very 
 cheap one." 
 
 She had not relinquished her hold of the door-handle, 
 and stood in a graceful attitude looking at him with clear 
 blue eyes, in which a great interest and a slight amuse- 
 ment were provokingly mingled. She evidently knew all 
 about him, and her attitude physical and mental was no- 
 tably devoid of that shyness or embarrassment which is 
 considered correct and polite between young persons of 
 opposite sexes who meet without introduction. 
 
 "He is up-stairs in the cutting-out room," she con- 
 tinued, with a twinkle in her childish eyes. " I shall tell 
 him." 
 
 Easton stood looking at the curtained door after she had 
 closed it. Then he picked up a piece of rough cloth and 
 examined its texture critically. 
 
 " I am half inclined," he reflected aloud, "to become a
 
 On the Neva. 365 
 
 Nihilist. There are alleviations even in the lot of a tailor's 
 assistant of the establishment Ogroff." 
 
 In a few moments the door opened again, and a stout 
 man entered with a bow. He shook hands without speak- 
 ing, and pointed to a chair. Round his thick neck he wore 
 a yellow tape-measure with the two ends hanging down 
 in front. Before speaking he took up some rolls of cloth 
 that stood in the corner, and unfolding a portion of each 
 he ranged them upon the table in front of Easton. 
 
 We last saw this man in Easton's rooms in London. 
 His name was not mentioned then, because there was not 
 much in a name for him. It was not Ogroff then. He 
 was not minutely described, because a written description 
 is not always of great value. For instance, he was in 
 London a dark grizzled man with a beard in this shop in 
 the Vasili Ostroff, St. Petersburg, he was a fair, hairless 
 man. 
 
 " Well? " he said asthmatically at length. 
 
 " Not a word . . . ! " replied Easton ; " and you ? " 
 
 The man shrugged his heavy shoulders. 
 
 " Not a word. I have written to you all that I heard. 
 I wrote on the fifth of May ; have you destroyed the 
 letter?" 
 
 "Yes burnt it." 
 
 " Well ! " ejaculated the Russian, misusing the word. 
 " I heard," he continued, " never mind how that they 
 all got away, in good health, at the proper time that is, 
 in the early summer of the year before last. They were 
 followed, but they destroyed all the horses and boats as 
 they went, and the pursuit was necessarily given up." 
 
 " Since that," inquired Easton, " not a word? " 
 
 "Not a word." 
 
 " There has been no semi-official account of the matter 
 in the newspapers? "
 
 366 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " No ; it has been hushed up. The official report is (as 
 far as I can learn) that certain exiles and prisoners 
 escaped ; that they were pursued by Cossacks, and that 
 the chase was only given up when their death by starva- 
 tion was a moral certainty." 
 
 " And," saidEaston, " are they struck out of the list? " 
 
 "Yes; they are struck out." 
 
 The fat man spoke in a gasping way, and his breathing 
 was attended by a peculiar hollow sound. It was noticeable 
 that he never paused to think before replying to any 
 question, and never referred to notebook or written mem- 
 orandum. All his information was on the surface ready 
 for use, and all his memoranda were mental. One cannot 
 search in a man's mind for incriminating evidence. He 
 who at present passed under the name of Loris Ogroff was 
 known among his colleagues as an eminently "safe" 
 man. 
 
 " I am going to look for them," announced Easton, after 
 a pause. 
 
 The Russian raised his flaxen eyebrows. 
 
 " Ah ! I understood that you were condemned by the 
 doctors." 
 
 " No, not condemned ; they merely said, ' If you go it 
 will kill you.' " 
 
 " And still," said the Russian, calmly, " you go." 
 
 "Some one must," answered Easton with equal cool- 
 ness. " You cannot you are too f at ! " 
 
 " No ; I do not travel now as I used. Besides, I have 
 other work. My hands are full, as well as my waist- 
 coat." 
 
 "lam going by land," continued the American. "I 
 leave Petersburg to-morrow morning." 
 
 Ogroff rose from his chair. 
 
 " You must go now," he said. " You have been here
 
 On the Neva. 367 
 
 long enough ; we are watched, you know. Here in 
 Petersburg we all watch each other. I will send you a 
 fur-lined traveling cloak to-night to your hotel the Hotel 
 de France, I suppose? " 
 
 " Yes ; how do you know ? " 
 
 " I get a copy of each day's passport-returns from a 
 friend of mine in the police." 
 
 " But," protested Easton, " I do not want a fur cloak." 
 
 " Never matter ; it will be useful you can give it away. 
 It is to allay suspicion." 
 
 " All right; send it." 
 
 The Russian held out a fat white hand. 
 
 " Good-by, you brave American," he said. 
 
 " G'by ! " returned Easton with a laugh.
 
 368 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 THEY TRIED IT. 
 
 " WELL, at all events we have tried it ! " Ordinary 
 words if it please you ! Ordinary words enough in all 
 sooth, and words we must all make use of sooner or later. 
 But all words are ordinary, and it is only the manner of 
 speaking them, the circumstances in which they are 
 spoken, and the person to hear, that lend a human interest 
 to the tritest commonplaces. 
 
 These words were spoken by the mere remnant of a 
 man to a solitary companion while both looked out 
 peered through the twilight on death. He who spoke 
 crouched in a singular way on the hard snow, supporting 
 himself on one fur-clad arm. He could not stand, for he 
 had but one leg. The other had been cut off just above the 
 knee a recent amputation undoubtedly, for the empty 
 trouser-leg, rudely tied with rope, was stained a deep 
 suggestive color. His face was a horrid sight to look upon, 
 for here and there in the pasty yellow flesh were deep in- 
 dentations of half-healed sores, the result of frost-bite. 
 One eye was quite closed by a swelling which deformed 
 the features and drew them all up. He spoke in a mum- 
 bling way, as if his tongue were swollen or diseased, and the 
 language was the most dramatic of all tongues Russian. 
 
 His companion, a short, thick-set man, stood beside him ; 
 but he stood weakly, and the terribly sunken lines of his 
 cheeks told a story only slightly less horrible than that 
 depicted by the face and form of the cripple. Both faces
 
 They Tried It. 369 
 
 alike bore that strange dry look which tells unerringly of 
 starvation. All who were in Southern India at the time 
 of the Madras famine know that look, and those who have 
 never seen it before divine its meaning at once. It is un- 
 mistakable, like an earthquake. 
 
 Behind these two men lay a vast snow-clad country, 
 rolling away in rounded gray curves into fathomless mist. 
 On their left was a slight declivity, terminated by a broad 
 flat valley, extending beyond sight jn a due southerly 
 direction. This was the river Yana. Within a few yards 
 of the two men, at their backs, stood a rude, ill-shapen 
 hut, built clumsily and ignorantly of snow. Its low door- 
 way faced the north, and amidst the gloom of its interior 
 there were discernible a number of heaps, apparently 
 formed of old and tattered fur clothing. These were dead 
 men ; the women of Sergius Pavloski's party had not lived 
 to see the Arctic Ocean. Amidst the dead the living had 
 crouched and slept that dull, dreamless sleep that comes to 
 human beings in extremely cold climates. In front of the 
 two men extended that which had been their bourne, their 
 hope, their one desire the Arctic Ocean. There was no 
 water visible, but as far as the eye could penetrate a 
 heaving, surging field of pack-ice. Low down in the far 
 northern sky there hovered a yellow shimmer the ice- 
 blink. 
 
 It was the second of September, and in all probability 
 the ice was gathering for the winter. Already it ex- 
 tended along the deserted shore, in a belt twenty miles 
 deep, without a lead, and from the continuous sounds of 
 groaning and grinding it was certain that more was press- 
 ing in, adding confusion to the frozen chaos. The man 
 who stood gave a short heartrending laugh as he looked 
 out over the frozen sea. 
 
 "Yes," he said, " we have tried it."
 
 370 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 There was a pause, and then the cripple Sergius Pav- 
 loski spoke again. 
 
 " Of course," he said, almost unintelligibly, " we have 
 failed ; but still our failure may teach others, and we have 
 kept it secret. Those who want to know will never know. 
 They will always be in uncertainty as to whether we have 
 escaped and are living hidden in America, in Europe, per- 
 haps in Russia. We shall be more terrible, doctor, dead 
 than alive." 
 
 " I hope so." 
 
 " I, at all events, shall be, for you say that I could not 
 live a week in a warm climate. This leg of mine is less 
 painful to-day ; perhaps it is healing." 
 
 " No, Pavloski, I have told you a dozen times it is not 
 healed, it is only frozen. It can never heal. The mo- 
 ment it thaws you will die." 
 
 A sickly smile passed across his unsightly features, and 
 there was silence for a time the deathly expectant 
 silence of the far North. They were both looking out 
 across the ice. It was a habit they had acquired during 
 the last two months. At length Pavloski raised his 
 mittened hand and extended it outwards true north, like 
 the needle of a compass. 
 
 " I wonder," he mumbled, " if Tyars is out there." 
 
 The doctor shrugged his broad shoulders. 
 
 " I wonder," he said, " why you entrusted this to an 
 Englishman." 
 
 It was an old subject thoroughly thrashed out ; an old 
 point of dissension. When men see death staring them 
 in the face they are not conversational on general topics ; 
 they only discuss their chances of life. 
 
 " If I had had the whole world to choose from I should 
 not have selected another man," said Pavloski ; " but 
 there was no choice in the matter."
 
 They Tried It. 371 
 
 "I suppose," said the doctor, with an ill-concealed 
 sneer, " that he has turned back." 
 
 " I will swear by St. Paul that he has not done that ! " 
 
 The words were not pleasant to hear from lips already 
 stiffening in anticipation of death. 
 
 " Then where is he ? " 
 
 " Dead ! " was the answer. " If Claud Tyars had 
 been alive he would have come. He is not here, there- 
 fore he is dead ! Ough ! " 
 
 He stopped and fell back fainting with pain. In his 
 excitement he had moved, and had allowed some of his 
 weight to rest upon the raw stump of his leg. In a second 
 the doctor was kneeling on the snow beside him, raising 
 his head, touching his lips with snow. It was a poor 
 restorative, but there was nothing else at hand. One 
 cannot offer to a dying man even the tenderest piece of 
 an old sealskin mitten. 
 
 Without waiting for consciousness to return he attempted 
 to lift the cripple, intending to carry him within the little 
 snow-hut, but the movement brought back Pavloski's fail- 
 ing senses, and he shook his head in token that he wished 
 to be left where he lay. 
 
 " No," he said, after gasping twice for breath ; " I would 
 rather die out here." 
 
 The doctor's bare hand crept within the tattered sleeve 
 towards the pulse. He said nothing. There was nothing 
 to say. 
 
 " I do not want," continued Pavloski, brokenly, "to 
 see their faces. I broughtthem here. It is my fault." 
 
 He lay for some moments with his lips apart, his unin- 
 jured eye half closed, then he spoke again. 
 
 " I suppose the good God will know how to revenge 
 all this. If they, the Romanoffs the Czar had twenty 
 lives, and we could take them all we might pay the
 
 372 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 debt ; but they have only one life to take, that would 
 be too short a punishment. God will know how to do 
 it will He not, doctor ?" 
 
 " Yes," said the sweet deep voice of the doctor, " God 
 will know how to do it." 
 
 " Pray," said the dying man, " pray to Him to do it 
 well ! " 
 
 Then his head fell back and he breathed regularly and 
 softly. But this was not the end. Presently the black- 
 ened lips began to move, and he spoke in quite a different 
 voice, so different as to startle his listener. It was soft 
 and even, as if recounting a dream not long dispelled. 
 
 " It is not yet a year ago," he said. " There were 
 seven of us, four Russians, two Englishmen, and an 
 American. Four Russians, two Englishmen and an 
 American what a strong combination ! The Russians 
 to go into action on land, the Englishmen on the sea, and the 
 sharp-witted American to watch and plot and scheme. I 
 remember the last time we met was at Easton's house ; 
 we ate and drank together. Two of us are dead, and 1 
 am nearly dead. Tyars and Grace where can they 
 be ? They are out there, doctor, in front of us to the 
 north. I I shall go and . . . meet them." 
 
 The lips closed with a sudden snap, and the doctor leant 
 eagerly forward. Sergius Pavloski was dead. Perhaps 
 his babbled words were true. He said that he would go 
 to meet them, and it is not for us to maintain that this 
 was the mere wandering of a mind harrassed by much 
 affliction, paralyzed by the cold touch of Death. It is not 
 for us to assert that the departing soul is never vouchsafed 
 a gleam of light, of that Light which is not seen on land 
 or sea, to guide it upward to its rest. Perhaps, indeed he 
 had gone to meet them, to find these two Englishmen, in 
 whom his faith had never wavered.
 
 They Tried It. 373 
 
 Then the survivor rose to his feet. It had begun to 
 snow gently and in large flakes a snow that would cover 
 the ground to the depth of twelve inches in half that num- 
 ber of hours. As it fell it gradually covered the dead man, 
 even to his face and eyes, which were already cold. 
 
 Presently the doctor moved a little and, turning slowly 
 round, scanned the near horizon. He could not see the 
 pack ice now, for the snow was blowing in from the north, 
 wreathing and curling as it came. The wind had dropped 
 a little, and so the ice was still, and its groan was heard 
 no more. The silence was terrible that silence that 
 comes between two squalls at sea. Suddenly the snow 
 ceased, and only a few feathery flakes floated aimlessly in 
 the air. The atmosphere cleared and displayed to the 
 man's dim vision a lifeless world of virgin white. Even 
 the footsteps of his late companion and himself were half 
 obliterated ; the body of Sergius Pavloski was covered, 
 and presented the appearance of a churchyard mound, 
 for the snow had drifted heavily at the first rush of the 
 squall. 
 
 Then this lone man moved towards the snow-hut, and 
 entered it on his hands and knees. He took no notice of 
 the dead one soon gets accustomed to them but fum- 
 bled about among the baggage piled up in one corner. 
 
 While he worked he mumbled to himself. Probably 
 he was only half conscious of his actions, as men are in 
 extreme cold. It is very easy to sit in a warm room and 
 reflect that we should never lose our heads in a snow- 
 storm ; that we should never be so weak-minded as to 
 give way to that dazed drowsiness which comes from 
 snow alone. Fatigues on land or sea have their charac- 
 teristics, but in neither case is the brain affected as it is 
 by a great fatigue borne on snow. Mountaineers know 
 this, and the good brothers of St. Bernard ; they know
 
 374 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 that the strongest man is forced to use his utmost 
 strength of mind to keep serene and calm while battling 
 on snow against a snowstorm ; whereas an ordinary sailor- 
 man, of no great courage, can face a gale almost unmoved. 
 
 But this man's bodily strength seemed to be almost un- 
 impaired. He dragged the heavy sledges aside without any 
 great effort. He had been and was still a man of ex- 
 ceptional strength broadly built upon short legs, with a 
 large square head. It was somewhat singular that he 
 should be apparently far from death while his compan- 
 ions had succumbed to cold and starvation ; but this un- 
 doubtedly lay in the fact that he was a doctor. His inti- 
 mate knowledge of the human frame had doubtless enabled 
 him to take a greater care of himself than he could force 
 upon his companions. He had, no doubt, been strong 
 enough in purpose to endure a hunger which his dead 
 comrades had satisfied by illegitimate means. This is no 
 place to go into details, for these pages may come to the 
 eyes of many who will be no wiser and no better for learn- 
 ing aught of death. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine that 
 any of us are in any way benefited by a study of this sub- 
 ject from a fictional point of view. We meet it often 
 enough in real life. 
 
 That strange law which we call Chance has one singular 
 trick ; it almost invariably sets the wrong man in the 
 wrong place. This is, of course, according to the limit of 
 our terrestrial sight, as the Scotch ministers so frequently 
 say ; though it would be hard for us to see with any other 
 sight, so the rider is superfluous. This Russian doctor was 
 an instance of the perverseness of Chance. He was not a 
 Nihilist, though he had been mistaken for one, which, as 
 far as he was concerned, came to the same thing. He was 
 not made of that stuff out of which are fashioned lonely 
 adventurers, solitary travelers, or self-sufficing Stoics. He
 
 They Tried It. 375 
 
 was merely a garrulous, gregarious little fellow with a 
 decided bodily tendency to stoutness, which tendency had 
 not been fairly treated. He had never lived alone had 
 never thought of doing such a thing. What a man, you 
 will say, to place upon the edge of the frozen Arctic Ocean 
 with no human life within a radius of three hundred miles, 
 in the month of September ! Exactly so. But that is 
 precisely the man whom Chance would select to place 
 there. Moreover, she made that selection hence this 
 record. From among those iron-hearted, desperate fugi- 
 tives, she carefully chose the wrong man to be last survi- 
 vor ; for there is no such thing as the Survival of the 
 Fittest, though we write it with the capitalest of letters. 
 Chance sees to that. 
 
 And yet in a dull, stupid way he realized the responsi- 
 bilities of his position. He dragged two of the sledges out 
 of the hut, and with a hatchet broke them up. Then he 
 took the two strongest pieces of each the crossbars and 
 bound them securely together, thus forming a rough pole. 
 This heefected on a .little mound where the snow was 
 thin, building it up with such debris as he could lay his 
 hands upon. It stood up gauntly, almost the only object 
 within sight that was not white. It was a mere pole, 
 the thickness of a man's wrist, and yet it was probably 
 visible ten miles off against its gleaming surroundings. 
 
 When this was completed there was nothing left for 
 him to do. There was no record to be preserved no 
 record of the sufferings and of the great struggle. The 
 earlier acts of the tragedy were lost, and no earthly lips 
 left to tell of them. After all, what did it matter ? The 
 last act wiped them all out. When the game is played 
 there is nothing to be gained by the recapitulation of its 
 chances. 
 
 The lone man stood back and contemplated his rude
 
 376 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 erection. It was rough, but strong enough to last a year 
 or two. Then he looked at the remains of the light 
 American sledges which he had just broken up. 
 
 Suddenly an idea came to him. 
 
 "It would be good," he mumbled, "to be warm once 
 more . . . just once." 
 
 And he piled up the wood in a little heap. He crawled 
 into the hut and presently returned bearing a good-sized 
 tin bottle labeled " Spiritus." He poured the contents 
 over the wood and struck a match. In a moment the blue 
 flames leapt up and the wood crackled. He crouched 
 down to the leeward side so close that his clothes were 
 singed and gave forth a sharp acrid smell. He withdrew 
 his mittens and held his bare scarred hands right into the 
 flames. 
 
 "Ah," he muttered in a gurgling voice, "that is 
 good!" 
 
 But it did not last long. The wood was light and very 
 dry, and in five minutes there was nothing left but a few 
 smoldering ashes. 
 
 The doctor rose to his feet and looked long and steadily 
 out to the north over the broken ice. It is hard to give 
 up hope, and few men are ever forced to do so. Then he 
 looked round him as a man looks round a room before 
 starting on a long journey to see that he has left nothing 
 undone. He had lived in this spot for more than two 
 months, and its bleak surroundings were very familiar to 
 him. His eyes lingered over each white mound and hil- 
 lock not lovingly, for it was horribly dismal, almost too 
 dismal to be part of this world at all. 
 
 Strange to say his eyes finished their inspection by 
 looking up to heaven. The great snow-clouds were roll- 
 ing south, bearing in their huge rounded bosoms the white 
 pall to cover a continent for many months to come. But
 
 They Tried It. 377 
 
 this man seemed to be looking beyond the clouds, seeking 
 to penetrate the dim ether. He was not looking at the 
 sky, but into heaven. At last he gave a contemptuous 
 little shrug of the shoulders, full of a terrible meaning. 
 The next moment he sought for something in the inner 
 pocket of his fur tunic. There was a gleam of dull rusted 
 metal, and he raised his hand towards his open mouth. 
 At the same instant a sharp report broke upon that echo- 
 less silence, and a little puff of white smoke was borne 
 southward on the breeze.
 
 378 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XL. 
 
 THREE YEARS AFTER. 
 
 THERE are some women to whom even Time is merciful. 
 It is an undeniable truth that those among our gentle com- 
 panions through this pilgrimage who are fair to look upon 
 may surely count upon some allowance from men both 
 young and old. Charity may cover a multitude of sins 
 perhaps it does ; I cannot say, for I have never had an 
 opportunity of studying its habits for any length of time. 
 But Beauty undoubtedly covers more. Not only have 
 plain women to bear with a thousand minute slights from 
 every pretty face they meet, but if they be observant 
 they will realize soon enough that there is a special code 
 of laws tacitly allowed to the owners of these pretty 
 faces. They have no need to be scrupulous ; it does not 
 matter much that they be honest, so long as they are 
 gracious, and fascinating, and kind at intervals. The 
 necessity of working for their own livelihood is rarely 
 forced upon them. Beauty in distress is proverbially sure 
 of relief. But there is one enemy upon whom all charms 
 are lost, to whose heart red lips, soft hands, and pleading 
 eyes cannot reach. This enemy is Time. It is not only 
 around dull eyes that he scores his mark ; he touches 
 rosy cheeks and pale alike ; he sets his weight upon straight 
 shoulders as on crooked bones. But some there are to 
 whom he is kind, and these are usually such as fear him 
 not. Some folks are said to defy Time, but it is safer to 
 meet him with a fearless smile, for he is not to be defied.
 
 After Three Years. 379 
 
 He carries more in his hands than we can tell or dare defy. 
 Agnes Winter was not the woman to make this mistake, 
 and Time had dealt very leniently with her. At the be- 
 ginning of life, or at its end, three years are an important 
 period, but in the middle of existence their weight is less 
 perceptible. They seemed to have passed very lightly 
 over the small phase of existence working itself out un- 
 heeded by the world in the drawing-room where we last 
 saw Agnes Winter, and where we now find her again. 
 
 The room was unchanged, and the Agnes Winter dwell- 
 ing therein was the same woman, except in one very small 
 matter. She had always been distinguished by a cheery 
 repose of manner which was not without its sense of com- 
 fort for those around her ; by its presence she had ac- 
 quired the reputation of being very capable and singu- 
 larly tactful the sort of woman, in a word, whom a clever 
 hostess would be glad to secure at her table. This charac- 
 teristic had given place to a certain restlessness a well- 
 concealed restlessness ; but still it was there. The smile 
 with which she now faced that grim antagonist Time was 
 not quite so confident as of yore. Her being subtly sug- 
 gested one who, having been burnt, respects the fire. 
 Perhaps this change was more noticeable in the lady's 
 eyes than in her person. The same strong, finished grace 
 attended her movements, but her eyes lacked repose. 
 They were the eyes of one who has waited and waited in 
 vain. I need hardly say more, for we all meet the glance 
 of such eyes frequently enough. There is a good deal of 
 waiting to be done here below, and most of it is vain. None 
 need search very far afield to find such eyes as now looked 
 up nervously towards the door at the sound of the large 
 old-fashioned bell, pealing in the basement. 
 
 " Who is that ? " said Agnes Winter to herself. " Who 
 can that be?"
 
 380 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 She rose and set one or two things in order about the 
 room, and after glancing at the clock, stood motionless 
 with her tired eyes fixed on the door, listening intently. 
 The bell was by no means a silent member of its frater- 
 nity, and there was nothing unusual in its peal, although 
 the early hour precluded the possibility of visitors. Miss 
 Winter had therefore no special reason for uneasiness, 
 but people who are waiting have at times strange forebod- 
 ings. While she stood there the door was opened, and 
 the maid announced 
 
 " Mr. Easton." 
 
 Matthew Mark Easton came into the room immediately 
 afterwards. He shook hands rather awkwardly, as one 
 sees a man go through the ceremony whose fingers are 
 injured. 
 
 " How do you do, Miss Winter ? " he said, gravely, 
 managing to spread out that salutation into such length 
 that the door was perforce closed before he had fin- 
 ished. 
 
 " Well," she said, in a sharp, unsteady voice, ignoring 
 his question ; " what news have you ? " 
 
 As he laid aside his hat he looked round almost fur 
 tively. 
 
 " I have no news of the ship, Miss Winter," he re- 
 plied. 
 
 She begged him by a courteous gesture of the hand to 
 take a chair, and seated herself beside the table where 
 her work and books lay idle. 
 
 " Tell me," she said, " what you have done." 
 
 He came forward in obedience to her wish, and in do- 
 ing so emerged from the darker side of the room into the 
 full light of the autumn sun. In doing this he uncon- 
 sciously called attention to his own personal appearance. 
 The last three years had left a twofold mark on him. In
 
 After Three Years. 381 
 
 face he was an older man, for there wefe a hundred 
 minute crow's-feet round his eyes ; and his thin cheeks, 
 formerly sallow, now brown and healthy, were drawn 
 into minute downward-tending lines ; added to this was a 
 distinct droop at the corners of the mouth which had al- 
 ways been so ready to smile. The meaning of it all was 
 starvation, or at the best a lamentable insufficiency of 
 nutriment at some past period. In his form and carriage 
 there was a noticeable improvement, for it is a remarka- 
 ble thing that the eyes and face bear far longer the marks 
 and results of starvation than the body that was starved. 
 The American was obviously a stronger man than when 
 Miss Winter had last seen him ; his chest was broader, 
 his step firmer, and his glance clearer. 
 
 " I have," he said, " explored every yard of the coast 
 from the North Cape to the Yana river." 
 
 " And why did you stop at the Yana river ? " asked 
 the lady, with an air of knowing her ground. 
 
 " I will tell you afterwards," he said ; " when Miss 
 Grace is with you if if she does not object to my 
 presence." 
 
 Miss Winter thought for a moment. 
 
 " No," she answered, without meeting her companion's 
 glance ; " she will like to see you, I think. I will send a 
 note round to her at once." 
 
 She drew writing materials towards her and wrote 
 " Mr. Easton is here ; come at once." She read it aloud, 
 and ringing the bell, despatched the note. 
 
 "I presume," said Easton, slowly, "that the admiral 
 is still with us ? " 
 
 " Yes, he is alive and well." 
 
 Easton made no comment. His manner was charac- 
 terized by that singular repose which has no rest in it. 
 He looked round him, noting little matters with a certain
 
 382 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 accuracy of observation as people do when they stand on 
 the brink of a catastrophe. The lightness of touch which 
 had previously characterized his social method seemed 
 now to have left him. This was not a grave man, but a 
 light-hearted man rendered grave by the force of circum- 
 stances. The two are quite apart. The presence of one 
 in a room is conducive to restfulness ; the other is a dis- 
 turbing element, however quiet his demeanor may be. 
 
 Miss Winter, in her keener feminine sensibility, was 
 conscious of this tension, and it affected her, urging her 
 to speak at the cost of sense or sequence. 
 
 " Helen," she said, " is . . . you will find her a little 
 changed." 
 
 He made a convulsive little movement of his thin lips, 
 and gasped as if swallowing something. 
 
 " Ah ! " he uttered, anxiously. 
 
 " Yes ; she used to take life gravely, and now . . ." 
 
 " And now, Miss Winter ? " 
 
 " She is altered in that respect you will see." 
 
 He raised his eyes to her face. His glance was as quick 
 as ever, but his eyes did not twinkle now ; they were 
 grave, and the rapidity of their movement, being deprived 
 of brightness, was almost furtive. He did not press the 
 question, taking her last remark as a piece of advice, as 
 indeed it was intended. Then they sat waiting, until the 
 silence became oppressive. Suddenly Easton spoke with 
 a return of the quaint narrative manner which she remem- 
 bered as characteristic. 
 
 " One evening," he said, " as we were steaming down 
 the Baltic last week a dull warm evening, Tuesday, I 
 guess I was standing at the stern-rail with my arms 
 beneath my chin when something fell upon my sleeve. 
 I looked at it curiously, for I had not seen such a thing for 
 years. It was a tear most singular ! I feel like crying
 
 After Three Years. 383 
 
 now, Miss Winter ; I should like to sit down on that low 
 chair in the corner there and cry. There are some dis- 
 appointments that come like the disappointments of child- 
 hood when it rained on one's birthday and put a stop to 
 the picnic." 
 
 Miss Winter said nothing. She merely sat in her gra- 
 cious, attentive attitude and looked at him with sympa- 
 thetic eyes. 
 
 "It shows," he continued, presently, "how entirely 
 one may be mistaken in one's own destiny. I never 
 should have considered myself to be the sort of per- 
 son into whose life a catastrophe was intended to 
 break." 
 
 She still allowed him to continue, and after a pause he 
 took advantage of her silence. 
 
 " Some men," he went on, " expect to have other lives 
 upon their conscience military officers, ship-captains, 
 engine-drivers but their own lives are more or less at 
 equal stake, and the risk is allowed for in their salary, or 
 is supposed to be. I have thirty lives set down on the 
 debit side of my account, and some of those lives are 
 chips off my own." 
 
 "Thirty?" questioned Miss Winter. "There were 
 only eighteen men on board, all told." 
 
 "Yes; but there were others. I shall tell you when 
 Miss Grace comes. It is not a story that one cares to re- 
 late more often than necessary." 
 
 They had not long to wait. In a few moments they 
 heard the sound of the front-door bell. Easton rose from 
 his seat. He did not go towards the door, but stood in 
 the middle of the room, looking rather breathlessly to- 
 wards Miss Winter. She it was who moved to the door 
 and opened it, going out to the head of the stairs to meet 
 Helen.
 
 384 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 " Dear," he heard her say, and her voice was smooth 
 and sweet, " Mr. Easton is here ; he has come back." 
 
 There was no answer, and a moment later Helen Grace 
 stood before him. As he took the hand she stretched out 
 to him with an air almost of bravado, he saw at once the 
 difference hinted at by Miss Winter. It lay in the ex- 
 pression of her face, it hovered in her eyes, and yet I can- 
 not describe it. I can only lamely set it forth on the 
 chance of its recognition by some who have seen it in the 
 faces around them. To those who have not encountered 
 it, I can only say that I trust they never will, especially in 
 their mirror. It was not recklessness, for educated women 
 are rarely reckless, and yet it savored of defiance defiance 
 of something perhaps of the years that lay ahead. It is 
 to be seen in most ball-rooms, and the faces carrying it 
 are usually beautiful. The striking characteristic of such 
 women is their impregnability. One cannot get at them. 
 One may quarrel with them, make love to them, put them 
 under an obligation, and never know them better. They 
 may be sister, friend, even wife, and yet no companion. 
 That effect of an immovable barrier never allows itself to 
 be forgotten. And if you meet such women, though you 
 may be unable to define it, that barrier will make itself 
 felt. It was placed, riveted, dovetailed, cemented by the 
 Past a Past in which you had no part whatever. Such 
 a look usually goes with a perfect dress, faultless carriage, 
 and an impeccable savoir-faire. And Matthew Mark Easton 
 recognized it at once, for he had lived and moved among 
 such women, although the feminine influence in his home- 
 life had been small. 
 
 "I am glad, Miss Grace," he said, "that you have 
 done me the honor of coming." 
 
 And she smiled exactly as he expected the hard in- 
 scrutable "society " smile, which never betrays, and is
 
 After Three Years. 385 
 
 never infectious. She did not, however, trust herself so 
 far as to speak. There was silence for a moment such a 
 silence and such a moment as leave their mark upon the 
 entire life. Easton breathed hard. He had no doubt at 
 that time that he was bringing to each of these women 
 news of the man she loved. 
 2 5
 
 386 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 SALVAGE. 
 
 AT last he resolutely broke the silence. 
 
 " It is a long story," he said. " Will you sit down ? " 
 
 Both obeyed him so mechanically and so rapidly that he 
 had no time to prepare his words, and he hesitated. 
 
 "I I have to tell you," he said, "that there is no 
 news of the ship. She sailed from London three years 
 and seven months ago. She was sighted by the whaler 
 Martin on the third of May, three years ago, in the Green- 
 land Sea, since when there is no word of her. It is the 
 opinion of all the experts whom I have consulted that the 
 vessel was crushed by ice, possibly a few weeks after she 
 was sighted. Her crew and her officers have perished." 
 
 " You give us," said Miss Winter, " the opinions of 
 others. What is your own ? " 
 
 " Mine," he said, after a pause ; " mine is the same. 
 There is no reason to suppose there is no hope what- 
 ever." 
 
 " I gave that up two years ago," Helen stated simply. 
 
 Easton made no comment ; but presently he drew from 
 his pockets some thin books, which he opened, disclosing 
 that they were maps and charts. 
 
 " I will," he said, "explain to you the theory. Here 
 where this date is written is the spot where the ship was 
 spoken by the whaler. She was sailing in this direction. 
 It is probable that she passed Spitzbergen in safety,
 
 Salvage. 387 
 
 although there was ice as far south as this thin blue line ; 
 this 1 have since ascertained. After passing Spitzbergen 
 they would keep to the north. I take it that at this spot 
 they entered the broken ice, and in all probability they 
 were beset. There were at the beginning of June four 
 separate gales of wind from the southwest. During one 
 or other of those gales the ship was possibly crushed. 
 Whether the crew had time to take to the ice and land 
 provisions and boats, or whether it was sudden, is a 
 matter of conjecture. But I am quite certain that every 
 effort to save life, everything that was seamanlike and 
 courageous, was done. It failed. We have all failed. 
 Never was so complete an expedition fitted up. The offi- 
 cers were young, but they were good men, and for Arc- 
 tic work young men are a sine qud non. What they 
 lacked in experience of ice-work was supplied by their 
 subordinate officers, who were carefully selected men. I 
 can only add that I am truly sorry I did not go with them. 
 I have discovered that the doctors were wrong. I could 
 have stood the work, for I have done so and harder." 
 
 He paused, bending over the chart, which he opened 
 more fully, until it covered the whole table. He seemed 
 to be thinking deeply, or perhaps choosing his words. 
 The ladies waited for him to continue. 
 
 " You see," he went on, " that all this is conjecture ; 
 but I have something else to tell you something which 
 is not a matter of conjecture. But first I must ask you 
 to assure me that it goes no further. It must be a 
 secret sacred to ourselves, for it is the secret of two men 
 who well, who know more than we do now." 
 
 " Of course," said Miss Winter. 
 
 " Of course," echoed Helen. 
 
 He went on at once, as if anxious to show his perfect 
 reliance in their discretion.
 
 388 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 "This expedition," he said, "was not despatched to 
 discover the Northeast passage. It had quite another 
 purpose, and I have determined that in justice to my two 
 friends you must be told. But Admiral Grace must not 
 know. There is a political side to the question which 
 would render his position untenable if he knew. At pres- 
 ent the history of this generation is not yet dry it is like 
 a freshly-written page, and one cannot yet determine 
 what will stand out upon it when all the writing is equally 
 developed. But there is a huge blot, which will come out 
 very blackly in the hereafter. When this century is his- 
 tory all the world will wonder why Europe was so blind to 
 the internal condition of its greatest country. I mean 
 Russia. It is not far from England, and yet we know 
 more of Russia over in America than you do here. It is a 
 long story, and we are only at the beginning of it yet ; 
 but there can only be one end. You have perhaps heard 
 of the Nihilists, and you possibly judge them by their 
 name. You possibly think that they are atheists, icono- 
 clasts, miscreants. They are none of these things. They 
 are merely a political party. They are a party of men 
 fighting the bravest uphill fight that has been attempted. 
 Of course there is an extreme party, the Terrorists, who 
 driven to despair by heartless cruelty, thirsting for revenge, 
 or blindly impatient at the slowness of their progress, re- 
 sort to violent measures. But the Nihilists must no more 
 be judged from the Terrorist examples than your English 
 Liberals must be confounded with Radicals." 
 
 Easton had left the table where the charts were spread. 
 As he spoke he moved from side to side of the hearthrug, 
 dragging his feet through the worn fur. He warmed to 
 his work as he pleaded the cause for which he had labored 
 so hard, and it must be remembered that his diction was 
 quick, almost to breathlessness, the rapid speech of an
 
 Salvage. 389 
 
 orator, which is hardly recognizable when set down in 
 sober black and white. 
 
 " These men," he continued, " have received singularly 
 little help from other countries, which is accounted for by 
 the fact that the suppression of news in Russia is an art. 
 It is so difficult to learn the truth that most people are 
 content with the falsehoods disseminated by the Govern- 
 ment. But it is a singular fact that all who have studied 
 the question, all who have lived in Russia and know any- 
 thing whatever of the country, sympathize fully with the 
 Nihilists. The contest is quite one-sided between intel- 
 lect and reckless courage on the one hand, and brutal 
 unreasoning despotism on the other." 
 
 He paused for a moment, and then went on in a humbler 
 tone, as if deprecating the introduction of his own per- 
 sonality into this great question. 
 
 "I," he said, " have given half my life to this ques- 
 tion, and Tyars he knew a lot about it. Together we 
 worked out a scheme for aiding the escape of a number of 
 the most gifted Nihilists men and women who had been 
 exiled to Siberia, who were dragging out a miserable 
 felon's existence at the mines for no other crime than the 
 love of their own country. Our intention was not 
 political, it was humane. We did not wish to rescue the 
 Nihilists, but the individuals, that they might live in com- 
 parative happiness in America. Tyars and I clubbed to- 
 gether and supplied the funds. I was debarred from 
 going forbidden by the doctors please never forget that. 
 But Tyars was the best man for the purpose to be found 
 anywhere, and his subordinate office, Oswin Grace, was 
 even better than Tyars in his position. A rendezvous 
 was fixed at the mouth of the Yana river here on the 
 map and a date was named. Three Russians were de- 
 spatched from London to aid in the escape. They did
 
 39 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 their share. The party arrived at the spot fixed, but the 
 ship the Argo never reached them. I have been there. 
 I have seen the dead bodies of nine men one of whom, 
 Sergius Pavloski, I knew lying there. They seemed 
 to be waiting for the great Assize, when judgment shall 
 be given. I was quite alone, for I expected to find some- 
 thing, and so no one knows. The secret is quite safe, 
 for the keenest official in Siberia would never connect the 
 attempted escape of a number of Nihilists with the despatch 
 of a private English Arctic expedition, even if the bodies 
 are ever found. There were no records I searched." 
 
 He stopped somewhat suddenly, with a jerk, as a man 
 stops in the narration of something which has left an in- 
 effaceable pain in his life. After a little pause he returned 
 to the table and slowly folded the ragged maps. The 
 manner in which he did so betrayed an intimate knowl- 
 edge of each frayed corner ; but the movements of his 
 fingers were stiff and awkward. There was a sugggestion 
 of consciousness in his every action ; his manner was 
 almost that of a cripple attempting to conceal his de- 
 formity. Helen was watching him. 
 
 " And you," she inquired gently ; " you have endured 
 great hardships ? " 
 
 He folded the maps and placed them in the breast- 
 pocket of his coat. 
 
 "Yes," he answered, without meeting her eyes, "I 
 have had a bad time of it." 
 
 They waited, but he said nothing more. That was the 
 history of the last two years. Presently Helen Grace 
 rose to go. She appeared singularly careless of details. 
 Part of the news she had learnt was old, the remainder 
 was too fresh to comment upon. She kissed Miss Winter, 
 shook hands with Matthew Mark Easton, and quickly left 
 the room. Easton did not sit down again. He walked to
 
 Salvage. 391 
 
 the window, and standing there waited till Helen Grace 
 had left the house, then he watched her as she crossed 
 the road. 
 
 "These English ladies," he said, reflecting aloud, "are 
 wonderful. They are like very fine steel." 
 
 When he turned he found Miss Winter standing beside 
 the empty fireplace. Her attitude was scarcely an in- 
 vitation for him to prolong his visit, such as might have 
 been conveyed by the resumption of a seat. 
 
 "That," he said, buttoning his coat over the maps, 
 " is why I did not go farther than the Yana river." 
 
 She smiled a little wearily. 
 
 "It was a wild enterprise," she said. 
 
 " I should like to try it again." 
 
 "Then it was not impossible ?" 
 
 "No," he answered, "it was not impossible." 
 
 She reflected for some moments. 
 
 " Then why did it not succeed ? " 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 "There is one obstacle," ne answered at length, 
 choosing his words with an unusual deliberation, "men- 
 tioned casually after others in bills of lading, policies of 
 insurance, and other maritime documents ' the hand of 
 God.' I surmise this was that Hand . . . and I admit 
 that it is heavy." 
 
 "I always felt," said Miss Winter, musingly, "that 
 something was being concealed from us." 
 
 "At one time I thought you knew all about it." 
 
 Miss Winter turned and looked at him in surprise. 
 
 " You once warned us against the Russian minister." 
 
 She thought for some moments, recalling the incident. 
 
 "Yes," she said at length, "I remember. It was the 
 merest accident. I suspected nothing." 
 
 "Concealment," pleaded the American, "was abso-
 
 3Q2 Prisoners and Captives. 
 
 lutely necessary. It made no difference to the expedi- 
 tion, neither added to the danger nor detracted from it. 
 But I did not want Miss Grace and yourself to think that 
 these two men had thrown away their lives in attempting 
 such a futile achievement as the Northeast passage. 
 They were better men than that." 
 
 She smiled a little wearily. 
 
 " No one will ever suspect," she said ; "for even now 
 that you have told me the story I can scarcely realize that 
 it is true. It sounds like some tale of bygone days ; and 
 yet we have a living proof that it is all true, that it has 
 all happened." 
 
 " Helen Grace . . ."he suggested. 
 
 She nodded her head. 
 
 " Of course you knew." 
 
 " Yes," he answered, briefly. 
 
 " And did you know about him ? " 
 
 He did not reply at once, but glanced at her keenly. 
 
 " I knew that he loved her," was the answer. 
 
 She had never resumed her seat, and he took her atti- 
 tude in the light of a dismissal. He made a little move- 
 ment and mechanically examined the lining of his hat. 
 
 " Are you going to stay in England ? " she asked. 
 
 "No;" and he offered her his hand; " I am going 
 back to America for some years, at all events." 
 
 They shook hands and he moved towards the door. 
 
 " When you come back to England," she said, in rather 
 a faint voice, " will you come and see me ? " 
 
 He turned sharply. 
 
 " Do you mean that, Miss Winter ? ' 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 His quick dancing glance was flitting over her whole 
 person. 
 
 " If I do come," he said, with a sudden relapse into
 
 Salvage. 393 
 
 Americanism, " I surmise it will be to tell you something 
 else something I thought 1 never should tell you." 
 
 She stood quite still, a dignified,* self-possessed woman, 
 but never raised her eyes. 
 
 " Do you still mean it ? " 
 
 She gave a little nod. The door-handle rattled in his 
 grasp, as if his hand were unsteady. 
 
 "I thought," he said, slowly, " that it was Oswin 
 Grace." 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Never ? " he inquired, sharply. 
 
 " Never." 
 
 " Then I stay in England." 
 
 And he closed the door again. 
 
 THE END.
 
 llililll'lllllllli"|'l | l ' j CO p