L 
 
 SALVING 
 
 A HTCRFT TPT 
 
 ICE DRAKE 
 
 PP.6OO7 
 
 R36S3 
 
 1919 
 
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 1 iBinmniiiHiiiwwapplW 
 
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 LIBRARY £ 
 
 W OF CALIFOfJWA 
 
 HSofe.
 
 Dr. C. H. HOPWOOD, 
 CALSTOCK, Cornwall
 
 Methuen's Cheap Library 
 
 Oscar Wilde 
 
 Oscar Wilde 
 
 Oscar Wilde 
 
 Oscar Wilde 
 
 Oscar Wilde 
 
 Oscar Wilde 
 
 Oscar Wilde 
 
 E. V. Lucas 
 
 E. V. Lucas 
 
 Robert Louis Stevenson 
 
 Hilaire Belloc 
 
 Maurice Maeterlinck 
 
 G. K. Chesterton 
 
 36 De Profundi* 
 
 37 Lord Arthur Savile's Crime 
 
 38 Selected Poems 
 
 39 An Ideal Husband 
 
 40 Intentions 
 
 41 Lady Windermere's Fan 
 
 42 Charmides and other Poems 
 
 43 Harvest Home 
 
 44 A Little of Everything 
 
 45 Vailima Letters 
 
 46 Hills and the Sea 
 
 47 The Blue Bird 
 50 Charles Dickens 
 
 53 Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to his Son 
 
 George Horace Lorimer 
 
 54 The Life of John Ruskln W. G. Collingwood 
 
 57 Sevastopol and other Stories Leo Tolstoy 
 
 58 The Lore of the Honey- Bee Tickner Edwardes 
 60 From Midshipman to Field Marshal Sir Evelyn Wood 
 
 63 Oscar Wilde 
 
 64 The Vicar of Morweastow 
 
 65 Old Country Life 
 
 76 Home Life in France 
 
 77 Selected Prose 
 
 78 The Best of Lamb 
 80 Selected Letters 
 83 Reason and Belief 
 85 The Importance of Being Earnest 
 91 Social Evils and their Remedy 
 
 93 The Substance of Faith 
 
 94 All Things Considered 
 
 95 The Mirror of the Sea 
 
 96 A Picked Company 
 116 The Survival of Man 
 126 Science from an Easy Chair 
 141 Variety Lane 
 144 A Shilling for my Thoughts 
 146 A Woman of No Importance 
 149 A Shepherd's Life 
 193 On Nothing 
 200 Jane Austen and her Times 
 
 214 Select Essays 
 
 215 R. L. S. 
 223 Two Generations 
 226 On Everything 
 234 Records and Reminiscences 
 
 253 My Childhood nnd Boyhood 
 
 254 On Something 
 
 A Selection only 
 
 Arthur Ransome 
 S. Caring-Gould 
 S. Baring-Gould 
 M. Betham-Edwards 
 Oscar Wilde 
 E. V. Lucas 
 Robert Louis Stevenson 
 Sir Oliver Lodge 
 Oscar Wilde 
 Leo Tolstoy 
 Sir Oliver Lodge 
 G. K. Chesterton 
 Joseph Conrad 
 Hilaire Belloc 
 Sir Oliver Lodge 
 Sir Ray Lankester 
 E. V. Lucas 
 G. K. Chesterton 
 Oscar Wilde 
 W. H. Hudson 
 Hilaire Belloc 
 G. E. Mitton 
 Maurice Maeterlinck 
 Francis Watt 
 Leo Tolstoy 
 Hilaire Belloc 
 Sir Francis Burnaud 
 T.eo Tolstoy 
 Hilaire Belloc
 
 Uniform with this Volume 
 
 ■ 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 O 
 
 P 
 
 ■s 
 
 30 
 
 22 
 
 71 
 
 8i 
 
 87 
 
 02 
 
 113 
 125 
 
 •35 
 137 
 •40 
 •43 
 • 50 
 IOO 
 
 211 
 
 212 
 
 2'S 
 217 
 
 220 
 2 2J 
 225 
 227 
 230 
 231 
 232 
 260 
 250 
 252 
 262 
 256 
 26l 
 264 
 268 
 269 
 270 
 271 
 274 
 275 
 276 
 277 
 
 •JO 
 2KO 
 2S| 
 2S2 
 283 
 
 The Mighty Atom 
 
 Jane 
 
 Boy 
 
 Spanish Gold 
 
 Teresa of Watling Street 
 
 The Unofficial Honeymoon 
 
 Round the Red Lamp 
 
 Light Freights, 
 
 The Long Road 
 
 The Gates of Wrath 
 
 The C;rd 
 
 Lalage's Lovers 
 
 White Fang 
 
 The Adventures of Dr. Whitty 
 
 Lavender and Old Lace 
 
 The Regent 
 
 The Lodger 
 
 A Spinner in the Sun 
 
 The Alystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu 
 
 Marie Corelli 
 
 Marie Corelli 
 
 Marie Corelli 
 
 G. A. Birmingham 
 
 Arnold Bennett 
 
 DolfWyll 
 
 Sir A. Conan Doyle 
 
 \Y. W. Jacobs 
 
 John Oxenhnm 
 
 Arnold Bennett 
 
 Arnold Bennett 
 
 G. A. Birmingham 
 
 Jack London 
 
 G. A. Birmingham 
 
 Myrtle Kcecl 
 
 Arnold liennett 
 
 Mrs. Belloc Lov 
 
 Myrtle I 
 
 Sax Rohmer 
 
 The Love Pirate 
 Sandy Married 
 The Gentleman Adventurer 
 The Happy Hunting Ground 
 Max Carrados 
 Under Western Fyes 
 Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo 
 A Weaver of Dreams 
 A Heritage of Peril 
 Broken Shackles 
 A Knight of Spain 
 Byeways 
 
 I.e Salving of a Derelict 
 Cameos 
 
 The Happy Valley 
 At the Sign of the Jr.ck o' Lenten: 
 Anthony Cuthbert 
 The Golden Barrier 
 Devoted Sparkes 
 Two Women 
 Tarzan of the Apes 
 Vengeance is Mi 
 His Island Princess 
 The Two Marys 
 Demeter's Daughter 
 The Supreme Crime 
 The Glad Heart 
 Secret History 
 Mary All-alone 
 Darneley Place 
 The Desert Trail 
 The War Wedding 
 Royal Georgie 
 Because of these '; 
 Airs. Peter Howard 
 The Yellow Diamond 
 A Great Man 
 The Rest Cure 
 
 C. N. and A. M. Williamson 
 Dorothea Comers 
 
 H. C.E 
 Mrs. Alice Perrin 
 Ernest Bramah 
 Joseph C 
 E. Phillips Oppenheim 
 Myrtle I 
 A. W. March- 
 John Oxenham 
 Marjorie Bowen 
 Robert Hichens 
 Maurice Drake 
 Marie Corelli 
 B. M. Croker 
 Myrtle I 
 
 Agnes and Egerton I 
 
 W. Pett Ridge 
 Max Pemberton 
 
 Lice Burrou 
 Andrew Balfour 
 W. Clark Ru 
 Mrs. Oliphant 
 Eden Phillpotts 
 Dorothea Gerard 
 E. Maria Albanesi 
 C. N. and A. M. Williamson 
 John Oxenham 
 Richard J 
 Dane Ccolidgo 
 
 and A. M. Williamson 
 S. Barii 
 Marjorr 
 
 Adeline Sergeant 
 Arnold Bennett 
 W. B. Maxwell 
 
 A short Selection only.
 
 THE SALVING 
 OF A DERELICT 
 
 BY 
 
 MAURICE DRAKE 
 
 AUTHOR OF " WO," 
 
 TfURlJ E1HTT0X 
 
 METHUEN & CO LTD. 
 
 36 ESSEX STREET W.C. 
 
 LONDON
 
 First Issued hi this Cheap Form {Second Edition) January 31st, 1Q1S 
 Third Edition • J,) ' 9 
 
 
 
 This Book was originally Published by Messrs. T. Werner' 
 Laurie, Ltd. (fit.) . . November igro
 
 TO 
 
 A. C.
 
 1 
 
 THE SALVING OF A 
 DERELICT 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ARISING full moon, the earliest of young sum- 
 mer, lingered yet behind the black turrets of 
 Dover Castle, sending between them long fingers of 
 light upon the twilit peace of the harbour below. 
 
 Beneath it to seaward the intermittent flash- - 
 Hash — flash of the South Foreland light wheeled 
 regularly upon a wisp of pale sea mist, that faded 
 and vanished as though the giant beam had wiped 
 it from existence. Upon the sheer face of the chalk 
 chance prominences here and there caught the 
 growing moonlight, the shadows between them 
 making of the cliffs a mighty fairy lacework of 
 frosted silver upon deep dark blue. In its little 
 valley the town lay almost silent, its sea front 
 chequered with lighted windows and strung with 
 beads of light, dependent in long catenaries from 
 lamp to lamp along the promenade. Touched by 
 the moonlight, the trident of piers stretched whitely 
 forth over the still cliff-shadowed waters, their ends 
 dimly illuminate at monotonously cadenced intervals 
 with a sickly light that waxed and waned as the 
 great green lantern revolved slowly around the 
 masthead of the harbour works light-vessel.
 
 8 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 Beyond, in the narrow straits, threaded with 
 silent traffic, outward and homeward bound vessels 
 announced arrival or departure by high-flung 
 rockets or the blue-white deck flares, disposed after 
 set fashion, fore, aft, or amidships, in the night 
 speech of the sea. 
 
 Between the swift-shifting traffic and the cliff 
 shore a little cutter-rigged yacht, her sails ghost- 
 white in the eerie 'tween lights, glided slowly and 
 silently on the last soft air from seaward towards 
 the harbour mouth. The head and guernseyed 
 shoulders of a man protruded from the square hatch 
 of her fore-peak, smoke from his pipe drifting aloft 
 in irresolute spirals. On the deck aft by the tiny 
 steering-well another figure lay recumbent, bare 
 arms crossed behind head, bare legs hanging over- 
 side towards the cool water drifting slowly by. A 
 third man sat in the steering-well, the tiller beneath 
 his elbow. He glanced aloft at the scarcely drawing 
 sails, then over at the gliding water alongside, and 
 stifled a yawn. 
 
 " Whee-ew, whee-ew," he whistled softly. 
 " Scarcely a breath, Pat." 
 
 The man addressed turned lazily over upon his 
 elbow and then sat bolt upright. The light showed 
 him merry of face, with curly hair and twinkling 
 grey eyes. 
 
 " Always the way with this old tub," he said, 
 stretching himself. " Either you get wind enough 
 to blow the sticks out of her, or else it's dead flat 
 calms. If I weren't a weak-kneed, easily persuaded 
 idiot, Laurence, I'd ha' shipped on a luckier packet 
 'fore now." 
 
 Laurence Averil laughed. Dark-skinned and lithe, 
 he had the clear-cut features generally termed
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 9 
 
 " aristocratic " by people who have but the vaguest 
 notion of the meaning of the word. 
 
 " Nobody else 'ud have you," he said. " You're 
 no good in a boat, you lazy lawyer." 
 
 "Lawyer be — blowed! I'm a true sailor, every 
 hair a rope yam and every drop of blood in my 
 veins pure Stockholm tar. At least, I only want 
 to learn to ' hand, reef and steer, and ship a selvagee.' 
 I've got a wife in every port we call at already, and 
 that's the prime necessity, as everybody knows. 
 Now there, ashore " — he waved his arm towards the 
 slowly nearing harbour lights — " there's the dearest 
 girl of all girls that ever lived. The only girl I ever 
 really loved, she is, and if I'd been on any boat but 
 this drif tin' old raft I'd have been basking in the light 
 of her smiles these two hours past. What's time now? " 
 
 As if to answer him, a little yacht's clock in the 
 cabin struck sharply, " ting-ting." 
 
 " Two bells — nine o'clock — and the pubs shut at 
 eleven, and we shan't be in for another half-hour at 
 this rate." 
 
 " Pubs ? " Averil queried. " What about the 
 only girl you ever loved, then ? " 
 
 " She's in one, you simple-minded blighter. 
 Shouldn't love her half so much else. She's in the 
 Badminton, and I'm going to rush for a Scotch and 
 soda dispensed by her fair hands before I'm much 
 older. I chucked our last soda-water bottle over- 
 board passing the South Sands lightship. If I'd 
 known how long it would be before I got another, 
 I'd have put in a farewell message to pa and ma to 
 tell 'em I was about to die of thirst upon the high 
 seas, too." 
 
 " And to the only girl you ever loved as well ? ' 
 
 " My faith ! If I was to start writing farewell
 
 10 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 messages to all the ' only girls ' I've ever loved — 
 and lost, drat 'em all, the fickle, freckled jades— I 
 should be at it for weeks, till even you got tired of 
 playing at Vandcrdecken in the Straits of Dover. 
 1 11 bring you a wind, if whistling'll do it." 
 
 He whistled shrilly through his teeth. A dull 
 catspaw rippled the surface of the water as the night 
 breeze came down the valley off the land. 
 
 " There you are. What would you do without 
 me, you sucking financier ? " 
 
 " Jib sheets," Averil called, and the man forward, 
 leaping on deck, flattened the loose headsails as the 
 breeze — sweet with suggestion of hayfields ashore — 
 reached the little vessel. She heeled to it, coming 
 round with a graceful sweep ; the soft ripple of 
 water along her sides became a rising hiss, and the 
 skeleton pier works to the right began to slide rapidly 
 past between them and the lighted town. 
 
 The piers foreshortened, became end on, and the 
 harbour entrance opened ; but Laurence Averil 
 stood on his course until they were well astern. 
 Then at his cry of " Lee oh ! " the yacht flew up 
 into the wind in answer to the depressed tiller, her 
 sails, released from pressure, shaking and flapping 
 briskly. Pat Dwyer, his laziness vanished, tumbled 
 anyhow into the steering-well, throwing loose the 
 taut jib sheet and hauling rapidly on the other as 
 he did so. The man forward cleared the heel of the 
 jib over the staysail, and the boat was about, curtsey- 
 ing lightly as she gathered way into the harbour. 
 
 " Goes about like a top," her owner said proudly. 
 
 " Gar'n." Dwyer mocked him. " One idea'd 
 old cuckoo, you are. Now there's that very thing — ■ 
 going about. In your darned twopenny-ha'penny 
 pld tub going about quickly 's a virtue. Whereas if
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 11 
 
 I hint that I too can enjoy going off on a fresh 
 course, then I'm a Reuben, unstable as water, and 
 I shall not excel." His voice took on the sing-song 
 whine that in some quarters is considered a truly 
 religious adjunct to quotations from Scripture. 
 " Here's the harbour at last. Luxon, ahoy ! " 
 
 " Sir," came from forward. 
 
 ' When we're anchored I want you ready to put 
 me ashore — for letters." The man's grin was hidden 
 behind the mast. " I am expecting urgent business 
 letters here, and delay might prove to be fatal. Then 
 you will return and help Mr. Averil snug down for 
 the night. I will now go below and array myself— 
 to meet the Dover post-master." 
 
 He dived into the little cabin. Laurence Averii 
 stooped his head and spoke feelingly. 
 
 ' You've a cheek of ringing brass, if you like, 
 Pat Dwyer. Aren't you going to help stow sails ? " 
 
 " I am not, dear one. The mariner from toil 
 released will joyously carouse ashore. If you'd 
 come I'd wait for you, but you won't. You'll tidy 
 up your beloved boat, and then you will gracefully 
 recline on deck and survey the peaceful scene, up- 
 lifting your great soul to meet the moonshine— to 
 which, methinks, it is somewhat akin. You will 
 also endeavour to detect the smell of roses on the 
 balmy night air, and kid yourself you have a poet's 
 mind attuned to all sweet nature. I haven't any soul 
 at all. I've got a great and consuming thirst that 
 I wouldn't sell for half a quid, and I'm going ashore 
 to do it justice." 
 
 ' There's whisky on board," Laurence grumbled. 
 " Don't see why you want to go ashore." 
 
 " A quarter of a bottle — and no soda. Wah, great 
 chief, the heart of the paleface is downcast because of
 
 12 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 the shortage in the commissariat." He emerged 
 from the cabin, struggling with a recalcitrant collar 
 stud. " Besides, is whisky all ? What of Love, 
 my poet? I want to bask in the smiles of Cissie 
 at the Badminton — unless she's got the sack by this 
 time. Perhaps she has, alas ! Haven't seen her 
 since last September. Ah me ! Tis a world of 
 fleeting glories. Never mind. Daresay if she's 
 gone there'll be somebody there who'll listen to the 
 outpourings of a virgin heart. When are you going 
 to anchor ? " 
 
 ' Now, and here." He raised his voice. " Anchor, 
 Luxon." The chain slid out with a rattle and whir. 
 " Get the topsail off her." 
 
 Dwyer protested. " Am I to wait till you've 
 got the sails stowed ? " 
 
 " Can't leave her like this. We'll get the mainsail 
 and topsail down and then you can go. I'll get in 
 the headsails myself. Why not get the Berthon 
 overside meanwhile ? " Aided b}' the man, he set 
 himself to lower away the mainsail, whilst Dwyer 
 dragged a shapeless crumple of iron and cam-as 
 from off the deck into the water, where it floated 
 hazardously. Holding by the main rigging, he 
 jumped up and down upon the folded bottom boards 
 that projected from its centre until the deeply 
 wrinkled mass flipped outwards from under his feet 
 into the semblance of a clumsy boat. Making her 
 fast, he scrambled on deck, threw paddles and row- 
 locks into her, and went below to assume his coat. 
 
 When he came on deck again the mainsail lay 
 along the boom, strapped by wide canvas tiebands 
 into a shapely roll, and the yachtsman knelt by the 
 bulwarks to steady the dinghy as he stepped down 
 into her.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 18 
 
 "Matches and bread. Is that all we want, 
 Laurence ? " he asked. 
 
 " Any of your stores short, Luxon ? " 
 
 " Oil's rayther low, sir." 
 
 " Bother ! Stinking stuff ! Chuck the tin in, 
 then. I've got her." He held to the yacht's rig- 
 ging whilst the man fetched the can. ' You can 
 see to the marketing when we get ashore and bring 
 the stuff back with you now. I shall be down at 
 eleven. That suit you, Laurence ? " 
 
 Averil nodded. " Ay," he assented, busying 
 himself with the waterproof cover of the mainsail. 
 " Keep sober, and don't let any of your girls run 
 away with you." 
 
 " 'Twill be a struggle. Push off, Luxon." The 
 boat, impelled by short choppy strokes, jerked its 
 way like a great water-beetle towards the pier, 
 Dwyer sitting, knees and nose together, in her 
 
 stern. 
 
 Left to himself, Laurence Averil finished covering 
 the mainsail, and then, going forward, lowered jib 
 and staysail. Following on the heat of the day, 
 the dew was heavy and the sails too wet for stowing. 
 So, arranging them on the foredeck to dry in the 
 coming morning's sun, he went below, lighted a 
 lamp, and, filling his pipe, sat down upon one of 
 the narrow cabin lockers that served as seats by day 
 and beds by night. Being short of matches, he 
 used a spill of paper, torn from an old and crumpled 
 letter, to light his pipe. Half the sheet remained, 
 and he re-read it by the light of the swinging lamp. 
 " Should always have wished myself," the last 
 sentence from the destroyed page concluded, and 
 then went on :
 
 14 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 ' You know, my boy, that although there is no 
 probability of the necessity ever arising for you to 
 earn your own living, it has always been my desire 
 that you should attach yourself to a profession. I 
 need not remind you of the disadvantages of idle- 
 ness. Perhaps I am inclined to lay undue stress 
 upon this, but you must remember that my position 
 as well as your own is entirety due to a lifetime of 
 severe application and unwearying perseverance. 
 I am happy to say that you have never given me any 
 anxiety whatever. Even during these past two 
 years, during which your lack of definite occupation 
 might well have thrown you into any of the tempta- 
 tions that beset the path of a young man, I have no 
 reason to be anything but proud of your temperate 
 habit of life, but I would nevertheless again urge 
 upon you the desirability of choosing a profession. 
 You already know my own wish that you should be 
 called to the Bar, but that choice I wish to leave un- 
 reservedly in your own hands, and am, my dear 
 Laurence, always your affectionate father, 
 
 "Herman Averil." 
 
 He turned the scrap of paper over and over in his 
 hands. ' Ye-es, I suppose it'll be the Bar," he said 
 to himself. ' Pity I didn't know my own inclina- 
 tions ten years ago. Then it might have been the 
 Navy. That's the worst of not belonging to a 
 
 ;vice family. Heigh-ho!" He tore the letter 
 across and across at its well-worn creases, and, 
 going on deck, tossed the scraps of paper overboard. 
 
 The moon was now high, all the harbour softly 
 bathed in its radiance. Against the Admiralty pier 
 the funnels of a cross-channel boat shone staring 
 white, save where at their bases deck lights tinged
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 15 
 
 them with an added yellow glow. The noise of 
 escaping steam through them, carried by the still 
 water, thrilled the deck on which he stood, and 
 whilst he watched the boat train crawled upon the 
 pier, its slow pace and the yellow lighted spots upon 
 its sides suggestive of some giant caterpillar. It 
 stopped, and a bustle of embarkation broke out upon 
 the still evening ; hurrying steps clattered across 
 the gangways, and the great derricks commenced 
 their staying work of swinging luggage aboard. 
 A small intermediate cargo boat moored alongside 
 boomed a long deep note from her siren that echoed 
 along the cliffs and up the valley behind the town. 
 In the silence that followed it, the sound of descend- 
 ing feet upon the pier-steps was clearly audible, 
 and Luxon came rowing back to the yacht. 
 
 Averil caught the painter as he came alongside 
 and took some parcels from him. ' Leave the row- 
 locks and paddles in her," he said. :< She'll lie 
 alongside till you fetch Mr. Dwyer." And then, 
 again going below, he took a volume of Emerson's 
 essays from the little bookshelf and settled down 
 
 to read. 
 
 The book opened at the essay on " Heroism," the 
 first words on which his eyes fell being perhaps 
 the bravest ever written : 
 
 " But that which takes my fancy most, in the 
 heroic class, is the good humour and hilarity they 
 exhibit. It is a height to which common duty can 
 very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. 
 But ... the great will not condescend to take any- 
 thing seriously ; all must be gay as the song of a 
 canary, though it were the building of cities. 
 
 The words came warmly to him, sharply contrast- 
 ing as they did with the somewhat sententious note
 
 16 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 of self-conscious prosperity struck by his father's 
 letter. The sense of contrast was so strong as almost 
 to faintly accuse him of disloyalty. He closed the 
 book, his fingers between its pages, and gazed through 
 the cabin doorway at the lighted harbour, silent in 
 meditation. 
 
 The words lingered in his mind. Our English 
 temperament, for all its strength, was too heavy — 
 too dull. It took this fiery American, product of 
 the best of our old race transplanted to the dry and 
 nervous atmosphere of a great new country, to call 
 so clearly to both sides of the emotions of youth, 
 full as they are of yearnings for the great unknown, 
 of joy and laughter in the present hour. 
 
 " Gay as the song of a canary — even the building 
 of cities." He pictured for a moment his father's 
 austere life, its sternly unvarying course, its respect- 
 able observance of the services of religion and society, 
 and again the thought of disloyalty arose in him. 
 He sighed, reopened his book, and read on quietly, 
 his mood of contemplation past. 
 
 At eleven o'clock Dwyer's hail sounded from the 
 pier, and Luxon's bare feet paddled across the deck. 
 Laurence heard him get into the dinghy and push off, 
 and within two minutes his friend was aboard, 
 noisily pleased with all the world. 
 
 ' Stuffy old freak," he said, in scorn. " Reading 
 — on a night like this ! Having slain my thirst, 
 my soul begins to revive — I've got one, after all, it 
 seems. Here's letters for you— one's a wire." He 
 threw two envelopes across the cabin. " Where's 
 the whisky ? I want a nightcap : 
 
 • A grand piano underneath the bough, 
 A drop of Scotch, a loaf of bread, and thou 
 Beside me singing in the wilderness.'
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 17 
 
 I am moved by the moonlight to poesy — What's 
 wrong, man ? " 
 
 For Laurence had thrown the telegram upon the 
 table, and with a face of horror was reading the 
 letter. 
 
 " The guvnor's dead," he said huskily. "Pat, 
 look at this." He held out the sheet of paper with 
 a shaking hand. " What in the name of Heaven am 
 I to do ? " 
 
 Dwyer, sobered at once, glanced for a moment at 
 the letter, and then back at his friend, leaning back 
 against the cushions, his face white and terrified. He 
 pushed his own glass over to him. 
 
 " Drink this," he commanded sharply, the merri- 
 ment gone from his voice. " And pull yourself 
 together. Keep a stiff lip, man " ; for the first 
 words of the letter had shown him how serious matters 
 were. 
 
 The signature waf that of Herman Averil's manag- 
 ing clerk — the date two days before. 
 
 " Dear Mr. Laurence," it ran,—" I hardly know 
 how to write you, we are all so terrified and upset. 
 The telegram will break the news to you somewhat, 
 but it is far worse than that. Your father died by 
 his own hand. He shot himself in the office here. I 
 cannot tell you how horrified and upset we all are, 
 and we fear that business affairs are at the bottom 
 of it — that matters with the firm are not at all as 
 they should be. . . ." 
 
 The letter, hastily written, with erasures and 
 smears on every page, was itself a sufficient symptom 
 of violent agitation. Dwyer ran his eye down over 
 its pages, noting a line here and there, — " Trust
 
 18 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 funds appear to be missing " — " already hints at 
 misappropriation have come to my ears" — and 
 sorrow for his friend made him look up at Laurence 
 again, kindly sympathy in his glance. 
 
 ' What am I to do ? " was all Laurence could say. 
 
 ' Drink that whisky first. Drink it, I say," — 
 and Averil obeyed in silence. 'Now change into 
 your shore duds and catch the next train to town. 
 There's one at midnight. Where's a time-table ? ' 
 He rummaged the bookshelf. " No, twelve-fifteen. 
 Then you'll be on the spot first thing in the morning. 
 Go to my governor before you do anything else. 
 You'll want a lawyer's help in this. The boat ? 
 Never mind about her. I'll run her back to the 
 Island and leave Luxon in charge, and skip back 
 to town soon's I can. Now hurry, hurry, hurry,- - 
 you've only half an hour." 
 
 He helped Laurence to dress, and sent him off 
 in the dinghy with a warm handclasp of farewell. 
 " Good-bye, old man. Buck up, and pull yourself 
 together. I'll be with you 'fore the end of the week,. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 He watched him up the pier-steps in the moon- 
 light, and returned to the cabin. The letters and 
 wire still lay on the table. He picked the latter up. 
 ' Your father dangerously ill no hope return at 
 once," it read, and Dwyer sat down upon his bunk, 
 the full consciousness of all that this would mean 
 only coming to him slowly. 
 
 ' Poor old Laurence," he said. ' Poor old pal. 
 My word ! this means absolute blue ruin for him — 
 the utter smash of all things. He'll be broke to the 
 world ; and he's never wanted a penny in his life, 
 and he doesn't know how to earn one ! " 
 
 He shivered, and went to bed.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 19 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CRUEL as the shock and horror of his father's 
 suicide had been to Laurence Averil, it was as 
 nothing to the shame that followed in the public 
 unravelling of the dead man's business affairs. 
 
 The report of the pistol that had startled his 
 office staff and sent his pale-faced clerks hither and 
 thither to confusedly announce that " Averil's had 
 gone under," and that the apparently prosperous 
 life of the founder of the firm had ended in failure 
 and self-destruction, had been but a prelude to the 
 common knowledge that the dead man had sunk 
 from legitimate speculation to business actions as 
 shady as the commonest of theft. 
 
 Of handsome appearance and suave manner, 
 he had been generally and highly respected. To 
 all appearance, he had been a man of the highest 
 integrity, punctiliously honourable in business affairs, 
 and noted for large and unostentatious charities 
 in his private life. No breath of scandal had ever 
 touched his name. To such men trust is readily 
 accorded, and until the day of his death Herman 
 Averil had enjoyed the trust and respect of all who 
 knew him. 
 
 The immense sums he had scattered like chaff 
 in his lately born mania for speculation had in most 
 cases been intrusted to him with but the merest forms 
 of safeguard, and the details of shameless misappro- 
 priation of trust funds, of the coldly-conceived ruin 
 of hundreds who had trusted him, that transpired in 
 open court after his death, made Laurence hot with 
 shame for his father's memory.
 
 20 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 The wretched man had stopped at nothing. 
 Probably the whole history of his financial fall was 
 never brought to light, so skilfully had he covered 
 his track in the earlier months of his failing fortunes. 
 Shameless lies had concealed shameful theft ; crimes 
 had been committed to cover crimes. No less than 
 three forgeries were proved to have been committed 
 by him. 
 
 So far as his books and other evidence showed, 
 the firm had done business successfuUy and honour- 
 ably until three years before its founder's death. 
 Then some petty Central American revolution had 
 shaken the credit of an engineering association in 
 which Herman Averil had been deeply interested. 
 Even then there had been every opportunity for 
 retrenchment and a profitable carrying on of the 
 business ; but, fatally misled by a carelessly w r orded 
 code telegram, he had plunged deeply in just such 
 a purely speculative affair as he had a thousand 
 times warned his own clients against touching. 
 
 The speculation failed, and the man, lacking the 
 courage to own defeat, had deliberately set out to 
 gamble with funds intrusted to him for investment. 
 Once or twice lucky coups brought him to within a 
 few hundred pounds of the financial position he had 
 enjoyed before that unlucky plunge, but the final 
 small speculation needed to gain those hundreds 
 and his lost honour had invariably failed, and he had 
 again and again been condemned to enter the gam- 
 bling lists for another losing light with Fate. 
 
 He had perhaps one of the clearest, keenest brains 
 in the financial world, and his struggles were magni- 
 ficent. Thousands of pounds passed through his 
 hands to this speculation or that, scattering, group- 
 ing, withdrawn for reinvestment, never for a moment
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 21 
 
 lying idle. It was as though the man felt that it 
 was the last struggle in which he would embark, 
 and he speculated with unparalleled daring, flinging 
 his golden weapons here and there with the masterful 
 skill and the cool, calculating recklessness that 
 makes empires— or destroys them. 
 
 But his nerve was gone. Though scarcely a line 
 on his broad white forehead told of the struggle, _ 
 in his heart was cold, deadly fear— fear of exposure, 
 of any one little slip that should show the world his 
 real position. He had gone, apparently smiling and 
 quiet, to the very execution of forgery, and the 
 crime went unchallenged ; but if any of his clients 
 or clerks could have had a moment's glimpse of 
 Herman Averil in his private office after their 
 inspection of his handiwork, it is doubtful- whether 
 the onlooker's belief in his merits would not have 
 been severely shaken. Though even when entirely 
 alone the man was calm-eyed and quiet, the refresh- 
 •nt his steady hand conveyed to his firm lips was 
 spirit— raw spirit— and he drank it, in these his 
 worst hours, as though it were pure water from the 
 
 brook. 
 
 At the last, when detection was inevitable, he had 
 t^one to his 'gun-maker and bought the revolver 
 that was to end his days as calmly as he had gone 
 to church the day before. Not a twitching muscle 
 nor a shake in his voice was perceived by the dealer, 
 who, knowing him well, had hastened personally 
 to serve so highly respected a client. 
 
 He had chatted to the man for a while of the 
 prospects of sport in the following autumn; had 
 talked of " My son Laurence's holiday expedition to 
 Damascus "—the ostensible reason for the purchase 
 of the weapon ; had been driven to his office in the
 
 22 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 city ; had walked quietly to his own private room, 
 and thence, without as much as a farewell letter 
 to his only son, Herman Averil had gone to his 
 place in eternity. 
 
 Inquiry into his affairs showed nothing but con- 
 fusion — confusion more confounded everywhere as 
 the search proceeded. Misappropriation of trust 
 funds had supplied most of the material for his final 
 two years of reckless gambling, but he had no more 
 confined himself to one means of raising money than 
 he had limited his methods of scattering it again. 
 
 He had acted behind the scenes in the flotation of 
 two or three fraudulent companies ; one, a bare- 
 faced attempt to raise money on a barren patch of 
 useless land in the south of Iceland, as recently as a 
 month before his death. 
 
 Even had the name of the dead man appeared on 
 the prospectus, it is more than doubtful if clients 
 would have been found sufficiently confiding to in- 
 vest in such a wild-cat venture. 
 
 The company was a mere empty sham, devised 
 with calculating cruelty solely for the purpose of 
 ruining one man, an old retired sea-captain, once 
 master of a steamer trading from Scotland to 
 Reykjavik, and now living at a tiny Somersetshire 
 seaport. Averil had met him when staying at Mine- 
 head two years before, and found him obsessed by a 
 single idea. The old man had seen the sulphur 
 works of Iceland in his earlier days, and the lying 
 prospectus with its bogus list of directors was aimed 
 at his little capital alone. He invested ten thousand 
 pounds in debentures— mortgages on the most 
 worthlei bleak wilderness in that generally unpro- 
 ductive island — and a few hundreds in ordinary stock. 
 
 When the crash came, he, with hundreds of others,
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 23 
 
 was ruined hopelessly, and after wandering, a 
 plaintive, shaking wreck, about the courts during 
 the inquiry, went back to his little home and died, 
 leaving a daughter to seek her own living in a world 
 not over-kind to the untrained single woman worker. 
 
 Other coups of Herman Averil's had brought 
 him greater gain. It is doubtful if more than half 
 of the ten thousand and odd pounds had gone into 
 his pocket. In a hundred other ways he had ruined 
 more victims, executed more brilliantly daring 
 acts of criminality ; but nothing more clearly 
 showed his singleness of purpose, his relentless dis- 
 regard of the ill-fortune of others. 
 
 Half a dozen conversations with a chance ac- 
 quaintance on a holiday, and in his hour of need 
 he could find time amid all the tangled skein of 
 greater affairs to stoop to this little quarry. His 
 memory never failed him. The old sailor's jeering 
 at the primitive methods of the Icelandic sulphur 
 miners, his laboriously acquired knowledge of the 
 sulphur market — his favourite themes of con- 
 versation — were all committed to memory ; and 
 when he required the-old man's savings he obtained 
 the necessary information, brought the three 
 wretchedest deserted farms he could find in the 
 sysscl, or parish, of Langholt-by-Dyrholaey, pre- 
 pared his prospectus, and robbed his victim ruth- 
 lessly and with certainty. 
 
 Greater frauds, with farther-reaching consequences, 
 occupied most of the time during the inquiry, but the 
 memory of the pitiful questionings of the old ruined 
 sailor lingered in Laurence Averil's mind for years. 
 
 Probably because it had been schemed towards 
 the end of his life, his father had taken but little 
 trouble to disguise the dastardly nature of the affair.
 
 2-t THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 and no particulars were lacking. Mainly at the 
 request of the purchaser of the shares, the vendor 
 of the property — himself an intimate friend of the 
 dead man's — was called, and his evidence was 
 conclusive. 
 
 ' I sold the three farms to the deceased for twenty 
 pounds," he said. " They are called Uthlid, Hauka- 
 dal, and Sveinardal. No, there is no sulphur on 
 them — never was, and never will be. He told me he 
 wanted them because they lay across the line of a 
 projected road between Langholt and Asaa. He 
 said he was going to give the land to the two parishes 
 on condition that they built the road. Farms ? 
 Yes, they were farms once — that's how they came 
 to have names ; but now they're covered by a skin 
 of lava from six to six-and-twenty feet deep, that 
 came down in the great 1783 eruption. There are 
 a few patches of the original ground uncovered, 
 but they are surrounded by the lava and are difficult 
 to get at, even if it were worth while to try. They 
 were never good ground — broken black shale with 
 a little summer pasture on them at the best ; bad 
 even for Iceland farms — and on the good ones they 
 think nothing of feeding their ponies on fish heads 
 and seaweed in the winter. Sulphur ? No, not a 
 specie. Why, the volcanic deposits aren't more 
 than thirty feet deep anywhere, and, as I tell you, 
 they overlie black, poor, shaly land. Besides, 
 they're recent — just lava that overflowed about a 
 hundred years ago— no good to man or beast. Do 
 I know Iceland ? Yes, well. Lived there fifteen 
 years, and have had business dealings with the place 
 for the last thirty. I lived at Leith — am a fish 
 buyer and trawler owner. How did I buy this land ? 
 I didn't buy it. I bought some land close to Lang-
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 25 
 
 holt village, and had this thrown in, because there 
 was some doubt about my actual boundary where a 
 little lava had overflowed the edge of my ground. 
 There was a big boulder in the centre of the Uthlid 
 ground which the eruption didn't cover, and I had 
 this aching desolation thrown into my purchase, 
 so that I could have a definite landmark to swear to. 
 That's all. Is the ground worth anything ? No, 
 not a farthing a square mile." 
 
 The old sailor despairingly left the court and 
 went to his ruined home to die. He was buried 
 almost before the official receiver had elucidated the 
 whole of the facts of the more important affairs 
 entangled in the Averil failure. To officials engaged 
 in examining the keen business men, who, despite 
 their acumen, had yet been entrapped by Herman 
 Averil's specious dexterity, this one case seemed 
 unimportant ; but it was long before Laurence, 
 though beggared himself, forgot the despairing eyes 
 aud shaking hands of his father's unhappy victim. 
 
 His own position was hopeless enough. Although 
 of average intelligence, endowed with a receptive 
 mind and a retentive memory, he knew no business, 
 had learnt no profession. He had been through 
 Harrow and Merton as many of the sons of our 
 richer men of the middle classes do go. Having no 
 need for application, he had never been a reading 
 man in the severer sense of the word. His per- 
 formances were creditable — nothing more. 
 
 Tall and lean, he was as near physically perfect 
 as a man of twenty-four should be, and, thanks 
 perhaps to his taste for simple living and the abhor- 
 rence of excess he had inherited from his iron father, 
 he enjoyed the riotously perfect health that is the 
 birthright of clean-lived English youth.
 
 26 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 His first offer of employment came from his father's 
 friend, Clement Harper, the vendor of the Iceland 
 property. Passing his hand through the young 
 man's arm as they left the court, he did his best to 
 comfort him. 
 
 ' It's all no affair of yours at all, man," he said. 
 " Unto the third and fourth generation's a cruel 
 doctrine, I'm thinking. Come you and have some 
 dinner with me to-night." 
 
 Laurence, lonely and wretched, was moved to the 
 heart by the roughly spoken kindness, and gladly 
 accepted the invitation. Over the coffee cups 
 Harper made his offer. 
 
 " I've worrk for ye, lad, if ye'U take it. Ye can 
 come and learrn to keep a fish-buyer's books, and be 
 a bookkeeper to the end of your life, if ye will. Or 
 I've mair than that for ye, if ye can stand 
 the roughest, cruellest life on airth. Will ye go to 
 sea on a trawler for a couple of years, Laurie, and 
 learrn the business from the bottom ? Ye'll see 
 how the worrk's done, and where the boats go, and 
 how the trawler skippers worrk their shares of the 
 catch. Learrn it all, lad, until ye can worrk a trawkr 
 yersel', and then come back and help me wi' the 
 business " : and Laurence, inclined from childhood 
 for the sea, gladly accepted the offer. 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE business of the courts and the arrangement 
 of his own private affairs detained Laurence in 
 Loudon for another couple of months, and it was 
 fcember when he arrived at Leith. He 
 went straight to Harper's offices on the Fish Quay.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 27 
 
 Clement Harper received him cordially, a little 
 brusquely perhaps, owing to the exigencies of 
 business, but with a warm handgrip and words of 
 encouragement. 
 
 " Glad to see ye, lad," he said. " Ye'll sail on 
 Wednesday, the day after to-morrow. Have ye a 
 sea kit ? " 
 
 Laurence nodded. On the sale of his little yacht 
 he had retained -all such articles of clothing — 
 guernseys, oilskins, sou'westers, and sea-boots — as he 
 thought might be of use in this new seafaring venture. 
 
 " That's well. The worrk'll tear your nice silk- 
 faced oilies to rags in a couple of voyages, but they'll 
 likely serrve ye that long. Now I'm a busy man 
 until four o'clock. Go ye down to the_ waterside and 
 see your new craft for yourself, and come back to me 
 then. Ye'll stay with me when ashore until ye can 
 get a room of your own — but ye'll not be ashore 
 much. The boat's called the Fairy Belle, and a 
 vairy belle bateau ye'll find her." He laughed joy- 
 ously at his outrageous pun, and pushed Laurence 
 towards the door. "Be off wi' ye. I'm a busy 
 man the day." 
 
 Accustomed as he had been to the appearance 
 of trawlers at sea, Laurence's heart misgave him 
 when he looked down on the disordered deck of the 
 Fairy Belle from the wharf side. 
 
 There are no smarter sailors in the world than the 
 fishermen of the northern ports, and when on the 
 great waters their boats are handled in a way that 
 can only excite admiration from the yachtsman who 
 knows his work. Patched though their sails may 
 be and rough their gear, never a line is out of place, 
 and the picturesque colouring of their stained canvas 
 only emphasises the fact that every sail is doing its
 
 28 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 utmost work and doing it well. The boats, though 
 often old and even leaky, miracles of discomfort 
 and inconvenience, are yet fast, and, handled as 
 they are by men trained on them from boyhood, 
 they sail like yachts — and racing yachts at that. 
 There is perhaps no lovelier sight to be seen on our 
 coasts than a fleet of trawlers, their sails every shade 
 of red and yellow from deep crimsons and tawny 
 siennas to sulphur and gold and cream, twisting and 
 circling round each other over the trawling grounds. 
 
 But in harbour, where a yacht is at her trimmest 
 and cleanest, the slovenly appearance of the fishing 
 vessel is painful to the eye. Her unhoused sails lie 
 in great heaps of sodden canvas about her filthy 
 decks. Her open holds exhale a most offensive odour 
 of fish, and her decks and bulwarks are foul with 
 scales and slime. Every rope, free from the tension 
 of the fresh sea winds, hangs slack and dejected, and 
 the whole vessel is a picture of disorder and neglect. 
 
 Laurence looked on the unsavoury raffle with sore 
 distaste ; the rusty, shabby stove-pipe smoking 
 above the tiny forecastle ; the array of patched 
 clothing hung out to dry on the rigging ; on a dirty, 
 tousle-haired boy lounging by the hatch, smoking a 
 short pipe and spitting into the depths of the hold 
 from time to time : and when he reflected that this 
 was to be his home for the next couple of years, he 
 was sorely tempted to go back to Harper and accept 
 his first contemptuous offer of a book-keeper's stool. 
 But the strength of mind that had kept the father 
 calm-eyed and quiet through those two torturing 
 years of impending ruin came to his son's aid, and 
 he swung himself down the iron ladder attached to 
 the quayside and set foot for the first time on the 
 deck of the Fairy Belle.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 29 
 
 The boy by the hatchway watched him sullenly 
 and in silence. 
 
 " Captain aboard ? " Laurence asked. 
 
 The boy spat again down the hatch. 
 
 " Na," he said without moving. 
 
 " Mate ? " 
 
 "Eh?" 
 
 " Is the mate on board ? " Laurence queried 
 sharply. Accustomed to ready obedience and 
 civility from his own yacht's crew, his temper was 
 rising. 
 
 " There's nae mate," the boy said, in the broadest 
 of Lowland Scotch. 
 
 " Is anybody in charge of the boat, then ? " 
 
 The boy stooped over the hatch. " Jock, ye're 
 wanted," he bawled down. 
 
 A growling answer came from the darkness below ; 
 the top of a ladder leaning against the side of the 
 hatchway began to shake, and two great grimy hands 
 ascended the rungs, followed by a dirty hairy face 
 beneath a slimy sou'wester ; and finally the owner of 
 hands and face appeared on deck. Though a man of 
 a good height he was perhaps an inch shorter than 
 Laurence. His shoulders were enormous, and tended 
 to make his ungainly figure more squat in appearance 
 than it was in reality. He was clothed in a torn 
 blue guernsey, trousers of some dull red material, 
 coarse as army blanketing, and thigh boots. He 
 stared at the visitor keenly from beneath shaggy 
 yellow eyebrows. 
 
 " What d'ye want ? " he asked roughly. 
 " Are you the mate ? " Laurence asked. 
 " There's nae mates on trawlers. I'm leadin' 
 hand " : and then repeated his question, " What 
 d'ye want ? "
 
 30 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " I'm from Harper's," Laurence answered to the 
 full as curtly. " I'm going to sea on this boat." 
 
 The fisherman spat on the deck. " We want nae 
 holiday-makin' swells aboard here," he said. 
 
 "I'm not holiday-making. I'm coming as a 
 hand." 
 
 "Ye?" The burly ruffian laughed aloud. " Ye 
 a hand ? " He burst into a torrent of Lowland 
 obscenity ridiculing Laurence's appearance from 
 
 head to foot. " Ye white-handed whelp, d'3'e 
 
 think to fule me ? Ye wharf-loafing, fo'castle- 
 robbing poppy-cock ; get off the boat, d'ye hear, or 
 I'll pitch ye overside." 
 
 Laurence filled and lit a pipe, his hands shaking 
 with anger, the boy watching him curiously the 
 while. 
 
 Then he sat down on the bulwarks and smoked 
 silently until his temper was in hand, and then, laying 
 down his pipe, said shortly, " And now get about it 
 — this pitching me overboard." 
 
 The bull-necked leading hand rushed at him with 
 an oath, Laurence lifting his elbows clear of his sides 
 as the rush came. The man laughed aloud as he 
 noticed the action, thinking he meant to strike, and 
 in a moment his anns were round the younger man's 
 waist with a grip like iron. 
 
 But he had reckoned without his host. Not for 
 nothing had those arms been lifted to invite that 
 grip. As he straightened his back to lift his antagon- 
 ist from the deck, he found one of the freed elbows 
 
 tieath his chin, the other crooked behind his neck, 
 the two forming a cruel v ice that bent him backwards 
 and backwards until a fall or a broken neck was in- 
 table. To save himself he released the waist he 
 held between his arms, and as he staggered free he
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 31 
 
 found himself battered on the mouth and beneath 
 the chin by a series of short upward blows that 
 jarred his jaws and skull like strokes from a trip- 
 hammer. Again he jumped back to get room, re- 
 ceiving one savage, long-armed cut beneath the eye 
 as he went, and the two men faced each other, pant- 
 ing. 
 
 So far all the honours of the game were with 
 Laurence, but knowing that in any lasting fight he 
 was certain of defeat, he stood quietly, every nerve 
 strung, thinking his very best. 
 
 The rush came quickly, the fisherman striking 
 heavily and quickly, blows any one of which would 
 have knocked Laurence to the deck and probably 
 have stunned him had they got fairly home. Un- 
 usual tactics were required. The science of the ring 
 would be childish folly on a deck cumbered with 
 spars and coils of rope, and so, abandoning all science 
 or any attempt to strike or guard, he caught one of 
 the great fists in his own and pulled it towards him 
 suddenly and with all his strength, leaping aside as 
 he did so. His quick movements, aided by the 
 initial impetus of the rush and blow, pulled the man 
 over like a falling tree, his head came against the 
 bulwarks with a sickening crash, and he lay snoring 
 and stunned. 
 
 Even then Laurence took no chances. He jumped 
 on to the broad back and gripped the great throat 
 with both hands, thumbs downward and buried in 
 the beard, and forced them in to the flesh until 
 the snoring became a choking gurgle. 
 
 The boy drew nearer, staring at the pair in silence. 
 Laurence looked up in his face. It was quite un- 
 moved, and, despite the excitement of the fight, the 
 thought of what a floating hell a boat must be, where
 
 82 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 such a savage struggle could call for no remark from 
 a boy, struck him with dire premonitions. The boy 
 stooped and looked sideways at the face pressed 
 down to the deck. ' Ye've knocked him out," he 
 said. ' Ye can let up," and Laurence rose, feeling a 
 little hysterical, and wiped his thumbs on his clothes. 
 
 The snoring recommenced, and then the man 
 coughed and made an attempt to rise. Laurence, 
 aided by the boy, turned him over on his back and 
 dragged him to a sitting position, leaning his head 
 and shoulders against the bulwarks. He soon 
 regained consciousness. The ' snoring lessened to 
 heavy, laboured breathing, and the bleared eyes 
 opened and glared sullenly at his antagonist. He 
 shifted his position with difficulty and tried to wipe 
 the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand. 
 Then he looked up at Laurence again and muttered 
 some coarse oaths through his blood-clotted beard. 
 
 " By G— d, though, ye can fecht ! " he said, and 
 stirred himself to rise. Laurence put out a hand to 
 help him, but the offer was repulsed ; and getting 
 to his feet unaided, he went aft, slung a bucket 
 overside by a rope tied to its handle, and began to 
 wash the stains of the fight from his face and hair. 
 
 Laurence Averil was no coward, but the brutal 
 and unprovoked ferocity of the fight sickened him. 
 It was over in a matter of a few seconds, and was 
 never more than a nearly silent scuffle at best. Now, 
 as he watched the man plunging his head in the 
 bucket of sea-water, blowing and splashing and 
 rubbing the blood from his hairy face, his first feeling 
 was of wonderment — wonder at the force of the 
 blows he had escaped, at the blind fighting rage that 
 had possessed him and led him — a graduate of Merton 
 — to kneel on the back of a prostrate man and drive
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 33 
 
 his tiro ribs into his throat. Wonder, too, at the 
 callous behaviour of the ship's boy, and the half- 
 dozen of lookers-on who had watched the fight fro 
 the trawlers moored alongside or from the edge of 
 the wharf. They had evinced little interest, all 
 behaving as though a fight between a fisherman and 
 a well-dressed young man on a trawler's deck were 
 the most ordinary spectacle in the world. As he 
 stood and looked across at the disorderly decks, at 
 the blood-stained man washing in the stern of the 
 boat, a grim and ugly foreground to the blue waters 
 of the Firth of Forth, and the blue sky beyond, 
 he heard one remark made from the boat behind 
 him, and only one. As commentary it was brief 
 and brutal as the fight itself. A man on the nearest 
 trawler who had seen the whole affair turned and 
 called to one less advantageously placed in a farther 
 boat. " Jock Menzies's got lickit," he said, and 
 unconcernedly returned to his work of whipping 
 the frayed end of a warp. 
 
 Menzies himself, having washed his face and dried 
 it on a shirt hanging in the rigging, came back to 
 Laurence. " Is yon true ? ' he asked. ' That 
 ye 're coming as hand aboard here ? " 
 
 Laurence nodded. 
 
 " Then Heaven help ye, my mannie," the brute 
 said. " Wait till I get 3*e on open water an' I'll 
 promise ye a weary time"; and he went down the 
 ladder into the hold again. 
 
 This sounded encouraging. Laurence picked up 
 his pipe, lit it again, and beckoned the boy to him. 
 " What's your name ? " he asked sharply. 
 
 " Wilyum Clitheroe," the boy answered, and 
 added, " they ca' me Wullie aboard." 
 
 " Where's the captain ? "
 
 84 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " Ashoore." 
 
 " Who's that ? ' He pointed down the hold. 
 
 ' Him ye lickit ? Jock Menzies. I would nae be 
 you when we're at sea. He kilt a boy off Stornoway 
 two years syne. Strook him o'erside. No ; they 
 could prove naething — ne'er tried. He fell overboard 
 by nicht, that's all." 
 
 ' Who else is aboard this cursed boat ? " Laurence 
 asked. 
 
 " Oscar. He's a Dane. I dinna ken his ither 
 
 name." 
 
 " What's the captain called ? " 
 
 ' Menzies. He's big Jock's feyther. He's afeard 
 o' Jock. Jock 'ud be master, but he disnae ken the 
 fushing grounds weel." 
 
 This was more encouraging yet. If the skipper 
 was Menzies's father, and afraid of him to boot, it 
 looked likely that the son's threat might not be mere 
 unfounded vapouring. Again the thought of the 
 bookkeeper's desk came into his mind, and again he 
 rejected it. If brutality was to be the law, so let it 
 be. He thought with less shame of that attempted 
 strangling, and it seemed well to declare war straight- 
 way. 
 
 He walked to the hatchway and looked down 
 into the gloom. Sounds as of scraping the sides of 
 the hold came to his ears . 
 
 ' Menzies/' he called. " Jock Menzies." 
 
 ' What dae ye want ? " came from below — with 
 more oaths. 
 
 ' You. Come to the ladder, you dog." 
 The bearded face came to the light beneath the 
 hatchway. Laurence leant over. 
 
 ' I'm going back to the town," he said. " And 
 as you're not man enough to throw me over I'm going
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 35 
 
 unaided. I shall come back to-morrow morning 
 with my kit. Then I shall start work on board — ■ 
 and if you want more trouble you raise your voice or 
 your hand higher than your needs and you'll get it. 
 Mind that. Get back to your work, you muck." 
 
 The face disappeared without remark, and 
 Laurence climbed the wharfside and walked up the 
 town. But before he went back to Harper's office 
 he spent three pounds of the twenty that remained 
 to him in a second-hand Colt's revolver. He did 
 not mean to drown " off Stornoway," if he could 
 help it. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AT half-past nine next morning Laurence was 
 again upon the quay. He was attired in an old 
 suit of blue serge, and carried with him a bag con- 
 taining such changes of clothing as his past experience 
 had shown him to be necessary for a long and pro- 
 bably wet voyage. 
 
 The morning was as perfect as only an early 
 September morning can be. The soft autumnal 
 haze upon the beaches and at the foot of the low 
 cliff-land only served to throw into clearer relief the 
 brilliant blue of the sky above. A gentle easterly 
 breeze broke the bright waters of the Firth into 
 shimmering wavelets, and the whole coast scene was 
 clear and vivid in cool northern sunlight. 
 
 One or two steamers were passing near the shore, 
 and some trails of smoke, low above the distant 
 horizon, betrayed the presence of others. Half a 
 dozen offshore trawlers, laden with the night's catch, 
 ran before the wind towards the harbour. The
 
 36 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 picture was cheering and pleasant, the fresh morning 
 air stirring the blood in the veins like wine, and 
 Laurence descended the ladder to the deck feeling 
 inspirited by its influence. 
 
 Menzies was still below at his work of scouring 
 the hold, the noise of his scraping audible above the 
 open hatchway. Nodding to young Clitheroe, who 
 was washing the breakfast things on deck, Laurence 
 threw his bag down the dark forecastle stairway 
 and swung himself down after it. 
 
 Not all the disarray and dirt of the decks above 
 were sufficient preparation for the interior of the 
 dismal hole in which he found himself. The place 
 was in semi-darkness, the stench insufferable, and 
 ventilation there was none. A small stove stood by 
 the bottom of the companion-way, nearly filling the 
 triangular floor spacing, its hot pipe offering danger- 
 ous handhold to the unwary visitor. A disorder 
 of sticky oilskins, dirty clothing, sea-boots, and 
 filth unspeakable covered every inch of available 
 floor. An open cupboard by the entry gave glimpses 
 of unappetising food, wrapped in paper or lying ex- 
 posed on tin plates. On either side were two bunks, 
 each about a couple of feet wide, in one of which a 
 tumbled heap of torn and grimy blankets, from 
 which issued a sound of muffled snoring, indicated 
 the presence of a third member of the crew. 
 
 As Laurence looked around in the dim light— the 
 place was lit only by a scratched and befouled 
 circular plate of glass in the deck above — for some 
 vacant place whereon to deposit his bag, the snoring 
 ce; id a pale face under a shock of light hair 
 
 emerged from the blankets and stared at him. 
 
 To his civil " good-morning," the pale man vouch- 
 safed only a grunt, following it up with the inevitable
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 87 
 
 question— this time with a strong Scandinavian 
 accent : — " What d'yo want ? " 
 
 Laurence answered it with another. ' Where's 
 my bunk ? " he said. 
 
 " Dis is mine. De boy, he sleeps under me. Jock 
 he has de top one on de oder side," and the pale face 
 and light hair disappeared beneath the blankets 
 
 again. 
 
 Laurence emptied the debris in the one remaining 
 bunk out upon the already cumbered floor until lie 
 came to the bare boards beneath. Upon them he 
 flung his bag, changed from his serge clothes into an 
 old suit of dungaree overalls, climbed up the com- 
 panion, took a deep draught of the clear air, and 
 descended by the 'ladder into the empty hold. 
 Menzies was scraping slime and scales from off its 
 sides, and looked sulkily over his shoulder at the 
 new arrival. 
 
 " Ye've come then ? " he said. 
 " I have," Laurence replied. " What's my job ? ' 
 Menzies snorted contemptuously. " If ye're sae 
 set on workin' in harbour," he said, " ye can wash 
 the floor o' the hold. Yell find a bucket on deck. 
 Yon's a broom " ; and Laurence set to work upon 
 the first paid manual labour of his life. 
 
 It was a weary business. Forward the hold went 
 beneath the floor of the forecastle, and, owing to the 
 low headroom, the scrubbing had to be done on hands 
 and knees. Being farthest from the hatchway this 
 part of the floor was in almost pitch darkness ; it 
 was slippery with scales and offal, and the stench in 
 such a confined space was almost unbearable. Added 
 to this, the difficulty of using a heavy ship's scrubber 
 in so narrow a space, the discomfort of being wet 
 through from the splashing bucketfuls of water, and
 
 38 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 the necessity for kneeling in it, made Laurence more 
 than once begin to regret the whole of his undertaking. 
 
 It was two in the afternoon before he finished, 
 and then all the water and offal had to be sent on 
 deck and emptied overboard. In this he was aided 
 by the boy, who lowered empty buckets and hoisted 
 the full ones to the deck. This done he went ashore, 
 and with William Clitheroe as guide, sought out a 
 slop shop where for a couple of shillings he bought 
 a straw mattress for his bunk and some other neces- 
 saries, a tin mug, and^. plate, knife, and fork. These 
 he took to the forecastle and placed in the cupboard, 
 asking no man's leave or licence. 
 
 On his return to the boat he found that Menzies 
 and the Dane had gone ashore. Impressing William 
 into his service, he did his best, first to clean out and 
 render the forecastle more habitable, and next 
 somewhat to reduce the slovenly disorder on deck. 
 For three hours he laboured steadily, coiling ropes, 
 washing down woodwork, and throwing overboard 
 much of the uncleanly raffle of rope ends, seaweed, 
 and fish offal that cumbered the little vessel. Just 
 as his labours approached completion Menzies came 
 on board. He had evidently been drinking, and 
 though he said nothing he spat furiously on the now 
 clean deck and kicked a neat coil of rope into an un- 
 tidy heap before going below. Laurence, as silent 
 as he, re-coiled the rope and sat upon the bulwarks 
 waiting events. 
 
 He had not long to wait. * Menzies soon came 
 on deck and went aft to his father's cabin, kicking 
 the coil of rope again as he passed. Laurence once 
 more coiled it neatly, carried it aft upon his arm, 
 placed it carefully at the top of the cabin steps, 
 
 d then, armed with a capstan bar, sat himself
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 89 
 
 upon the companion head. Menzies returned to the 
 deck within a few minutes, and Laurence, the heavy 
 bar swinging in his hands, stood and faced him. 
 
 " There's that coil of rope," he said, pointing to it. 
 " Kick it again, will you ? " 
 
 Menzies looked at the erect and steady figure, 
 at the bar in his hand, at the coil of rope, and then 
 —stepped over it. The first battle of the campaign 
 was won. 
 
 The Fairy Belle sailed on the night's tide, and for 
 a month Laurence Averil regretted from morning till 
 night and from night till morning that he had ever 
 accepted Harper's offer. Dispiriting as his reception 
 on board had been, he found it but a premonition 
 of such discomfort and misery as he had nevcr 
 conceived possible. Menzies, it is true, offered him 
 no violence. He had, apparently, taken his man's 
 measure, and concluded to leave well alone ; but 
 his surliness, his foul language and filthy habits, 
 were alone enough to sicken any shore-bred man, 
 and the remainder of the crew, who were in abject 
 fear of him, followed his example so far as to shun 
 Laurence entirely. The skipper, a little wizened 
 man given to surreptitious drinking, was entirely 
 under the thumb of his ruffianly son, and his tone 
 towards Laurence varied from whining discourtesy 
 to occasional and equally unpleasant familiarity. 
 When he found his new hand had some idea of naviga- 
 tion he promptly turned his ability to account, 
 almost always leaving Laurence to work out his 
 observations on the broken slate that served him 
 for desk, and sometimes requesting him to take those 
 observations himself. 
 
 Not that the battered old quadrant was much 
 used, unless by any chance he was driven off the
 
 to THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 fishing grounds he knew. Generally the boat was 
 steered by compass and lead alone, and Laurence 
 was greatly surprised to find that the maudlin little 
 fisherman knew the depth and material of nearly 
 all the sea-bottom between Iceland and the Hebrides 
 as intimately as a man knows his own doorstep. 
 After days without an observation of any sort, — 
 days of bitter wind and thick drenching squalls 
 that shut out view of empty sky and empty sea 
 alike, — days of weary, cruel toil at the nets and 
 gear, wet through and wretched, the old man would 
 finger the deep-sea lead handed to him, smell it and 
 say, ' Somewhcres aboot three hunder mile nor'- 
 nor'-west o' Wick. Tuesday, is it ? Keep her 
 course a couple o' points east ; we'll pick up the 
 steamer to-morrow's morrn." And almost invari- 
 ably he was right. 
 
 No such certitude appeared possible to Laurence. 
 When the weather was clear and fine, all he could 
 see was lonely ocean, its line sometimes broken in 
 the distance by the faint cloudlike shape of Rockall, 
 or by an outlier of the Faroes. 
 
 Sometimes the ring of sea was empty and desolate ; 
 sometimes it showed the distant topsail of another 
 trawler or a faint trail of smoke from a steamer 
 below the sea line. In foul weather even this was 
 denied him, and week after week of angry, wind- 
 scourged, following seas, their cress torn into chill 
 spray, beneath grey, cold rainsqualls or grey and 
 lowering skies, made him feel lonely and lost and 
 miserable. 
 
 In thick weather, when the clammy North Sea 
 fogs shut out all sight of sea a dozen yards from 
 their bulwarks, when the boat rose and fell on the 
 still, oily swell, the fog-bell ringing dismally or the
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 41 
 
 hand fog-horn hooting discordantly day and night, 
 the very fear of death came on him. In every slow- 
 counted moment of light or darkness he was filled 
 with dread of the sudden looming of a steamer's steel 
 prow in the darkness, its crushing of their little boat, 
 and a miserable drowning, unreported, uncared for, 
 
 far out at sea. 
 
 The work, too, was heavy— heart-breaking. 
 Tradition of the sea demanded that watch and 
 watch should be kept, but all hands were needed for 
 the lowering and hoisting of the trawl, and between 
 times the boy and himself often had the deck to 
 themselves. Loneliness and heavy labour, poor 
 and vilely cooked food, wet and cold and discomfort, 
 and the fear of death over all: a hundred times 
 in that first month he made up his mind to the 
 bookkeeper's desk when he returned— if ever he 
 
 should return. 
 
 Yet he took some pleasure in learning the business, 
 and so learnt readily. Learnt to manage the heavy 
 tackles that held and drew the great trawl net ; 
 learnt to steer the boat, her trawl down, before the 
 following seas that flung her to and fro before them 
 like a toy, striking the clumsy rudder from side to 
 side and threatening to tear the tiller from his cold- 
 stiffened hands ; learnt such seamanship as all his 
 summer yachting had never shown him, and in so 
 doing at times almost forgot his wretchedness. 
 
 Then there were other consolations. Late as 
 the season was, it was pleasant on deck in fine 
 weather. The trawl, too, with its half-ton of wonders 
 at each successful haul, was a mine of interest. The 
 cod of the northern banks formed perhaps a third of 
 its takings, and flat fish, great halibut and skate, 
 a good half ; but the rest was always uncertain,
 
 42 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 and nearly always, to the eye of a stranger, full of 
 new and strange objects. He got to look for the 
 untying of the bottom of the monstrous bag, slung 
 up to the mast by its heavy blocks and tow ropes, 
 with more and more of interest. 
 
 The cruise lasted six weeks, and it was mid October 
 before he again landed at Leith. Changing into 
 clean clothes, he went ashore, had a shave— not 
 without some complacent glances in the mirror at his 
 lean brown face with the sharpened lines beneath 
 the eyes, keener for their days of outlook on shine 
 and storm — and then to Clement Harper's office 
 to demand the bookkeeper's stool. 
 
 Mr. Harper was engaged, a clerk told him. Whilst 
 waiting would he check over the invoices of fish from 
 the Fairy Belle as delivered by the steamers ? 
 
 Laurence took them to an unoccupied stool and 
 glanced over them carelessly. He could not check 
 them, the tally of each catch being in the skipper's 
 hands, nor did they, in face of his resolution to quit 
 the life, excite any particular interest in him. At 
 the bottom of the last sheet, however, was written 
 the amount of money due to the boat, the shares 
 apportioned to each hand. Opposite his own name 
 was a sum that made him gasp. Regarding the 
 voyage as being in some way only a trial before 
 apprenticeship, he had never considered the possi- 
 bility of any payment being due to him, and yet 
 here in one line was the short intimation that to 
 " L. Averil, hand," was due the sum of seventeen 
 pounds and some odd shillings and pence ! As a 
 bookkeeper, his salary would be scarcely half as 
 much — and Clement Harper had spoken of this life 
 as being merely preparatory for a better position ! 
 
 He entered the private office with his resolu-
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 43 
 
 tion somewhat shaken, and the faint taunt under- 
 lying his employer's greeting went far to change 
 it altogether. 
 
 "And how d'ye like the life, Laurie lad? " he 
 asked. 
 
 " It's ghastly," Laurence said shortly. 
 
 " Ah. There's a nice three-legged stool ready 
 for ye any day ye like. Ye'll be staying ashore, 
 nae doubt ? " 
 
 " I meant to, Mr. Harper," Laurence said slowly. 
 " I tell you straight I meant to till this minute, and 
 now I — I'll try one other voyage, at all events." 
 
 " Good lad," Clement Harper said, and nodded 
 approvingly. " Ye've your father's grit — some 
 of it, anyway. Now go and draw your money. 
 Ye've had a good cruise. Seventeen pun' eleven's 
 no bad for a short six weeks. Ye'll dine wi' me 
 to-night, and tell me all about it." 
 
 And in three days' time Laurence was at sea 
 again. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 MENZIES'S attitude changed noticeably from 
 the very outset of the second voyage. Any 
 attempt at courtesy was impossible from the innate 
 nature of the brute, but attempts at genial 
 familiarity, far more offensive to Laurence than his 
 previous holding aloof, took the place of his former 
 sulky silence. Ready as Laurence would have been 
 to greet any overtures to a more peaceful condition 
 of things on board, he yet doubted the man's sincerity, 
 and was, if possible, more on his guard than before 
 in all his dealings with the skipper's son.
 
 44 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 Within the week he found his suspicions justi- 
 fied, and, desperate with the hardness of his life, 
 and with a cold-blooded and skilful attempt at 
 no less than murder, finally decided that force 
 majeure — brute force, and force alone — should in 
 future influence all his dealings with Jock Menzies 
 and his kind. If they were irredeemably brutal and 
 ferocious, he too would adapt himself to their savage 
 life and more savage habits. If he was hated for 
 the education that had set him above them, that 
 education should only serve as an aid to make him 
 worse — -far worse — than these brutes that had none. 
 
 The fourth day after leaving Leith, Laurence, 
 who had had the early morning watch, came on 
 deck again at eight o'clock. Oscar, the Dane, was 
 at the tiller, Jock Menzies leaning against the 
 bulwarks near him. He relieved the helm, nodd- 
 ing cheerfully in answer to the latter's " Morrn, 
 Averil," and Oscar going forward and descending 
 the forecastle steps, the two men had the deck to 
 themselves. 
 
 Laurence had slept soundly and well, the blessed 
 deep-sea sleep that brightens the eye and clears 
 weariness from brain and limbs. The morning, 
 though overcast, was clear and not too cold, and, 
 the breeze being light, the heavy topsail had been 
 hoisted during his watch below. 
 
 Big Jock drew his attention to it, almost depre- 
 catingly, Laurence noted thoughtlessly. 
 
 : ' Nov/, ye're a yachtsman, Averil," he said. 
 " What d'ye think o' the set o' that taups'l ? " 
 
 " It's rotten bad," Laurence said cheerfully. 
 Menzies's question had anticipated the uninvited 
 remark by a second only. " What fool made fast 
 that downhaul ? "
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 45 
 
 " That'll be Oscar. Gin ye can better it, go an' 
 do it. I'll tak'— tak' th' helm." He moistened his 
 lips and glanced furtively at Laurence as he stretched 
 to the tiller. 
 
 Laurence relinquished it and went forward to 
 the mast. The downhaul— the rope that should 
 hold the lower corner of the great topsail close to 
 the mast— hung slack, and the sail bellied out like 
 a flag at its lower edge. Stooping to cast off the rope, 
 he swung by one arm to the downhaul, and before 
 he had attempted to pull with any weight upon it, 
 halliard and sheet had parted, and he was buried 
 beneath a heap of crumpled sail, the heavy spar 
 to which it was attached coming with a crash per- 
 pendicularly upon the deck within a couple of feet 
 of his head. 
 
 As he shouldered his way from beneath the sail 
 Jock's voice called to him from the stern, and 
 Laurence heard and wondered at the shake in it. 
 
 " Wha — what's wrang ? " he cried. 
 
 " Halliard's parted. Keep you the helm for 
 half an hour," Laurence answered. " I'll go below 
 and get a marline spike and splice it. Sheet's gone 
 too, it seems." 
 
 Oscar was playing draughts with the boy when 
 he entered the forecastle and went to his bag. 
 
 " You clumsy fool," Laurence said, as the two 
 looked inquiringly at his reappearance. ' What 
 sort o' job do you call that — hoisting that topsail ? 
 Like a bag." 
 
 " Haf you lowered it ? " the Dane asked. 
 
 " It lowered itself. I took a pull on your slack 
 downhaul, and the halliard parted. Good job for 
 me I wasn't a foot farther forward, or you'd have 
 worked double tides the rest of the voyage."
 
 46 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " I did not belay the downhaul," Oscar said. 
 " Jock, he put taups'l on her. I nefer touch de sail. 
 — Is it your move, William ? " 
 
 Laurence went on deck with black suspicion in 
 his heart. As he expected, he found halliard and 
 sheet neatly cut half through. The work had not 
 been clumsily done, as a sailor's knife must have 
 done it. The inner strands of the rope alone showed 
 a clean cut, the exterior ones being ragged. A 
 penknife had been pushed between the strands, 
 worked round, and withdrawn. When done, the 
 rope could scarce have shown an external mark. 
 
 So this had been the meaning of Jock Menzies's 
 altered manner ! He thought of the crash of that 
 heavy spar on the deck, and grew cold with mingled 
 rage and fear. How long before he might expect 
 another attempt on his life, and what form would 
 it take next ? It should at all events find him pre- 
 pared, he resolved then and there. It was as much 
 as he could do to steady his voice as he called to the 
 brute at the helm. " This spike's full large, Jock. 
 I'll go get a pricker. Shan't be a minute." 
 
 The revolver lay at the bottom of his bag. One 
 jerk of the extractor threw the cartridges into his 
 hands, where they seemed strangely light. He pulled 
 out a bullet with his teeth, and— there was no powder 
 behind it. 
 
 In that hour gentleness left Laurence Averil. 
 He reloaded the chambers with other cartridges 
 from a hitherto unopened packet, put the revolver 
 in his pocket, and went on deck, resolved that 
 within the hour Menzies should be maimed and 
 broken, or that he himself would be overboard, this 
 wretched burden of so weary a life behind him. 
 
 He had not been his father's son if hasty action
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 47 
 
 had followed his resolution. Jock Menzies could 
 wait. Cutting three feet from the treacherous end 
 of the halliard, he spliced it carefully, did as much 
 for the sheet, rehoisted the sail, and went back to the 
 helm, the two rope ends in his hand. 
 
 " What d'ye make of that ? " he asked. 
 Menzies' eyes were aloft, around the horizon, at 
 the binnacle, looking anywhere but near Laurence's 
 stern face or the accusing rope ends in his hand. 
 " Chaf— chafed, likely," he almost faltered. 
 *' Chafed ? " Laurence held the cut ends six 
 inches from his eyes. 
 
 " Eh ? Oh, that'll be old rope— or bad," the 
 ruffian lied. The rope was nearly new, and as good 
 Manila as was ever bought. 
 
 " It knots well," Laurence said, and tied a hard 
 knot in the end of one piece. " See that ? ' 
 
 The lowered eyes raised themselves to his own 
 curiously and he lashed out at the hairy face with 
 the knotted end. The rough fibre of the rope cut 
 a deep wound under one eye, tearing off a patch of 
 skin and beard two fingers' wide. 
 
 Menzies shouted with the agony of the blow, 
 dropped the tiller, and leaped forward— to look 
 into the muzzle of Laurence's pistol. Believing the 
 cartridges harmless, he would have rushed to his 
 death, but the pain in his eye compelled him to 
 cover it with his hand for a moment, and in the 
 darkness Laurence's tense voice filled him with 
 terror. 
 
 " I've changed these cartridges," it said. " The 
 ones you spoilt are in the forecastle. Now, you 
 dog — w hat have you to say before I kill you ? ' 
 
 " Ye — ye'll hang," Menzies said. His throat was 
 husky with fear.
 
 48 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " I'd prefer hanging to this life," Laurence said 
 calmly, and at the moment he meant it. " Better 
 be hanged than have to live with such filth as you, 
 you murdering beast. But I'll teach you, you scum ! 
 I'll show you who's to be master on this boat. Go 
 to the forecastle and call Oscar and the boy, and 
 come aft with them." 
 
 Menzies obeyed, his hand before his eye, reeling as 
 he walked. When the three came aft Laurence 
 handed the tiller to the Dane. " Get you forrard, 
 dog," he said to Menzies. " Stand by the mast. 
 William, call the skipper." 
 
 The little man came on deck, a startled expression 
 on his face. He had as usual gone to bed drunk, and 
 was anything but clear-headed on being waked ; 
 but his son's bloodstained cheek, together with 
 Laurence's savage white face and the revolver in his 
 hand, sobered him swiftly. 
 
 "What's this? "he cried. 
 
 '' This hound of a son of yours has tried to do 
 for me," Laurence said. " And now I've called 
 you and all hands on deck to see justice done. If 
 he could be replaced I'd kill him, I tell you straight ; 
 but we can't get another hand here. Hold up your 
 hands, you " 
 
 Up went the hands, palms open and towards the 
 little group by the wheel. Laurence levelled his 
 revolver at the left and pulled the trigger. The 
 ballet missed its mark, a white splinter of wood 
 jumping in air from the bitts of the bowsprit. 
 Menzies flinched and his hands fell. 
 
 " Up again." The barrel came down until it 
 pointed at the broad breast. The hands rose shakily, 
 the barrel rising after them. 
 
 The next shot was better aimed, and grazed
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 49 
 
 a finger before going overboard to ricochet a couple 
 of times upon the waves before disappearing. Men- 
 zies broke down and begged for mercy, with tears. 
 
 " Up again." A third report, and Big Jock, 
 screaming, fell to his knees. His uplifted hand 
 showed four fingers and a bloodstained sponge of 
 ragged skin and flesh. The thumb was gone ! 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 THE little tragedy ending with the shot that 
 sheared the thumb from Jock Menzies's left 
 hand maimed Laurence in spirit as cruelly as it 
 had the fisherman in body. His breeding, his gentle 
 upbringing, fell from him like a garment, and hence- 
 forward all the service his education did him was 
 to point his taunts, or aid him in selecting biting 
 words wherein to frame curses or threats. 
 
 He walked like a sombre devil unchained, the 
 cold cruelty of his unhappy life incarnate in him. 
 As he passed forward after the shot he stayed to 
 kick and threaten his weeping, broken antagonist 
 as he was rising to his feet ; and for the rest of 
 the voyage all hands on board, the skipper included, 
 feared him as they feared nothing else on earth. 
 A sullen demon of cruelty possessed him. He 
 spared none ; the boy felt the weight of his blows 
 and oaths at as little provocation as Menzies and 
 the Dane. Outwardly calm, his face yet began to 
 show relentless lines about the thin lips and nostrils, 
 and at the slightest delay in the execution of an order 
 — he gave more orders now than the skipper him- 
 self, and they were far more swiftly obeyed—heavy 
 punishment of kicks and blows visited the offender,
 
 50 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 accompanied by such curses and vile mockery as 
 frightened all the crew, accustomed though they 
 were from their childhood to the foulest of language. 
 
 Though living in dread of him, they yet admired 
 him, as rough men of the lower orders always will. 
 William in particular almost adored him, and even 
 though his shoulders still showed marks of recent 
 bruises from Laurence's heavy hand, spoke of him 
 with pride to boys on other trawlers at meetings in 
 the lonely seas, or to members of the crew on board 
 the weekly steamers that took their fish to port. 
 
 " Ah ! ye dinnae ken oor Averil," he would say, 
 as the dinghy tossed and sank by the steamer's iron 
 sides. " Him that lickit Big Jock. He's a de'il, 
 mon. Look ye — five days syne." He would show 
 black bruises on his puny arms, pride in his voice at 
 living on the same boat with " that de'il." 
 
 As for Laurence himself, something seemed to 
 have snapped within his mind, cutting him adrift 
 from his past, depriving him of the power of thinking 
 of the future. He was as a man stunned. The need 
 for self-preservation, seldom so acutely defined in 
 a civilised community, had benumbed his senses. 
 
 Had he been capable of clear thought or of reason- 
 ing, he would inevitably have committed suicide, 
 but his life only presented itself to him as an ugly 
 dreariness that some outside power called on him to 
 sustain, and he obeyed its dictates blindly. He had 
 endeavoured to live among these brutes amicably, 
 respecting their rights and taking little trouble to 
 assert his own, and the result had been his attempted 
 rr.urder. 
 
 In his new stupid habit of mind it seemed to him 
 now necessary to disregard all their claims to humanity 
 and to treat them like the treacherous animals they
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 51 
 
 appeared to be. He bore Jock Menzies no special 
 malice. He was no worse than the rest. All the 
 crew only formed just such a part of his hated life 
 as did cold gales, head seas, or frostbite. Over the 
 forces of the almost Arctic winter he had no control : 
 in that alone they seemed to him to differ from the 
 living beings with which he associated them. 
 
 He began to drink, too. Not heavily at first, but 
 the raw and fiery spirits sold to the trawlers by Dutch 
 copers grip the brain at early acquaintance. He was 
 rarely drunk, the spirits only fanning his dull resent- 
 ment against life into moody hatred against some 
 single member of the crew. In one of his bouts he 
 took the skipper by the neck — the two were drinking 
 together — and shook him like a rat, beating his head 
 against the wall of his own cabin. 
 
 The man had meant no offence. Encouraged by 
 beholding his feared and secretly admired hand 
 sitting at his own table, he had ventured upon some 
 foul familiarity, and surprise at the reception of 
 his remark, put forward as a feeler to more genial 
 intercourse, almost overcame his abject terror. 
 
 And yet there was some grim method in Laurence's 
 madness. For all that he chastised the men with 
 scorpions as against the whips Jock Menzies had 
 wielded, he drove them to steady labour, and the 
 shares paid to each hand in port rose above, more 
 often than fell below, the receipts of his first voyage. 
 
 He never spared himself, and watch and watch 
 were kept justly as they had never before been on the 
 Fairy Belle. If he seized on any member of the crew 
 avoiding his share of the work, swift punishment of 
 buffets and tongue-lashings surely ensued ; but he as 
 readily thrashed Obcar the Dane for refraining from 
 waking him to take his trick a. the helm, as he had,
 
 52 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 two nights before, kicked Menzies and Clitheroe for 
 delay in coming on deck for their own. 
 
 Not that the justice was aught but unconscious. 
 His mind held naught but hatred — hatred of all 
 things : of his lonely hard life, of the boat, the 
 work, the crew, and the leaden-hued sea and gloomy 
 sky that ringed them round— and his rude justice 
 was as devoid of reason as the cruelty with which he 
 enforced it. 
 
 No man dared lift hand or voice against it or 
 against him. Big Jock was broken ; he passed him 
 by on deck in silence, obeyed his commands as 
 silently, cringed when directly spoken to, and always 
 addressed him as " Mr. Averil," and " Sir," courtesies 
 unheard of on a trawler since first men went to sea. 
 
 The day before the voyage came to a close he 
 called father and son into the little cabin aft and 
 warned them with threats against any attempt at 
 prosecution. 
 
 ' You, Jock Menzies," he said. " I've shot your 
 
 thumb off, and serve you d d well right. We'll 
 
 be ashore to-morrow, and if either of you tries any 
 law nonsense on me, I'll kill you. I mean it. I hate 
 this life ; I'd as soon be hanged as here, afloat with 
 you ; but if I stay ashore I shall only starve. If you 
 split, you'll maybe lock me up for six months, and 
 when I come out I'll kill you. Both of you, mind." 
 
 ' Now you get forrard and tell Oscar and the boy 
 the same, and see you get them to keep their mouths 
 shut ; for if the tale gets out, no matter who tells it, 
 I'll kill you just the same. Get!" 
 
 And when the Menzies got ashore not even their 
 womenfolk knew more than that Big Jock had crushed 
 his thumb in the trawl winch. 
 
 To his own surprise, Laurence found no pleasure
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 53 
 
 at returning to civilised surroundings. Clement 
 Harper's decently appointed house was irksome to 
 him. The dainty napery and glass of his well- 
 furnished table, so delightful on his first return, gave 
 him now no approach, to any feeling of comfort. 
 The dreary forecastle assorted better with his frame 
 of mind, and on his third return to Leith he curtly 
 announced to his host that he had taken rooms nearer 
 the Fish Quay. He could look after his work there 
 better, he said. In the day he did work savagely and 
 furiously, but his nights were spent amongst the 
 fishermen and sailors in the taverns of the waterside. 
 He rarely appeared at the office, and never again at 
 Harper's house, his resentment at his hard fate being 
 in no small degree directed against the man he con- 
 sidered responsible for it. 
 
 Clement Harper shook his head at his protege's 
 altered manner and appearance. " It'd ha' killed 
 most," he said ; " it's made a man o' him, but not 
 altogether a good man from the Sunday-school point 
 o' view, I'm thinking. He's a reckless deevil— I 
 hope the lad '11 not throw himself away." 
 
 Indeed Laurence was falling low. Hating him- 
 self for it, as he hated all his surroundings, he lived 
 when ashore in the same squalid vice as his fellows. 
 As he had at first foreseen, his education and know- 
 ledge of the better things of life only made him chief 
 amongst men who had known only the worst. 
 " Better be head stoker in hell than grill," he said 
 once, when Harper had ventured to remonstrate with 
 him ; and the roughest fishermen in the fleet, the 
 vilest-tongued viragoes of the waterside, held him 
 in dread. The future held nothing for him. Dreary 
 though this life might be— squalid, wretched, and 
 cruel — it was yet better, he thought, to bear this
 
 54 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 savage striving for existence, this wild life of fighting, 
 swearing, and drinking, than to make any attempt 
 to labour back to decency. He thought no more 
 of Harper's offer of a place in the business in the 
 future. What right had he, foul-tongued, foul-lived 
 blackguard that he was, to work with men of smooth 
 hands and tongues ? The past was dead. His 
 very speech took on the Lowland inflection and 
 accent, and Laurence Averil, graduate and gentleman, 
 was lost — merged in Laurie Averil, brute and drunken 
 fisherman. 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 IN the April following upon Laurence's embark- 
 ment on his life of purgatory, Harper by way of 
 experiment purchased a steam trawler and offered 
 him the position of leading hand aboard her. 
 Laurence carelessly accepted, moved more by an 
 idle interest in the steam-driven machinery than by 
 any desire of promotion or increased pay. To his 
 surprise, William Clitheroe begged to be allowed to 
 company him, and on being refused returned to 
 the request again and again. 
 
 "You young fool," Laurence said. "What d'you 
 want to come for ? You'll only rate as boy if you 
 do, and if you stay on the Fairy Belle you'll get a 
 shift upwards — they'll likely take another boy now." 
 
 "Ah don't care," the boy said. " Tak' me, 
 Averil. Jock Menzies'll half kill us all over again 
 when ye're gone. I know the way ye like your 
 grub cooked — an' — an' all. Tak' me wi' ye." 
 
 ' All right," Laurence assented. " You can come 
 if you like. I'll speak to Harper about it " ; and the 
 upshot was that the boy made the transfer as well.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 55 
 
 Preceded by a shocking reputation, Laurence from 
 the first found strained relations with every hand 
 on board. The fireman, a Geordie from Sunder- 
 land, took advantage of their first meeting to vaunt 
 the prowess of Durham and the colliery districts as 
 against that of the Lowlands, only withdrawing 
 his contentions after a fight, lasting fifteen minutes, 
 in which he lost two teeth and ended by being 
 knocked down the engine-room hatch. Laurence, 
 nursing a dislocated finger-joint, explained in 
 language unfit for repetition that he held no brief 
 for the Lowlanders, but that he should then or 
 in future be delighted to fight any swine from south 
 or north of the Tweed upon the slightest provoca- 
 tion ; in consequence finding himself shunned 
 henceforward by the crew of the Bute as religiously 
 as he had been aboard the Fairy Belle. 
 
 He neither felt nor showed regrets or any annoy- 
 ance. The advantages possessed by steam over sail 
 were soon manifest to him, and he threw himself with 
 growing interest into the study of the northern fishing 
 grounds. Demanding and readily obtaining a new 
 set of charts from Harper after the Bute's first 
 voyage he began to work as he had never thought 
 he could care to do. 
 
 Day and night, with but the shortest allowance 
 of sleep, he was on the Bute's decks, forecastle, or 
 bridge, committing to a fortunately excellent memory 
 the set of tides and ocean currents, or from the 
 tallowed deep-sea lead or the refuse at the bottom of 
 the trawl-bag gaining information as to the depth 
 and materials, sand or rock, gravel, shingle or silt, 
 of the great level sea-bottom that lies between 
 Iceland, the Faroes, and the fjords of Norway. 
 
 All through the soft northern summer he laboured
 
 56 THE SALVING OF A DERELIC T 
 
 with almost mechanical method and care, and 
 when, in the following September, Harper, well 
 satisfied with the results of his experiment, purchased 
 two more nearly new steam trawlers, Laurence 
 was appointed to the post of skipper on one of them. 
 
 His promotion made little alteration to his way 
 of life. As master he was no less a brute than he 
 had been as man. When ashore he still drank and 
 fought, still lived in the same unlovely vice and 
 squalor to which he had fallen after his second 
 voyage. At sea, it is true, he now seldom drank — ■ 
 even heavily chastised and maltreated the men 
 beneath him who did — but he was known to every 
 man of the fleet as a hard driver and a callous, selfish 
 brute. 
 
 As a consequence his voyages were almost always 
 successful, and within six months of his promotion 
 his bank balance showed nearly three hundred 
 pounds to his credit, in place of the limited means 
 at his disposal when he arrived at Leith. Equally 
 inevitably the only men content to serve under him 
 were the hardest and most reckless mauvais sujeis 
 in Harper's employ, men who feared, as they them- 
 selves said, ' nor man, nor deevil — only our 
 
 Laurie." 
 
 Their fear was mixed with admiration, and later, 
 after experience of a careless but just directness 
 of purpose that underlay his brutality, with some 
 small measure of good will. Clitheroe, especially, 
 now lately promoted to deck hand, worshipped 
 him almost as a dog might its master, and with 
 his clumsy fingers took upon himself the care of 
 Laurence's limited wardrobe. 
 
 Ashore the men drank with their skipper, were 
 proud to be allowed to accompany him in the narrow
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 57 
 
 wynds of the harbour-side, and spoke in awed 
 pride of his foul and brutal language and his sullen 
 readiness in quarrel ; but at sea, Laurence's com- 
 mand was absolute, and the discipline on -board the 
 Westray was a proverb in the fleet. Did promotion 
 or accident remove a man of his crew, a dozen of the 
 ablest fishermen and most reckless ne'er-do-weels in 
 Leith were ready to fight for the privilege of taking 
 his place, not all the reports of the skipper's hardness 
 proving a deterrent in view of the good pay drawn 
 by his crew. 
 
 Harper, speaking but little, yet held Laurence's 
 ability to handle men in high esteem. " I'll bide 
 my time," he said once, when some more than 
 usually disgraceful report of his protege reached 
 him. " The lad's lost his polish, has forgotten he 
 e'er was a gentleman, maybe. I'm no so sure he's 
 the worse for a while. Better sow wild oats in rank 
 soil — they'll ripen and be reaped the sooner. If 
 he'd kept his polish in the fleet, he'd maybe have 
 sloughed some of it ashore afterwards. A deevil ? 
 Oh ay, he's that— a' that. A dour, hard case is 
 Laurence ; but he can drive men, and he can catch 
 fish, and that's what I pay him to do. When he 
 comes ashore here in the office there'll be busy 
 times, I'm thinking." 
 
 Early in the following spring he broached the 
 subject to Laurence himself. Directed by one of 
 the Wcstray's crew, he sought him in the public- 
 house in which he lodged. 
 
 Laurence was sitting in the sanded bar, drink- 
 ing and exchanging coarse chaff with the land- 
 lord's daughter, a red-haired brazen hoyden of 
 nineteen. The pair looked round angrily as he 
 entered, the girl sitting on the edge of the table at
 
 5S THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 which Laurence was seated, her head back, her 
 bare arms impudently akimbo. 
 
 ' I want t' speak to ye, Laurence," Harper said, 
 disregarding his companion's attitude. 
 
 ' Speak on," Laurence replied. " We've no 
 secrets here." 
 
 The girl leered approval, and Harper spoke shortly, 
 with rising temper. 
 
 ' I have. I want to talk business — my business, 
 I'll trouble ye to remember! " 
 
 Laurence turned his head to the girl. " Get out," 
 he said. 
 
 "■Ah'll not. Laurie dear, 'tis a public room. 
 Ah ! let go of my arm, you — you deevil, Averil." 
 
 Laurence slammed the door behind her. " What 
 d'ye want ? " he asked. 
 
 But Clement's eyes had followed the little scuffle, 
 and his tone was cold. Hearsay was one thing — ■ 
 this evident familiarity and companionship another. 
 
 " Who's that ? " he asked sternly. 
 ' Mary Anstruther. You needn't be so sour 
 about it. She's no worse that the rest of us, an' — ■ 
 an' that's my business, I'll trouble you to remember. 
 Speak of your own." 
 
 ' You're a fool and a young blackguard," Harper 
 said angrily. ' I'll be short wi' ye. McLeod'll 
 have the Westray next June, and yell begin at the 
 office. I'm pleased enough wi' your work, but I 
 can't stand your play, an' so we'll make a change. 
 You'll cut all these blackguard friends of yours, 
 get rooms in a decent part o' the town, and see if 
 forgotten ye once were a gentleman. I'll have 
 no harbour-loafing drunkards in my office — and 
 I'll leave your father's son afloat no longer. Ye've 
 
 •.rnt more than I wanted, Laurie, my man."
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 59 
 
 ' My father was a thief and a hypocrite," Laurence 
 said. " I'm a blackguard, but I'm no hypocrite. 
 See you here, Clement Harper, I don't want to come 
 ashore. Look at my hands." He held them up, 
 powerful, knotted, and gnarled. " That's what 
 the life's done for me — all through me. I've lost 
 touch with shore folk, and I don't want the shore life. 
 Leave me on the Westray. Ye'll get no better skipper. ' ' 
 
 ' Your hands'll come soft again— and so'll the 
 rest of you," Harper replied. " I've no more to 
 say. I want ye in the office, and there ye'll be 
 next June. I want ye, man. The business needs 
 another driver there, and ye've learnt drivin' among 
 other things, they tell me. Come back to decency, 
 lad. You, an educated man, to want to stop in 
 this pig of a life ! Come back to decent work, decent 
 food, the society of the class ye belong to. If it's 
 the sea, wait a j'ear or two and then get a wee bit 
 yacht, or spend your holidays afloat on a liner among 
 people of the same grade, with the same ideals and 
 aspirations as yourself." 
 
 Laurence flushed under the tan of his skin and 
 laughed angrily. " Ideals and aspirations," he 
 sneered. " My ideals and aspirations are the same 
 as those of the folk I sail with now. What more 
 can you give me, Clement Harper ? Our ideals are, 
 briefly, whisky; and our aspirations are to catch 
 fish, make short voyages, and return to this "—his 
 guernseyed arm swept round the low room, indicat- 
 ing all its grime and slovenliness—" and enjoy the 
 society of Maty Anstruthers. Never fear, man, 
 I'm in sympathy with my kind. We all have the 
 same intent— to take all we're able, and keep it as 
 long as we can. Could you find such unanimity 
 in any drawing-room ? "
 
 60 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 ' I'll waste no more words on ye," Harper said, 
 nettled. ' Ye leave the Westray next June, I give 
 ye notice, and if ye care to tak' the place I've offered 
 ye in the office, it'll be at your disposal for a month — 
 in which time ye can look about ye and see if ye 
 can do better." He rose, walked out, and slammed 
 the door behind him. 
 
 Laurence laughed, a laugh that sounded like a 
 curse, so brutally malignant was it, and then sat, 
 his empty pipe between his teeth, thinking over 
 this change in his fortunes. He had long since 
 almost forgotten the original arrangement Harper 
 had sketched out for him. Indeed, when it occurred 
 to him to reflect upon it, it had been with a feeling 
 of marked distaste at again mingling in the society 
 he had known in his youth. 
 
 Utterly discarding his early training, he had* 
 assumed the life, clothing, and manners of the 
 fisherfolk too thoroughly for that. He knew, too, 
 that there was no more able skipper than himself 
 in the whole of Harper's employ, and he had often 
 sulkily reflected, with his usual savage ill-feeling 
 towards all men, that Harper had, as he put it, 
 " done himself none so ill " in offering him the 
 position he now held. In this frame of mind his 
 employer's new offer, as evidently made from motives 
 of friendship as it was distasteful, came both as 
 a surprise and an annoyance. 
 
 He swore softly to himself, and then, remembering 
 the bank-book in his bedroom upstairs, laughed 
 savagely again. He would, indeed, return to his 
 own class of society. His three hundred odd pounds 
 should give him a six weeks' carnival of vice in 
 London —perhaps even permitting of a run over to 
 Paris or to Mont.: Carlo. And then, when the money
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 61 
 
 was gone, he would come back to Harper and tell 
 him how he had spent it— show him what likelihood 
 there was of his reclamation, and demand a situa- 
 tion on a trawler again as skipper or hand— he 
 cared little which. If he were penniless, and still 
 resolute in refusing Harper's offer of preferment, 
 it was hardly to be expected that he would be cast 
 altogether adrift. And if he were, what matter? 
 True, with Harper's ill-will it was doubtful if he 
 could obtain another place in Leith ; but Lcith was 
 not the only fishing port in the British Isles, and 
 his knowledge of the trawling grounds would always 
 be a valuable asset in his favour. 
 
 He called aloud, and Mary Anstruther came into 
 the room, her chin erect, half defiant and all sloven. 
 " I've got the sack," Laurence announced. 
 " Serve ye right. Ye hurt my arms just now. 
 What's he sacked ye for ? " 
 
 " You— as much as anything. He's offered me 
 a shop in the office if I cut all your lot." 
 
 The girl flushed red beneath her fair skin— the 
 exquisite skin that so often goes with red hair in 
 folk of Scandinavian descent. Her manner softened. 
 •• will — will ye tak' it, Laurie ? " she asked. 
 
 " Not I. Curse the office. I'm going to London — 
 and Paris— and maybe Monte Carlo, and have the 
 devil and all of a time spending my savings. I'll 
 take you, Mary my dear.— No, I won't, though. 
 I'll take nobody. If I want to play the fool I reckon 
 I can find folk to help me there without paying 
 rail fares for 'em— carrying coals to Newcastle. You 
 can stay here — I'm coming back when the brass 
 is gone, — and I can kiss you all I want to then." 
 Mary's eyes drooped— and thru looked up again. 
 " I— I'll come wi' ye, Laurie, gin ye like," she said.
 
 62 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 ' Wouldn't be bothered with you, my dear." His 
 gaze looked through the girl. " Begad ! I'm begin- 
 ning to look forward to it. Well-dressed dinners 
 and pretty, well-dressed fools of women to share 
 'em." He smacked his lips. "They used to do 
 you well at the Trocadero, and Verrey's, and the •% 
 ' Cri.' I don't suppose they've forgotten much — 
 not half as much as I have, anyway. Oh, and the 
 Royale and the Madeleine — and dear dirty Pere 
 Vachette's again ! Jubilee ! it will be an orgie. 
 Clement Harper's a pal, after all. 
 
 " And the Cote du Midi ; Cannes— Nice. I 
 wonder if I can hit a pigeon these days. And per- 
 haps, if only I can find a number or two at the tables, 
 get a stroke of luck ? 
 
 " But that's out of the question. No half hopes 
 of luck and whimpering when they don't come off. 
 Just a definite three hundred quids' worth of joyous 
 spree, and then back to this cursed hole — and you, 
 and your sort, Mary, my dear. If I've stood it once, 
 I can again. Won't you be delighted to see me back 
 on a trawler once more, you red-headed light o' 
 Leith ? " 
 
 The girl regarded him curiously between half- 
 closed eyelids. " I dinnae ken the half ye're talking 
 about, Laurence Averil," she said. "What's yon 
 
 . es y<:'re speakin' of ? " 
 Restaurants and cafes, my peach." He tried 
 
 put an arm around her waist, but she repulsed 
 him. ' Places where I'm going to dine softly and 
 hear music, and smell flowers and sweet scents again. 
 Places where clever rogues and lucky fools do con- 
 
 t - have been consorting these last eighteen 
 
 ntlis whilst I've been living this cursed life, and 
 where they'll still consort after I'm broke and back
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 63 
 
 here again. Next June — oh ! and the parks and 
 the chestnut trees in the Tuileries Gardens ! It'll 
 be the fag end of the Riviera season, but no matter 
 for that. I shan't be jaded, for one. Give us a 
 kiss, red Mary — Mary o' Scots — or whatever your 
 name is." 
 
 She spun on her heel and struck him full on the 
 mouth with all her strength. " Go ! " she cried 
 and choked. " Go. I pray Keaven I'll never see 
 your wicked, lying face again." She burst into 
 hysterical tears and ran from the room. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 HIS crazy resolution once formed, nothing 
 could deter Laurence from putting it into 
 effect. He would have gone at once, but reflecting 
 that if he remained on the Westray until forced by 
 Harper to leave her, he would possess a cogent 
 argument for his re-employment on his return, he 
 decided to stay till June. Besides, the London 
 season would only then be commencing. 
 
 He gave himself over to anticipations of a royal 
 carnival of unlicence, and his work and surroundings 
 at sea at once naturally reasserted the effect they 
 had upon him at first acquaintance. Coming plea- 
 sures in view, his last two voyages were, if possible, 
 more distasteful than his first, and added to his 
 hatred of his environment came a new fear — the 
 dread that some accident of the unruly sea should 
 come between him and his contemplated folly. 
 
 Such an accident, terrible in its swift tragedy of 
 young Clitheroe's death, occurred towards the
 
 61 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 latter end of May, but the horror and shock of it, 
 whilst subduing the spirits of the other men of 
 the crew, had no effect on him be}-ond a redoubled 
 eagerness to quit, if only for a short ease and forget- 
 fulness, the risks and toil of the fishing fleet. 
 
 The Westray was returning from the shallow 
 waters to the westward of Reykjavik in the fourth 
 Week of the voyage. In the ordinary course of 
 things the trawler would have made an earlier 
 return to port, but Laurence had encountered one 
 of Harper's carrier steamers a week before and had 
 transferred the contents of his full hold to hers. 
 As he argued to himself, the longer the voyage the 
 more money to spend and the men under him were 
 only too glad to echo the seaman's saw of "*More 
 days, more dollars." Laurence being on the extreme 
 northward of the ground he knew, argued rightly 
 that if he could send home a full cargo from Iceland 
 he could amass another on his way homewards, thus 
 drawing double pay for the single voyage. 
 
 It was a lovely morning, bright and clear, with 
 pure northern sunlight and a gentle breeze that 
 brought from the land some chill hint of opening 
 springtime. Iceland lay low on the port beam, 
 the bare towering bastions of Portland — the first 
 view the traveller obtains of the island shouldering 
 themselves like a separate islet high above the sands 
 to east and westward. Laurence had given orders 
 for the trawl to be raised, and had gone aft to stand 
 by the taffrail to watch it come aboard. A deck 
 hand stood amidships, his hand on the starting 
 lever of the steam winch, and Clitheroe stood facing 
 him, his back to Laurence, taking the slack of the 
 tow rope into his. hands as the winch unwound it to 
 coil on the deck at his side.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 65 
 
 Suddenly the winding ceased, the little steamer 
 checking and dragging heavily at the tow and 
 yawing awkwardly from side to side. 
 
 Laurence swore. " Curse this foul rocky bottom. 
 'Vast heaving, you. Reverse the winch. Davy, 
 keep her a couple o' points south." 
 
 "Ay, ay," came from the little bridge, and the 
 wheel spun in the helmsman's hands as the stumpy 
 bows swung away to the right. 
 
 The reversing lever of the winch came over smartly, 
 the revolving iron cylinder rewinding Clitheroe's 
 neat coils of rope and throwing them again on the 
 deck in an untidy tangle that dragged towards the 
 bulwarks and overside. 
 
 ' That'll do," Laurence shouted. " Heave again. 
 She should come now." 
 
 Again the lever grated and the clacking winch 
 resumed its work. A frightened shout from the 
 deck hand made Laurence turn his head, and, unable 
 to help, he saw the whole of the ghastly business 
 from first to last. 
 
 Just as the tow rope straightened Clitheroe stepped 
 backward into the last of its coils. The rope, tighten- 
 ing with a jerk, gripped his ankle like a vice, and, 
 pulling it from under him, threw him face down 
 across the hissing, chattering winch. Flinging 
 out his anus to save his head, the now tight rope 
 caught and held his left hand firmly on the revolv- 
 ing drum, jerking the tied body tense as a harpstring 
 from wrist to heel in a swifter and more awful rack 
 than ever mediaeval torturer devised. 
 
 It was all over in a moment. The wretched lad 
 never ^screamed. A little " Ah ! " of surprise— an 
 " Ah " that ended in a groan— and AveriYs shout 
 of " Reverse winch. Engines hard astern," set him
 
 06 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 free and dropped his limp body in a long tumbled 
 heap upon the deck. 
 
 Laurence ran forward. " Stop engines," he called, 
 and stooped over the white drawn face lying with its 
 cheek on the deck plates. 
 
 The little steamer, her engines silenced, rose and 
 fell on the easy sea, the shadows of bulwarks and 
 gear rising and falling on her sunlit decks as she 
 moved. Everything was very silent — so silent that 
 the hissing of steam from her steam valve and the 
 sound of the engineer's feet on his iron gratings in 
 the engine room below sounded loudly in the ears 
 of the men on deck. The man at the wheel, hold- 
 ing it with one hand, gazed silently down over his 
 shoulder at the little group by the winch. The 
 winch driver looked curiously from the prostrate 
 body on the deck to Averil's anxious face, never 
 speaking. And, more silent, more still than them 
 all, young Clitheroe lay at their feet. 
 
 Laurence knelt and called in his ear, " Clitheroe — 
 William. Are you hurt, man ? " 
 
 The eyes opened, and in them was bright pain. 
 
 " Ay, a bit, Averil." His speech was slow and 
 deliberate. ' I — I'll be a' richt in a minute. Put 
 me by the bulwarks there an' get t' trawl up. Ye 
 can tend me then." 
 
 He never groaned nor complained whilst Laurence 
 and the deck hand, clumsily for all their care, carried 
 him to the steamer's side and laid him down. The 
 hip's boy was set to his work of coiling away the 
 tow, and the winch began again to clack and grate 
 as the great trawl swung slowly inboard. 
 
 Cutting the tie of the bag, Laurence walked round 
 the pile of fish and went to the wounded lad's side. 
 
 " Where arc you hurt ? " he asked.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 67 
 
 " I'm done, Averil," the boy answered low, his 
 brow beaded with pain and his breath broken with 
 gasps. " Nay, ye neednae touch me — I'm past 
 helping. See there." He glanced downwards at a 
 red trickle that pooled and ran from his waist, 
 mixing with the moisture on the wet deck. " That 
 
 winch tore me right open. I'll go hame nae 
 
 mair." 
 
 Laurence stared, stunned, only curious and 
 surprised, for all the horror of it. The boy had 
 never spoken a word to complain. 
 
 Clitheroe saw the wonder in his eyes. 'Oh ay, 
 it's so," he gasped. " See ye here, Averil, put in 
 yonder, and bury me ashore. I've been at sea a' 
 my life — leave me rest under green grass. Besides, I 
 fear they — fish. I've catched 'em a' my life — 
 dinnae let them get me." He jerked his pain-twisted 
 lips into some semblance of a smile, then swore 
 aloud at his agony, using oaths he had often heard 
 from Laurence's own mouth. 
 
 "There's my brither — on the Bonaventure, he is. 
 I stole his 'bacca pouch last time ashore. Gie't 
 back to him, will ye ? Nay, I've nae ither folks. 
 Averil, say me one thing. Ye're a man, ye are, 
 by " He broke out again into more poor blas- 
 phemies, made pitiful by the wild eyes and tortured 
 brow. " Tell me, did I die like a man ? I never 
 
 squeaked, did I ? — not when that winch tore 
 
 me. Did I ? " 
 
 His voice failed, and for all the measureless sad- 
 ness of it, all Laurence could feel was dull astonish- 
 ment that so torn a shape could hold any desires, 
 ambitions whatever. Yet this broken heap could 
 die like a Spartan, could endure agony in silence, 
 all in the same spirit in which the boy had aped his
 
 6S THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 own reckless manners, copied his oaths and dress — • 
 had even announced, amid the laughter of the other 
 men, that he would never shave ; he'd grow " a 
 beard like oor Averil's." 
 
 He looked over his shoulder at the men behind 
 him. They were sorting the catch, flinging the 
 smaller, dragging the larger fish into separate heaps, 
 as they worked kicking offal behind them with their 
 sea-boots. Though they made acknowledgment 
 of the situation by working in unusual silence, 
 never a one of them so much as looked at him or 
 the figure lying at his feet, and when he himself 
 looked down again the boy was dead. 
 
 Two of the men carried the body aft and laid it 
 upon his cabin table, placing some old sail canvas 
 under it to keep those red stains from the wood. 
 They went forward about their work again, and 
 Laurence sat by the table, his eyes hot and dry, 
 and some half-fonned emotion — was it regret ? 
 — mingling with the brute-nature now ingrained 
 in him. 
 
 So low had he fallen that he readily made the tiny 
 effort it required to still it, and then, to steady his 
 nerves, took a bottle of brandy from the cupboard 
 at his elbow and drank a couple of glasses, noting in 
 some grim spirit of callousness that the still burden 
 on the table yet left space for the tumbler beside 
 its head. He would allow himself no feeling but 
 annoyance at the loss of a hand just as he was 
 starting across the fishing grounds with empty holds. 
 
 And the boy's preposterous demand to be buried 
 ashore — he refused to entertain the idea for a moment, 
 merely resolving to throw the body overboard, 
 decently weighted, so as to lose no time in getting 
 back to his work.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 69 
 
 With the motion of the vessel an end of the dead 
 boy's handkerchief slid softly from around his neck 
 upon the table. Laurence snatched at his tumbler, 
 and, so doing, noted that the brightly coloured 
 fabric was exactly like one of his own. For the 
 moment he thought Clitheroe was wearing a stolen 
 article, until he found his own in his pocket. The 
 boy must have bought it, highly priced as it was — 
 Laurence's one trait that remained to him of olden 
 days was a fondness for soft and expensive under- 
 clothing for personal wear — must have bought it 
 in imitation of his skipper's. A hundred memories 
 of the manner in which Clitheroe had adored him 
 — had copied the way in which he dressed, even to 
 the angle at which his cap was worn ; had sworn his 
 pet oaths ; had spat and idled, and walked with a 
 little careless swagger — in all following, as best he 
 could, Laurence's worst examples. He pictured the 
 slight figure in its blue guernsey and sea-boots — 
 nearly always worn by himself, though seldom 
 by the other men when ashore — leaning against the 
 street corners or walking down the narrow wynds of 
 Leith. And his death — silent endurance of torture — 
 dying as he conceived Laurence himself would die. 
 His last words had been to demand whether he had 
 died like a man — this stunted boy of scarce eighteen. 
 
 Laurence drank again — raw spirit this time — and 
 looked at the dread thin face, still lined with the pain 
 of death. Something like admiration rose in him. 
 The boy had died like a man, and, since he had 
 demanded it, buried ashore he should be. 
 
 He went on deck and hailed the bridge. " Change 
 your course to nor '-east," he said. " When Port- 
 land's abeam again, give me a call." 
 
 ' Ay, ay. Nor'-east it is," came the answer,
 
 70 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 and the little steamer's bows were sweeping to the 
 left as Laurence descended again into his cabin to 
 consult the chart. 
 
 Covering so large an area of sea, its scale was 
 small, and it was, moreover, marked and scrawled 
 all over with his own notes and observations. Plac- 
 ing it on his knees, he ran his finger along the coast- 
 line to the eastward, searching among the names 
 of villages, headlands, and bays for some inlet that 
 should give him harbour-room. The nearest — 
 Seithisfiord — was on the eastern coast, two days' 
 steaming ; so, resolving to anchor off-shore, to 
 convey the body ashore in the dinghy, and then to 
 leave it to the care of the inhabitants of the nearest 
 village or farm, his finger ranged back along the 
 chart to the nearest point on the coast -line. 
 
 Just to the eastward of Portland, a broad, shallow 
 stream of glacier water, the Kirthafljot, ran over 
 wide beaches to the sea, and close to it two hamlets 
 bore the names of Asaa and Langholt. 
 
 Some half -lost train of memory stirred in his brain. 
 Asaa and Langholt — Langholt and Asaa — -where 
 had he heard those names before ? Langholt and 
 Asaa — what was the other word that had occurred 
 in conjunction with them ? — a word that surely 
 must link up the chain of memory. Asaa? — 
 Langholt ? Puzzled, his finger ran down the coast- 
 line, and there in fine letters beneath " C. Portland," 
 was its native name " Dyrholaey ! " 
 
 Of course ; Asaa, and Langholt-by -Dyrholaey ! 
 That was it. The names of the villages where lay 
 the valueless lands with which his father had swindled 
 the old sea-captain. Laurence swore more oaths 
 softly, undeterred by the presence of his silent com- 
 panion stretched upon the cabin table.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 71 
 
 He poured himself another glass of spirits and 
 drank, frowning as he pored over the chart. Dyr- 
 holaey— he tried idly to guess at its meaning. Door- 
 hole-isle, likely enough, he thought, having many 
 times seen the great ocean-worn archway in the 
 headland. 
 
 Strange that fate should send him here, just as 
 he was about to leave for a while the hated labours 
 to which his father's sin had bound him. Doorhole 
 Isle — j us t as the ocean had worn the great arch in 
 the volcanic cliffs, so had usage of the sea torn and 
 rent that structure of breeding and education that 
 once he had thought part of himself. And now, 
 hardened and defiled rather than cleansed and 
 purified by the fire through which he had passed, 
 he was going lower yet, to ostentatiously fling away 
 his savings in debauchery more attractive than the 
 vice of the seaports. 
 
 Why should fate serve him so ? What harm had 
 he done that he himself should be debarred from the 
 best in life— that best he had tasted in youth? 
 .More keenly than deprivation of good to himself 
 came the remembrance of the last words of the dead 
 now lying so still before him. Oaths and blasphemy 
 — his own teaching. Such a death was worse than 
 the perishing of the beasts of the field. Devoid of 
 religion, and with no belief in a future existence, 
 some fragment of his early training yet gave him 
 a momentary distaste of himself, almost a half-felt 
 shame at the memory of his own vile words from 
 those lips, now stiffening in death. 
 
 He drank again, until the spirits flushed his face 
 and puffed his hot eyelids. Dyrholaey— ay, Door- 
 hole Island. Portland— the land of the portal. 
 The same name in two tongues. And he himself
 
 I _' 
 
 2 TIP S.W/VING OF A DERELICT 
 
 was going to stoop — yes, stoop — to a portal that 
 should take him, a wild brute of the lonely sea 
 wastes, into a land of milk and honey, a realm of 
 pleasant words and smells and tastes, of soft voices 
 and well-bred, delicate, sweet sin. 
 
 And what after ? To come back to sea — and per- 
 haps some day to be winch-trapped even as this 
 poor devil had been, or to fall overside and drown, 
 .ghted down by heavy sea-clothing, as many a 
 better man had done before him. Memory and 
 imagination supplied a hundred details of that last 
 passing, suggested its occurrence in a score of different 
 ways, and the terror of a lonely death at sea struck 
 cold to his very inmost soul. 
 
 Strange that his work on this boy should end here, 
 of all places ; that the dead whose soul he had 
 damned — if damning were aught but the fiction he 
 believed — would be laid out of sight under the lava- 
 blocks and starving land through which his father 
 before him had struck down another such harmless 
 victim. Father and son, alike in their work : sea- 
 captain and trawler's deck hand, victims both, 
 broken by their ignorance of aught but the poor 
 simple ways of life at sea. 
 
 He drank again, and looked at the drawn, set 
 face upon the table. 
 
 What did it matter, after all? Who were they, 
 that these dead should so mutely accuse him ? He 
 had no hand in the killing of the body — only the 
 soul. His father, too, had never laid hands on his 
 victim — only robbed him with cunning and greed. 
 He laughid softly but brutally, and tried to think 
 of the Northern Boulevards in June sunlight; but 
 ■ how the thoughts refused to flow easily as 
 heretofore
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 73 
 
 It was not his fault — or his father's. " Clumsy 
 fools," he said aloud, with an oath; and then, 
 
 " By G — d ! I'm getting morbid — or tight. I'll 
 give the whelp his burial ashore, and then, hey for 
 southern sunlight ! " 
 
 He sewed Clitheroe's dead body in a blanket that 
 but half a dozen hours before had wrapped it in a 
 lighter rest than this that knew no waking. This 
 done, he went on deck, and through his glasses 
 examined the now approaching coast. The quantity 
 he had drunk had made him somewhat stupid, and 
 he answered the helmsman's hail of " Portland's 
 abeam " with a dull " What say ? " 
 
 " Portland's abeam," the man repeated, waving 
 his hand towards it. 
 
 Laurence rocked on his heels with the motion of 
 
 the boat. " Do you think I haven't eyes, you 
 
 clown ? ' he said. " Mind your wheel — keep t' 
 your own business." 
 
 ' Ye told me to give ye a hail," the man responded 
 sulkily, and turned his back upon him. 
 
 Laurence drunkenly reflected. So he had, of 
 course. But that was if he was below. Couldn't 
 the fool see he was on deck ? Conscious that he was 
 betraying his condition, he turned his attention again 
 to the land. 
 
 His glass showed dark grey shingle beaches broken 
 in one place by a band of green shot with silver. 
 That must be the stream with the difficult name — 
 Kir— Kirthafljot. That was it. And Langholt 
 should be near its mouth. Closer examination re- 
 vealed a couple of wooden gable ends under grass- 
 grown roofs, on which a sheep was feeding. A 
 wooden groyne lay down the beach, some boats 
 hauled up beside it, and another was being pushed
 
 74 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 into the water by two or three men. In the clear 
 air their thick clothing and ear-flapped caps were 
 distinctly visible by the glass's aid. Laurence 
 gauged the distance with his eye. 
 
 ' Run up some sort of a flag half mast," he called 
 to the bridge. " We'll anchor about five miles 
 farther along — just by that bit of a river. I'm 
 going to take him ashore." He jerked his thumb 
 towards the cabin ; the man at the wheel growled 
 a surly assent, and Laurence went below again to 
 the company of the shrouded bundle on his table. 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 A STRANGE voice through his skylight half an 
 hour later roused him from dull reverie. He 
 ascended the narrow stairway to find two of his men 
 striving against the obstacles to conversation with a 
 snuff-smeared Icelander who had climbed to the 
 deck from the boat he had seen launched from 
 Langholt beach, which now was towing alongside. 
 
 All three men turned to him as he approached. 
 
 " What does he want ? " he asked. 
 
 The men were unable to tell him. " Either he 
 wants to buy tobacco or sell it," they said. ' We 
 cannae make out what he says." 
 
 Laurence tried him in Danish, a few words of 
 which he had picked up in Thorshavn, and found 
 he desired to buy. The farms were cut off from 
 civilisation throughout the winter, and the Westray 
 was the first spring visitor. He took the man to 
 the skylight and pointed down at the blanket- 
 wrapped bundle on the table. Would the native
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 75 
 
 boat take the body ashore and attend to its inter- 
 ment ? he asked. 
 
 The man's answer was difficult to understand, 
 but as far as Laurence could comprehend, it would 
 be necessary for the skipper or a member of the 
 crew to accompany the corpse ashore for the purpose 
 of proving identity or making a deposition as to the 
 manner of death. One constantly repeated word — 
 sysselman — he guessed at last to mean some sort of 
 head man of the parish or district. Apparently the 
 body could not be buried without this official's per- 
 mission. 
 
 ' We'll have to anchor, after all," he said, and 
 gave the required orders. " Get you below, two of 
 you, and get him on deck. Parcel him up with a 
 spare line and lower into that boat." 
 
 The body was slung overside, much as any other 
 inanimate bundle might be — Laurence, with as 
 much tobacco as the crew could spare, following it ; 
 and the boat pulled away from the anchoring trawler 
 across the intervening water to the shore. 
 
 Two of the men carried their burden up the stony 
 beach and into a low-ceiled room in the nearer house. 
 Laurence, following, found a fat, sheep-faced woman 
 standing by it, her homely face alive with regret. 
 
 " Ah ! I sorry — sorry," she said brokenly. 
 
 ' You speak English ? " Laurence inquired, in 
 surprise. 
 
 " Yess ; little— ver' little. I was in Hotel Reyk- 
 javik — long ago — before I was marry." 
 
 " Is your husband sysselman ? " 
 
 " Sysselmann. Oh no — no. He live fir — fifteen 
 mile — there," she pointed inland with a fat forefinger. 
 
 " At Asaa ? " 
 
 " Yes, Asaa. You know Asaa ? "
 
 7G THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 Laurence shook his head, fuming with annoyance. 
 Here it was already late afternoon, and this precious 
 official had to be fetched before he could proceed 
 farther. He considered whether he should get 
 put aboard, up anchor, and away. They would 
 have to bury the lad then, at their own charges and 
 without further trouble to himself. 
 
 Seeing the woman bring out a clean sheet to lay 
 over the body, he decided to stay. After all, it was 
 but a day. If these homely strangers could so care 
 for the sacred dead they had never known, it would 
 be hardly meet that a member of his own crew 
 should be left to their care like so much worthless 
 carrion. 
 
 " When will the sysselman be here ? " he asked. 
 
 ' We send to-night. He come to-morrow. Can- 
 not more queek as that." 
 
 " Very well," Laurence said. "I will sleep on 
 board and come ashore in the morning. Can the 
 body stay here ? " 
 
 " Yess. Oah yess. But not here in room. Out- 
 side. You come." 
 
 She led him into a nearly empty shed adjoining 
 the house. Some few dry fish lay in one corner, 
 fenced off from the depredations of the ponies by 
 sheets of corrugated iron. Laurence helping her, 
 two of the sheets were laid on the dirty floor, and 
 the body, brought in by its former bearers, was laid 
 upon them. 
 
 Though the place cried aloud of starving poverty, 
 the woman, after exchanging a few words with her 
 companions, asked him to join them at their after- 
 noon meal. Their gentle manners and simplicity 
 almost angered hirn. The effect of his morning's 
 potations was dying out of him, leaving him depressed
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 77 
 
 and sulky, and their quiet contentment moved him 
 to dull rage. He refused curtly — said he was going 
 for a walk ; and when he perceived from the sym- 
 pathy in their faces that they imagined him grieving 
 for a comrade, he could have struck them. 
 
 He turned from them and started to walk inland 
 across the poor, sparsely covered land ; then, look- 
 ing back over his shoulder, pointed out a high rock 
 that broke the horizon two or three miles away, and 
 demanded its name. He would walk there and 
 back — walk the last of the liquor out of him. 
 
 " Ookthleed," he thought the woman answered. 
 He repeated the word interrogatively : " Ookth- 
 leed ? " 
 
 " Ja, ja. Yess," they answered, in chorus. 
 " Ookthleed." 
 
 A sudden memory prompted him. He retraced 
 his steps, searching in his pockets until he found a 
 lead pencil. " Write it down," he told the woman ; 
 and, as he expected, she wrote it, " Uthtfd ! ' 
 
 The word set his memory loose. ' Haukadal ? ' 
 he asked. They pointed to more bare lands to the 
 left. " Sveinardal ? " To the right this time. 
 Those very worthless lands his father had bought 
 from Clement Harper three years before. 
 
 Laurence laughed, a short, mirthless laugh that 
 stopped the woman's inquiries, rendered more 
 incoherent through surprise. He would walk to this 
 Uthlld rock, and sit there and hug his hate to him — 
 his hate of all the world. That would be a truly 
 well-conceived artistic whole : that he, stupefied 
 and wild-eyed with the dying effects of drink, should 
 sit awaiting the burial of this boy who had learnt 
 naught but evil from him, amid the lands his suave 
 thief of a father had used to ruin one of the least
 
 78 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 of all his victims. And as a contrast what could be 
 more suitable than the future two months. In a 
 week — a fortnight at most — he would be luxuri- 
 ously speeding south to riot and revel and befoul 
 himself yet more. Totally disregarding the on- 
 lookers, he turned again inland and set off quickly, 
 staggering a little as he walked. 
 
 All around him the land was bare and rugged. 
 Great barren rocks of lava broke the poor heather 
 and grass in all directions. Here and there between 
 the lava patches were tiny naked fields, and snow 
 lay in every sheltered hollow. As the afternoon 
 lengthened the wind grew cold, and he pulled his 
 rough pilot coat closer around him, tying his kerchief 
 more tightly round his neck. 
 
 Poor and jejune land ; arid, useless lava, cold 
 wind sweeping across the waste ; wasted lives and 
 broken, purposeless deaths — how well his father's 
 means had matched his work. 
 
 " Must have had an artistic sense of completeness, 
 too," Laurence said aloud, his teeth inclined to 
 chatter with cold and misery, for all his attempt at 
 a sneer. 
 
 Uthhd rock proved to be a mass of volcanic tufa, 
 perhaps forty feet high. On one side the lava had 
 pressed upwards to half its height, as a wave dashes 
 upwards against a wall, and there had cooled hard. 
 On the opposite side the ground was clear for some 
 small space where the boulder had parted the lava 
 stream. Snow lay deep upon the higher side, but 
 the strengthening sun had melted it in the hollow, 
 and one or two tiny flowers already showed between 
 the sparse grass blades. 
 
 Being sheltered from the wind by the boulder, 
 and visited by the low sun, the hollow showed
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 79 
 
 promise of warmth. Laurence jumped down into 
 it, sought a sunlit corner, and lighting a pipe sat 
 and smoked, his knees beneath his chin, stupidly 
 watching the western sky. 
 
 He tried to remember the details of the inquiry 
 into his father's affairs, but nothing beyond the 
 memory of the old sea-captain's wretched face came 
 to supplement the farm names that had set this 
 train of thought in motion. Such a scared, unhappy 
 face. As though it were now before him, he could 
 see the plaintive working of the brow over the grey 
 eyes with the pale, senile arc in them ; the old 
 man's stubby fingers— still the sailor's short, broad 
 hand for all its late-won whiteness— plucking 
 nervously at his beard or moustache, touching his 
 lips, always fidgeting around the querulous mouth. 
 
 And then arose a memory of his own father's 
 face. The square brows and jaw, the set of the firm, 
 clean-shaven lips, made sharp contrast to the aged 
 and harassed face of the man he had ruined. Just 
 as the one had been frightened, moved by fleeting 
 changes of emotion, troubled and unstable as the 
 waters on which it had looked out for a lifetime, 
 so had the other been strong and hard, and guarded 
 in expression, as though earnest of these wild rocky 
 lands now about him. An eddy of the cold wind 
 found its way down into the hollow, and he shivered 
 as it blew across his shoulders, chilling him through 
 and through. It was as though some icy whisper 
 of fate had come to remind him of his misery. 
 
 Never mind. A month hence he would be softly 
 lapped about with luxury— drinking of sweet for- 
 bidden waters,— eating prohibited fruit. Just a 
 month or six weeks by the waters of Lethe— in 
 Armida's garden. And the memory of this pitiless
 
 80 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 waste, this cold loneliness, should help sweeten 
 his sojourn there. He would take with hirn some 
 souvenir of these bitter hours — a little piece of the 
 lava, or a flower. No, a flower would look like 
 sickly sentiment. He would take a hard, cold- 
 hearted pebble, and keep it by him. All through 
 the coming month it should go wherever he went, 
 reminding him of the life of misery from which he 
 had come and to which he must inevitably return. 
 It should serve as the death's head at his feast, 
 telling him that time fled and that he must snatch 
 at all the sweets swiftly — swiftly. Dum vivimus 
 vivamus : memory of unhappy past, sure knowledge of 
 unhappy future, should point the jest, sweeten the 
 winecup, make fair faces fairer. " I wonder who'll 
 ask me why I keep it by me ? " he wondered idly. 
 " I'll say it's a mascot." 
 
 He searched for such a pebble, but the lava lay 
 in gigantic twisted masses, glassy hard, and the 
 short poor grass covered any weatherworn debris 
 between them. He searched round the base of the 
 great rock. It seemed to have been pushed a little 
 from its place by the lava stream, grinding its way 
 heavily for perhaps a foot or more over the uneven 
 ground, and scratched and ragged fragments of 
 spalled rock lay beneath it. He kicked at one 
 of them with his heavy sea-boots, breaking off a 
 small piece of dark greenish stone. It showed a 
 lighter green on its broken side, with a hint of 
 " So;..e sort of jasper or agate," he 
 said to himself, then put it into his pocket and walked 
 back across the londy plain to Langholt, reaching 
 the farm just as sunset gave place to the long twilight 
 oi the northern latitudes. 
 
 A messenger had been sent to the sysselman, the
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 81 
 
 woman told him. In all probability he would arrive 
 before noon on the morrow, after which Clitheroe's 
 burial could take place as soon as Laurence desired ; 
 so, promising to come ashore in the morning, he 
 again entered the boat and was rowed off to the 
 West ray. 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 A FTER making the necessary declarations before 
 ./A. the sysselman, Laurence paid the modest sum 
 demanded by the folks of Langholt for funeral 
 expenses, and hastened back on board as soon as 
 possible. The weather still kept fine, and the 
 crew, though short-handed, worked well, so that 
 the Westray arrived in Leith in but two days over 
 the week. In another two he had handed the trawler 
 over to her new skipper, drawn the money lying to 
 his credit at the office, locked his sea-kit in his 
 room at Anstruther's, and, without a word of fare- 
 well or explanation to any soul in Leith, was speed- 
 ing south as fast as the Edinburgh-London express 
 could carry him. 
 
 He rode third class. " No use wasting money 
 yet," he told himself. "That'll begin later on— 
 when I've got into the swim. I'll go to Pat Dwyer 
 first. He'll know the ropes— if he hasn't got married 
 in the last two years." Driving straight from King's 
 Cross to Dwyer's office in Chancery Lane, he de- 
 manded to see him. 
 
 A young solicitor is of all men the most readily 
 accessible in office hours, so, though Laurence's 
 clothes were rough serge, his hat half a year old, 
 and his manner to the clerks little short of insult,
 
 82 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 he yet was soon ushered into his old friend's private 
 room. 
 
 Dwyer looked up from the table as he entered, 
 polite inquiry in his uplifted eyebrows. 
 
 c< And what can I have the pleasure of doing 
 for you, sir ? " he asked. 
 
 ' You can try and polish your memory a bit, 
 Pat Dwyer," Laurence answered. " And if you 
 drop that de haul en has manner you'll do no 
 harm." 
 
 ' Saints above ! It's Laurie Averil ! ' He was 
 out of his chair in a moment, and the men gripped 
 hands. " And yet 'tisn't the old Laurence, some- 
 how. What the blazes have you been doing with 
 yourself, man ? Nawying ? Look at your hands — 
 and you must be six inches bigger round the chest. 
 What is it, my returned prodigal ? The husks of 
 the swine never did that for you. You've been 
 living on stolen pork." 
 
 ' I've been living amongst the swine all right," 
 Laurence answered. " And a pig's life's no catch, 
 Pat, my dear. And now I've — I've made my little 
 pile, and I've come back to town to do some of it 
 in, and you've got to help. . . . Curse your business. 
 Your business first is to give me a line to your tailor 
 and tell me where I'm to stay. I must lay low a 
 couple of days until I get some decent duds, I 
 suppose, and then, oh ho ! we'll rogue and we'll 
 ran;:*-. Where do the boys foregather now, Pat ? 
 Are there many of 'em in town ? And what's on at 
 the theatres ? 
 
 " Oh, man alive, it's good to be back in dear, 
 
 dirty London again. Do you know, I enjoyed 
 
 • here from King's Cross as much as if I was 
 
 a country yokel riding in a real proper 'ansom for
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 83 
 
 the first time in my life. I've been living in the 
 bottomless pit, old man. Haven't spoken to an 
 educated man or kissed a decently dressed woman 
 for two j-ears." 
 
 " Whe-whew ! " Dwyer whistled through his 
 teeth. " This is not the Laurence Averil we knew. 
 ' Rogue and range —kiss a well-dressed woman ' — 
 what the deuce ? You've been finishing your 
 education, Master Laurie." 
 
 " Wet liebt nichtwein, weib und gesang." Laurence 
 trolled the old students' song from the depths of 
 his chest, to the great wonderment of the clerks 
 in the adjoining office. " Pre-haps I have altered 
 — some. If you stick the most moral of bears on 
 hot plates he'll learn to dance. You'll see whether 
 I've learnt, mighty soon. I'm somewhat out of 
 practice, and clumsy, maybe ; but my heart's in it, 
 and I'll do my best, and you shall introduce me to 
 partners, my worthy Master of Ceremonies. Now, 
 what do we do to-night ? " 
 
 Dwyer deliberated. " There's a decent show at 
 the Alhambra. Manuela— she's the last new Spanish 
 importation — takes Carmen in the ballet. They say 
 it's all right. Will that do ? " 
 
 " Oh, anything, man,— anything'll do. Manuela, 
 eh ? What's become of Otero ? She was the lead- 
 ing light of Spanish dancing when I went away. Not 
 that I took much notice of 'em in those days. My 
 education wasn't completed." 
 
 " Where are you staying ? " Dwyer asked. 
 
 " Nowhere yet. I told you I wanted digs. My 
 home is my hansom at present, and if you look out 
 of the window you'll see all my Lares and Penates 
 in one small kitbag on its roof. "What's it to be — 
 an hotel for a day or two ? "
 
 84 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " Urn. I don't know." He touched a bell. " Ask 
 Mr. Tyrrell if he can spare me a moment." 
 
 Mr. Tyrrell, a thin, fair man, prematurely bald 
 and with forensic side whiskers, was introduced to 
 Laurence as " Our new partner. This is Mr. Averil, 
 an old friend of mine. He wants rooms, Tyrrell. 
 What about that furnished flat in New Cavendish 
 Street that you were speaking of last week ? How 
 would that do, Laurence ? Four rooms — a fiver 
 a week or thereabouts. It's a bit hot, but I dare say 
 we could get it for less if you take it for the expiration 
 of the lease." 
 
 ' I only want it for a time," Laurence explained. 
 ' I'll be off to Paris next week, likely enough. 
 Should like a look at Monte Carlo before the season's 
 done, too. Let's go see the place, and then if it 
 suits, and the sticks and fittings are decent, I'll 
 take it for a month, anyway. Come round and 
 show it to me now. Where can I get a key ? " 
 
 " Oh, at the caretaker's, for certain. But I can't 
 come now. Can you amuse yourself for an hour ? 
 Yes? Then clear out and come back at half-past 
 four, and I'm j^our man." 
 
 Laurence paid his cabman, sent his bag upstairs 
 by a clerk, and turned down Chancery Lane towards 
 the Strand and Fleet Street. 
 
 The roaring torrents of life flowing east and west 
 surged in his ears like the sound of a sea, and he 
 stood by the Law Courts in a daze of happiness. 
 This was coming back to life, in all good earnest. 
 His face radiant with the joy of it all, he sauntered 
 down the Strand, his feet light and springy on the 
 good paving under him, as full of idle delight as a 
 holidaying schoolboy. This was resurrection- 
 nothing less. He could have sung aloud for sheer
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 85 
 blitheness of heart. This was worth waiting two 
 years for. Let the dead past bury its dead— the 
 future take care of itself. Here was the glorious 
 present to be lived. Carpe Diem should be his 
 
 motto. ■ , , 
 
 He climbed on a westward bound bus and went 
 as far as Piccadilly Circus, rejoicing in the afternoon 
 sunlight and crowds every inch of the way. lo 
 think he could ever have trodden these streets 
 unmoved ! —that exile should be needed before 
 he could perceive their beauties, or enjoy immersion 
 in the great turmoil, in this full tide of life. Here 
 things moved— here things were done. " Man « 
 naturally gregarious," he said aloud to himself. 
 " It's only to have tasted the loneliness 'of those 
 cursed northern waters to be sure of that." 
 
 The 'bus driver overheard his muttering. He 
 turned and looked up at him. 
 " What say ?" he asked. 
 
 " I said it was good to get back to life again, 
 Laurence told him. fj 
 
 " Y' don't look as if you'd been dead— perticler, 
 the man said, glancing at his bronzed skin and brown 
 
 beard. 
 
 " I have, then ; worse than dead for two years, 
 
 Laurence replied. 
 
 The man, observing his work-worn hands, merely 
 nodded, forming his own conclusions. 
 
 "Done time, that cove," he remarked to the 
 conductor after Laurence had left the 'bus. " Been 
 worse'n dead for two years, he said. More likely 
 three— he never got that colour and them 'ands 
 through indoor labour. Quarryin', likely— Portland 
 or Princetown, I expect. Spoke like a toff, too. 
 I lay 'e 'as a time for the next week or two, if 'e's
 
 86 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 got the brass." In which sentiment Laurence, had 
 he heard it, would have heartily concurred. 
 
 He returned to Dwyer & Tyrrell's offices just 
 before five, to find Dwyer waiting for him. A 
 hansom was called, and the two men set off for New 
 Cavendish Street together. 
 
 " And now," Dwyer said, " perhaps you'll tell me 
 where you've been, and what 3'ou've done, and 
 what you're going to do next ? " 
 
 Laurence leant over his knees, gazing straight 
 before him over the horse's back. 
 
 ' I'll tell you as much as I please. I've had a 
 rough trip — a ghastly rough trip, Pat. I've made 
 money, and I've come back here to spend it. I 
 want amusement. I want dinners and suppers ; 
 I want theatres and music and evil company of 
 the washed and scented and bedecked pattern. I 
 remember you for a reprobate — how often have I 
 called you a fool for it, eh ? — and I want you to 
 introduce me to a few people who'll help me play 
 the fool myself. Is that plain ? " 
 
 'M — yes. Somewhat. You certainly have altered. 
 To come to town with the deliberate intent of a 
 spree is distinctly a rural idea. Most of us find 
 enough bother in slipping from virtue occasionally 
 without going to seek for trouble from malice pre- 
 pense. But you were always the methodical type 
 of brute that makes up his mind what he'll do before 
 he starts about it. I'm not so sure that Sir Pandarus 
 of Troy is my role, exactly, all the same." 
 
 " Look here " — Laurence put a hand on his wrist 
 — "if you're going to kick — kick, and have done 
 with it. I ask you, as a personal favour, to introduce 
 me to half a dozen of your friends. You used to 
 stage-door dangle at one time. Let me feed and
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 87 
 
 fondle one or two of the breed of hogs that spend 
 then lives at it, and your duty's done and you can 
 get back to the office and virtue, if you like. Refuse, 
 if you will." His eyebrows lowered his ]aw pro- 
 jecting in dull animal obstinacy. " It won t afiect 
 matters in the least degree. I've been kicked about 
 in intense misery for two years, old gentleman. I ve 
 lived like a hog and with worse than hogs. I ve 
 been crowded to the very edge of murder. I ve 
 had to behave like Satan himself to get an un- 
 lovely living. I've never had a man care whether 
 I lived or died, except perhaps one poor fool, and 1 
 saw him torn nearly in two before my eyes only 
 about a fortnight ago. My hand's against every 
 man, and every man's hand's religiously against me 
 Never was such an Ishmael. I care nothing for 
 anybody on the earth except myself-and, with or 
 without your help, I'm going to have the run of 
 my teeth for a bit, before I settle down to anything. 
 "I've got money, thank Heaven— no, thanks 
 to myself, I mean. I got it by the sweat of my 
 brow and at the risk of my life, and I'l spend it on 
 myself as I jolly well please. I wouldn t give a 
 penny, a farthing of it, to save injured innocence 
 from starvation and the street, I tell you straight. 
 " Who's asking you ? " 
 " Nobody I know that. But let me continue 
 
 to expound. Do you know ? I told you I 
 
 hadn't spoken to an educated man for two years. 
 Let me make the most of it. 
 
 - I shall spend it on myself solely and simply in 
 gratifying my animal appetites. I shall spend much 
 of it in driving about in cabs. I begin to understand 
 the instinct that sends Jack ashore in large parties 
 about town in hired growlers. He waves flags
 
 88 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 also — and gets drunk. I haven't quite assimilated 
 the flag-waving instinct j'et ; but as to getting 
 drunk— cheer oh, Pat ! You wait and see. Mean- 
 while, this is good enough to go on with. The 
 tinkle of that horse bell, the clop, clop of his hoofs 
 on decently laid road are music, man — sublime 
 music. Is this the flat ? " 
 
 " Yes. Come and have a look at it, and stop 
 your indecent protestations, your proclaiming aloud 
 of evil intents. I'll introduce you to one or two of 
 the ' breed of hogs ' you speak so tenderly of, and 
 you must do the rest yourself. You're pretty beastly 
 in your open statements, and when I remember 
 you two years ago, it strikes me that you've had an 
 interesting time, if a rough one. However, that's 
 your affair, and if you don't choose to speak of it, 
 you can do the other thing. How do you like the 
 crib ? " 
 
 " 'Tain't dear at a fiver a week, is it? " Laurence 
 asked. The place was on the second floor, well 
 lighted, well furnished, and well kept. " Whose 
 is it? " 
 
 " Forget his name. Tyrrell knows him. Some 
 sort of a writer, I fancy — essays and reviews. He's 
 been ordered south for his health — consumptive 
 tendency, I believe. Does that matter ? " 
 
 " Divvle a bit. It's an additional recommenda- 
 tion. Who'll do for me ? " 
 
 The hall porter's wife had done the little house- 
 keeping the late occupant required, they were 
 informed. " Very late hours 'e kep', gentlemen," 
 that functionary thought fit to add. " A very quiet, 
 nice gentleman 'e was, though, an' mostly 'e dined 
 out at restaurants and such." 
 
 " Ah ! So shall I. I shall also keep late hours,
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 89 
 
 but as to being nice or quiet,— well, that you'll 
 rind out later. Now we'll go do shopping, Pat. Can 
 I rake together a suit of dress duds at a minute's 
 notice like this? I suppose it can be managed. 
 And I must get a piano in, too. The consumptive 
 predecessor wasn't musical, evidently." 
 
 The hall porter coughed behind his hand, viewing 
 the new tenant of the rooms with subdued interest 
 from the corner of his eye. 
 
 " You'll excuse me, gentlemen— you spoke of late 
 hours, sir. Per'aps I ought to say that piano-playing 
 and music are gen'rally discontinued in the Mansions 
 at eleven p.m." 
 
 " Are they ? You be sugared ! Then in future 
 they won't be. See ? If other tenants object, you 
 can send in their complaints in due course. I'm 
 not taking the place with a view to going back to 
 school." 
 
 " Don't you be quite too frabjous an ass," Dwyer 
 requested, when they had re-entered the cab and 
 were being driven back to Oxford Street. ' Just 
 you remember, my sweet, irrepressible Ishmael, 
 that I'm a respectable, quiet young solicitor, and 
 that Tyrrell's my partner and a good fellow ; also 
 that the owner of those sticks is a pal of his. If you're 
 going to play the fool and break up the 'appy 'ome 
 in the exuberance of your spirits, you will make 
 things unpleasant for me. 
 
 " More — you've been plain with me to the verge 
 of indecency in announcing your intentions — in 
 which, to tell the truth, I'm not particularly in- 
 terested. On other points you preserve a discreet 
 silence. Now, see here. You were broke when you 
 went away. You come back inside of two years with
 
 90 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 every appearance of having performed manual 
 labour in the open air ; and if I can judge from your 
 hands and eyes, and that little slip just now about 
 Jack ashore, I should guess you've been at sea. 
 Manual labour at sea is not highly paid — no recent 
 successful piracies have been reported, as far as 
 I know — and yet you talk of having made a pile 
 in that short time. 
 
 " I don't want to ask personal or impertinent 
 questions, but as you, in a manner of speaking, 
 
 ask me to supply you with credentials It's 
 
 purely a matter of business, you understand. If you 
 wanted to borrow money, you know where to come 
 for it. I told you that two years ago, didn't I ? 
 But this is business. Play the fool if you like, and 
 welcome, but kindly oblige me by pulling out the 
 soft stop occasionally, and let me know beforehand 
 how I stand." 
 
 Laurence looked round at him, a queerly curious 
 expression in his puckered eyelids. 
 
 " That's all right. I'll pay in a hundred to your 
 business account as soon as the bank's open to- 
 morrow, and you can act for me with your partner's 
 pal- -pay the rent for a month in advance. Will 
 that do — er — for a start ? As to playing the fool — 
 for all my talk and -my hands and my manners, 
 I haven't forgotten the difference between wardroom 
 and fo'-castle drunk. . . . What I said to the porter ? 
 Oh yes ! Only the fool annoyed me with his clack, 
 and I thought he might as well understand from 
 the first that I propose to keep my own hours, and 
 do as I please." 
 
 ' I fancy you said something to the same effect 
 before," Dwyer said. " Now we'll get about your 
 shopping — unless you'd like to lead off by smash-
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 91 
 
 ing a few plate-glass windows as a declaration that 
 you fear no foe in shining armour— or blue cloth. 
 Here's your piano shop, for a start." 
 
 And the London of a June evening, beautiful as 
 a jewelled woman in a shaded light, took Laurence 
 to its heart and made him divinely happy. All the 
 world went to pleasure or to dine, and never a lighted 
 theatre but spoke to him of welcome, never a face 
 that glanced on him from beneath the hood of a 
 passing hansom but seemed to smile in greeting, 
 and the soft night air on his face was like a caress. 
 Wherever they stopped obsequious tradesmen took 
 his orders, backed by Dwyer's references, unques- 
 tioningly and with alacrity? promising delivery 
 that same evening of the more especially needed oi 
 his purchases. Dress clothes were not immediately 
 procurable, but Dwyer's tailor, anxious to please, 
 was able to find a suit which, together with others 
 destined for a less favoured customer, he declared 
 would fit Laurence well, and consented to make a 
 few slight alterations and deliver the whole order 
 of four suits to him on the morrow. To bootmakers 
 they went, to wine merchants and glovers, hatters 
 and tobacconists, Laurence spending money joyously 
 and recklessly right and left, and then to dine. 
 Because they were not arrayed in evening wear they 
 partook of the meal in a restaurant not usually 
 frequented by Dwyer's more intimate acquaintance, 
 but that all should be in accordance with his pre- 
 conceived ideas, Laurence stipulated for music ; 
 and when cigars and coffee were served, he felt the 
 lagged fragment of rock in his pocket almost with 
 disbelief of the past. Clitheroe's dying ace-he 
 tried to recall it, and the bitter wastes beneath which 
 that face now lay. They must be a dream-and
 
 92 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 yet, if they had never been, could life be so sweet as 
 this ? The contrast was needed, else such happiness 
 were impossible. ' 
 
 After dinner he demanded another ride, and a 
 hansom took them to Hyde Park Corner and back. 
 
 1 want to see the long line of cab lamps outside the 
 clubs, Pat," Laurence pleaded. " Man, I've dreamed 
 of 'em." 
 
 At the Al ham bra he drank freely, yet with care. 
 " Get drunk ? No fear. I wouldn't lose a minute — ■ 
 not a second of it." The moving rainbow of the 
 ballet, the soul-maddening whine of stringed instru- 
 ments, intoxicated him far more than anything 
 he had to drink. " To shut eyes and just listen is 
 the seventh heaven, Pat. And to open them and 
 see that " — he nodded towards the radiantly ap- 
 pointed beauty of the crowded stage, advancing, 
 retreating, wreathing and winding and grouping 
 ever into new colour schemes, revealing ever new 
 beauties of face and form. ' Man alive, it's gild- 
 ing the lily. There, that's a mixed metaphor, but 
 let it stand. It's none so bad." 
 
 Amid the trailing robes of the lounge he held 
 talk, much to Dwyer's disgust, with a painted native 
 of the Faroes. " You go to the deuce," he said, 
 when his companion remonstrated. " My taste's 
 all right. I only want to speak to the woman and 
 stand her a couple of drinks. I've been where she 
 comes from. She's part of the whole joyous scheme 
 of this heaven of a day. She provides the chiaroscuro 
 
 the d< ep i plash of shadow in the foreground that 
 brightens all the colouring and rounds the forms. 
 While we talk, you go and find a couple of men 
 to come home and have supper at the digs. You'll 
 find me here when you come back,"
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 93 
 
 He subsided into a seat and talked Danish to the 
 woman. When Dv/yer came back her head was bent 
 and her lips shaking. 
 
 " Give her money ? Not likely. She's had two 
 whiskies and sodas out of me, and that's all I owed 
 her," he said afterwards in answer to inquiry. ' She 
 looked a peg low, did she ? Likely enough. We 
 talked of Ostero and Thorshavn. Ever been there ? 
 No ? Her home. I suppose she was happy there, 
 once upon a time. When I was there I was in direst 
 misery, my friend, and I wanted her clucking Danish 
 to remind me of the difference between then and 
 now. See ? 
 
 "I see you're a most infernal brute," Dwyer 
 said wrathfully. " Why couldn't you leave the 
 poor beast alone ? She never harmed you." 
 
 " Nor I her. I've given her two drinks— I call 
 that charity. You said she was a peg low yourself. 
 Here's the flat. Oh, joy ! Joy as of harvest ! " 
 
 He hummed a few bars of dance music from a 
 Gilbert and Sullivan opera, shuffling his feet on the 
 pavement to beat time, and breaking into the words 
 at the finish. " ' Of course it docs; of course it 
 does. It si-ig-nifies indifference.' Come up, you 
 men. It'll be a scratch supper if there's anything 
 at all, but there's drinks— heaps. Pat here vouches 
 for 'em ; I got 'em from his man. And when we've 
 had tucker you shall teach me this new fancy whist. 
 Bridge, is it ? Come up." 
 
 Mixed cold foods made a supper of sorts, and 
 when at half -past one Laurence settled down, a 
 pile of loose change at his elbow, to be instructed in 
 the mysteries of bridge, he felt his cup of happiness 
 was nearly full.
 
 94 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 A BRIGHT noon three weeks later found Laurence 
 in the demi-toilette of shirt-sleeves before his 
 open window, gazing idly across the street at the 
 houses opposite and the passers-by upon the sunny 
 pavement before them. For a while he stared, 
 heavy-eyed, seeing nothing, then, turning to the 
 empty room, stretched himself and yawned. " Heigh- 
 ho ! " he said dully. "To think one could kick the 
 bottom out of things in less than a month ! I half 
 wish I was at sea again." 
 
 Now there is an unwritten law that howsoever 
 man obeys the inexorable edict, 'Work to eat," 
 his material and the tools of his calling shall surely 
 react upon him, marking on him in some ineffaceable 
 way the sign-manual of his craft. Deeper than 
 gnarled hands and furrowed brow the traces of 
 his labour must inevitably go ; and the man's 
 outlook on life and religion, his relations towards 
 his fellows — nay, his very love itself — are determined 
 in no small degree by the toil in which he labours 
 for his bread. 
 
 And the man who strives with the elemental 
 forces of nature walks in spirit apart from all 
 his kind. He has his craftmark deep branded 
 as surely on his soul as on his knotted hands. The 
 colonist, the engineer, the drainer of bog and marsh, 
 the breaker of unfilled land, all serve one Mistress. 
 Her service is not kind, and weaker men must 
 seek other, or stand trial by her laws. She has but 
 one punishment for all offences whatsoever — and
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 95 
 
 that punishment is death. For the bridge builder's 
 unsteady girder— Death. For the clay-founded 
 dam— Death. For the unguarded homestead set 
 in far lands — Death. 
 
 But the follower of the sea is set about with this 
 death penalty beyond them all. For the unwary 
 footstep, the indistinct order, the rotten spar, the 
 ill-kept hull, the falsely laid course— for all the one 
 doom sentence, against which there is no appeal. 
 Ignorance is no plea in her stern courts. Wilful 
 negligence or weariness, innocence or rash greed 
 alike are beat to carrion on her leeshores. The 
 mast that human eye unwarily appraised in port 
 snaps before the winter gales ; pampero or typhoon 
 drag straight the weak link of the groaning anchor 
 chain; the belated deck cargo of October shifts, 
 and the listing hull dives once too often. 
 
 Withal, there is some brave sincerity about her. 
 " Come,"' says she, " and do me service. My face 
 is beautiful, and new and beautiful things have I 
 in one hand for my servants' delight ; but in the 
 other is a naked sword. I speak my warning plain. 
 Slip or grow weary, and you die. 
 
 ■ Ye th' unharnessed waves shall test, th' immediate gulfs con- 
 demn. . t , „ 
 Unless ye owe the Fates a jest, guard how ye jest with them. 
 
 And men look upon her loveliness and go, know- 
 ing their doom. And many die. But they that 
 live have knowledge of three things the town- 
 sheltered man may never see. Life they know, 
 and death too well ; but also they have seen her 
 promises and warnings fulfilled in letter and in 
 spirit to the utmost, and lies to them are a weariness 
 of the flesh for evermore. Their craftmark may be
 
 00 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 seen within their steady eyes — and its name is 
 Truth. 
 
 Laurence's listless arms fell to his sides and he 
 looked around the room with heavy eyes. He had 
 discarded his beard, and his clean-shaven lips and 
 jaw showed sallow against the lingering brown of 
 his cheeks. His face was wearied and sneering, 
 and dark pouches showed beneath his eyes. 
 
 For three weeks he had, as he himself said, " lived 
 forty hours in every twenty-four," only to learn what 
 a wiser man learnt in the same school before him, 
 that all — all — -is vanity. 
 
 All had gone as he had declared it should go. 
 Every pleasant folly that could be bought he had 
 taken to himself ; every appetite had been sated 
 to the full. He had frequented strangely diverse 
 places. Race-stands knew his face as well as the 
 coulisses of the theatres, and the best that music 
 and the arts could give him he had enjoyed to the 
 full. His bent was eclectic, if his tastes were 
 catholic. That which was best — most costly, most 
 sought after — he swore was good enough for him ; 
 and only the day before an afternoon at the Academy 
 had preceded a drive to and dinner at Richmond and 
 a riotous supper in this very room, of which evidences 
 now lay in plenty around him. 
 
 The housekeeper's perfunctory tidying of the 
 table to lay his breakfast had swept a debris of cards 
 and unsmoked cigarettes to the mantelpiece. A 
 long glove hung from the heap, its fingers dangling 
 over the fireplace, and beneath an armchair lay a 
 dove-coloured shoe, of quaintly puritan cut. 
 
 He stooped for it and held it at arm's length, 
 remernbering how its owner, gathering together her
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT f>7 
 
 voluminous draperies, had clicked across the pave- 
 ment on its fellow, her stockinged foot held clear of 
 the cool flagstones, sparrows hopping close about 
 her, fearless in the unfrequented dawn. 
 
 " I'll fine you for it, Lucifer," she had laughed 
 from the carriage window. ' It's been lost on your 
 premises, and I believe 3'ou've stolen it — all for 
 love of poor little me. Sentence of the court will be 
 pronounced in due course — when you come to see 
 me to-morrow. No, it's to-morrow now — this 
 afternoon. Home." 
 
 As Laurence held it in his hand some strange 
 throwback of memory — perhaps the jointing of the 
 pavement suggested alternately lapped deckplates — 
 brought Clitheroe's dead face before him, and he 
 threw the shoe angrily behind the fender. " Ugh ! " 
 he'said, and shivered ; then sat down to his untasted 
 breakfast. 
 
 Staled by late hours, his appetite was poor. He 
 drank some coffee and rummaged in the heap upon 
 the mantelpiece for a pipe. Finding none, in a 
 whiff of temper he dragged off the dangling glove 
 and some cigarettes, letting them fall to the floor, 
 and then retired to the bedroom to search his pockets, 
 on his return opening and leaving ajar the outer 
 door of the flat for the convenience of the house- 
 keeper when she should come to clear away his 
 breakfast things. 
 
 Sinking into a deep armchair by the window, he 
 blew clouds of smoke into the air, idly watching 
 their thinning flow towards the open casement. 
 Following them, his thoughts wandered into the 
 outer air, northwards, to Lcith ; northwards, 
 farther yet, to the banks and the weariness of old toil. 
 
 How long was it since ? Years, surely. Impos- 
 4
 
 08 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 sible that a short month ago he himself had been on 
 unsteady decks, the sight and sounds of the sea in 
 his eyes and ears, recollections of recent tragedy 
 in his mind. 
 
 Five weeks ago Clitheroe was alive— if that 
 existence could be called life. How the fool of a 
 boy had worshipped him ! He thought of the mute 
 testimony of the handkerchief that had slipped 
 upon the table beside the tumbler, and compared 
 it with soft-voiced protestations, prettily couched, 
 that he had heard but a few hours past. Which were 
 true ? Well for him he knew. How would the 
 future taste when it came, if he were weak enough 
 for one moment to forget that the soft protesta- 
 tions were only to be bought with money — were 
 uttered for gain alone ? Those same lips that had 
 whispered them had laughed and called him " Lucifer," 
 paying fearless tribute to the wicked strength in 
 him. Clitheroe had worshipped the strength too, 
 good and bad alike — if an}/ good there were. And 
 his payment ? Kicks and blows and curses. ' I'll 
 fine you for it, Lucifer," she had said. 
 
 Never doubt it ! In money, or money's equiva- 
 lent, of course. Curse the money ! After all, it 
 bought nothing worth having. Clitheroe's dying 
 curses were more savoury. At the worst, they 
 showed genuine admiration of the man he had first 
 heard utter them. Which of his genial acquaint- 
 ance — which of the owners of the soft voices and 
 
 eet lips — would die, racked with agony, in stoic 
 silence, because they imagined he might give • to 
 them a place in his memory ? 
 
 For all the toil and cruelty of that life, it made 
 men. He looked at his scarred hands with the 
 broken finger nails, the roughened skin. To hide
 
 TH<<: SALVING OF A DERELICT 90 
 
 them he had gone gloved on all possible occasions ; 
 but the fact that they had excited no remark when 
 uncovered angered him again. A hunchback, a 
 squint, a hydrocephalic idiot's defect would have 
 been passed over in like silence. What would the 
 fools have said if the gnarled hands had not been 
 paying for their approval ? 
 
 Oh, he was weary and sick of it all ! He had 
 gulped too deeply— a wiser man would have gone 
 more deliberately about it— and now he was sick. 
 
 He had meant to go to Paris, he remembered. 
 But what was the use ? It would be the same thing 
 there— the same allurements, the same follies, the 
 same weariness of the flesh, ill-used by excesses. 
 The sea life, after all, gave one good thing- 
 Power. The man gave orders— the underman obeyed 
 them ; and sternness of strife must first distinguish 
 man from underman. What could this life show 
 half so sweet ? Obedience ? Yes. Swift and grace- 
 ful obedience, soft acquiescence, pleasant smiles, 
 pretty speeches, kisses bought to order. But money 
 bought them, not the strong right arm, the clear 
 command. Any puny fool with a rent roll could 
 outbuy him in the market. 
 
 He tried to picture any one of the men who had 
 been his guests of the night before cowing the crew 
 of the Fairy Belle, and half regretted he had not 
 brought maimed Jock Menzies with him as servant 
 to swell his poor triumph here. Uncouth Caliban 
 would have heightened the beauties of Lais and 
 Thais and Rhodope ; the broad shoulders and bull- 
 neck, bent by brute force, have shown well beside 
 the pleasantries of the fools who now fulfilled his 
 wishes at the pull of his purse-strings. 
 
 Yet Mesdemoisclles Lais and company were fair —
 
 100 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 most fair — dazzlingly fair. He thought of a deli- 
 cately-moulded, sweet-scented head that had bent 
 over and kissed his own in farewell as he lay in 
 that very chair that morning. 
 
 ' What's the use of getting sour with it ? ' he 
 said aloud, rising and crossing to the fireplace to 
 knock the ashes from his finished pipe. 'It's all 
 sham — empty sham. Any man knows that. But 
 so's all life ; and this is a pretty part of the sham, 
 anyway." Then, in answer to a knock at the door : 
 ' Come in. You can clear away the things." 
 
 The order was received in silence, and he turned 
 round to find a strange girl standing where his 
 housekeeper should have been. 
 
 ' I beg your pardon," she said. " I had no idea 
 Mr. Webster had any visitors. The door was open, 
 and I walked in. Please can I see him ? ' 
 
 Laurence, devoid of reverence for all womankind, 
 looked her up and down. She was slim of figure and 
 unsuitably dressed, he decided. Her brown tweed 
 walking dress, though well made, was for March 
 wear rather than for June. Her hat was of brown, 
 some white about it ; brown hair lay under it, framing 
 a brown-eyed pale face over a little white neck and 
 in her ungloved hand she held a few large envelopes. 
 
 " Who did you say ? " he asked. 
 
 " Mr. Webster, please." 
 
 " I never heard of him." 
 
 " Then what are you doing in his rooms? " She 
 looked bravely in his eyes, and Laurence caught 
 himself thinking of the little common mountain 
 butterfly that sits in shadow like a dead leaf, its 
 wings clipped tight, until in answer to a stray sun- 
 beam it flips them open in a glory of warmth and 
 golden brown.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 101 
 
 " Eh ? " he said stupidly. M 
 
 " What are you doing in Mr. Webster's rooms ? 
 She backed towards the door. 
 
 Laurence laughed at the faint alarm m her face. 
 
 *' They're my rooms. If you want the man who 
 had them before me, you're a bit late. I believe 
 he's in Italy, or somewhere south. Wasn't he con- 
 sumptive ? ' . , 
 
 The girl nodded, and her figure slid into lines of 
 weariness at once. " Do you know his address? ' 
 
 "No. I expect Mr. Tyrrell— Messrs. Dwyer & 
 Tyrrell, of Chancery Lane— can tell you. I got the 
 rooms through them. Is it anything important ? 
 
 " No, thank you. Yes, though ; it is to me— 
 rather. Messrs. Dyer & Tyrrell, did you say? 
 
 " Dwyer & Tyrrell. I'm going there myself as 
 soon as I have my coat on. Shall I give you a lift ? 
 You look tired." . 
 
 " Thank you. I am— a little. I've been walking 
 
 this morning." 
 
 *' Sit down, then. I'll be back in ten minutes. 
 He retired to his bedroom to complete his toilet. 
 On his return he found the girl seated, regarding the 
 disarray of the room with grave disapproval, and 
 her manner to him was chilling in its politeness. 
 
 On the pavement, " I think I'll walk," she said, 
 " if you don't mind. I'm rested now." 
 The cab wheeled up beside the kerb. 
 " But I do mind." Laurence was feeling like a 
 naughty child, caught in misdeeds. " I'm going 
 the same way, I tell you. Get in." 
 
 The girl looked up in surprise. 'I beg your 
 pardon," she said. , 
 
 "I beg yours, I'm afraid my manner is a little
 
 102 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 brusque at times. It's due to want of feminine 
 society, perhaps. Won't you get in ? It seems 
 silly, when we're both going the same way. . . J' 
 
 She climbed in, somewhat mollified — then stiffened 
 again. " Your room hinted at no lack of feminine 
 society." 
 
 ' I had a mixed supper-party last night," Laurence 
 explained. " I'm afraid they got larking and made 
 the place untidy. A bachelor's diggings are rarely 
 remarkable for order, are they ? " 
 
 " I suppose not. Oh, this is nice." She leant 
 back against the cushions, watching the sunlit life 
 of Oxford Street flying past, and Laurence looked 
 round at her pale face. Regular features, long 
 lashes, pink lips — " That's anaemia, caused by under- 
 feeding," he said to himself. " They ought to show 
 scarlet against that skin." He looked at her hands, 
 but she had gloved them in his absence, and they 
 told him nothing. 
 
 ' You like it ? So do I. Do you know, when I 
 came back to London three weeks ago I swore I'd 
 spend all my spare time driving about in hansoms." 
 
 " And have you ? " 
 
 ' Some of it. The novelty wears off after a while. 
 I wonder you're as pleased with it, living in town as 
 you do." 
 
 ' I don't use hansoms, you see. The humble 
 'bus and Twopenny Tube serve my needs. . . . Oh, 
 is this the place ? Thank you very much. Good 
 morning." 
 
 " What brings you here ? " Dwyer asked him. 
 
 ' Little brown girl in a cab. She came to the digs 
 seeking one Webster. I told her Tyrrell 'ud likely 
 know his address, and swore I was Comitig here
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 103 
 
 myself, and would she like a lift ? That's all. How's 
 your head after last night ? " 
 
 " All right. Glad I left early, though. You 
 look like chewed string. Are you standing me a 
 lunch ? " , 
 
 " No. Don't think so. Half a mind to chase 
 little brown girl again and sta.nd her one— if she'll 
 take it on. There's Tyrrell's door shutting. I'm off." 
 
 She was half-way to the Law Courts before he 
 caught her up. 
 
 " Excuse me," he said, and she turned round to 
 find him standing hat in hand. " It's fearful cheek, 
 I know ; but — but I'm quite alone in London, and 
 — and, please will you tell me where I can get a 
 decent lunch ? 
 
 She looked him steadily between the eyes. " You 
 should take notice of women's dresses more carefully," 
 she said. " You gave me a lift from your rooms 
 here in a cab not ten minutes ago, and now you ask 
 me to tell you where to lunch — you, who have been 
 in town three weeks. Perhaps, next time you desire 
 to insult a woman in the street you'll make sure of 
 her back view before you begin." 
 
 Laurence laughed uneasily. ' Y 7 ou mistake," he 
 said. " Better be plain, I suppose. I wasn't mis- 
 taken in your back view. I knew perfectly well 
 who you were, and I followed you from Dwyer & 
 Tyrrell's to ask you to lunch with me, only — only I 
 lost courage when you turned round, and so I started 
 with a lie. 
 
 " See here. This much is true. I am alone for 
 an hour or two, and I want some lunch. Also, I 
 hate having a meal alone — have had too many so — 
 and I shall be very glad if you'll share lunch with 
 me. I don't deserve it, I know "— fre did his best
 
 101 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 to look contrite— ' but truly I'll never so much as 
 ask your name. Look at it from a business point 
 of view. You find the amusement ; I, the lunch. 
 And I swear I never meant to insult you. That's 
 all. Will you come ? " 
 
 She looked up at him keenly, then laughed a little, 
 despite herself. " You're plain spoken. I'll give 
 you credit for that. And- yes, I'll come, if you'll 
 promise to behave. Here's more plain speaking 
 for you. I want lunch ; it'll cost me eighteenpence 
 if I buy it myself, and I haven't many eighteen- 
 pences to spare. Therefore I accept your offer, 
 not because I like you or approve of your manners, 
 but because it saves eighteenpence. See ? " 
 
 ' Perfectly. Now we're on even terms. Hi ! — 
 you." He stopped a crawling cab and helped the 
 girl in. " Prince's." 
 
 She gasped. "Oh no ! " she said. " I can't 
 allow that. Why, it's fearfully expensive. I won't 
 go there." 
 
 ' Then go where you please — when, the cab stops. 
 I'm going there, and you promised to share my 
 lunch. Of course, if you won't, I can't pull you in 
 by your hair. I meant to go to a quieter place if 
 you hadn't pitched your prospective eighteenpenny 
 lunch in my face." 
 
 ' Then please do, now. Really and truly, I shall 
 be quite unhappy there. Look at my dress ! " 
 
 ' It looks very nice," Laurence said, eyeing it. 
 
 " Heaven send men eyes ! Why, it's a winter 
 frock — spring, anyway. And you want to take me 
 to Prince's in it on a June day. Please — please — 
 go somewhere else." There was real pleading in 
 her voice in spit*' of her smiling face. 
 
 " .1 low will the Criterion do ? "
 
 THE SALVING OF A DKTiELICT 105 
 
 " No." She shook her head. " I want some 
 grubby little Soho restaurant where nobody 11 be 
 well dressed. I thought you men always knew of 
 some little place where the wines are wondrous 
 and the cooking unimpeachable, and you can't 
 see your neighbour for tobacco smoke." 
 
 Laurence laughed outright. " Begad ! I'm glad 
 I risked your snubbing. No ; I can't oblige you in 
 all your requirements, but I can take you to a place 
 where the wines are drinkable, I believe, and the 
 cookery isn't bad. But the rooms are large and too 
 well ventilated to get full of smoke, and the service 
 is unromantically clean. However, it's undeniably 
 in Soho. Will that do? " 
 
 " Very nicely, I'm sure. I'll forgive the want 
 of smoke. Where is it ? " 
 
 Laurence pushed up the trap. :< Not Prince's. 
 Corner of Rupert Street," he called to the driver; 
 and then to the girl, " That answers you too, 
 doesn't it? " 
 
 They walked together up the shady side of Rupert 
 Street to the restaurant in which he had dined upon 
 the evening of his arrival. By day it proved to 
 be clean and white and pretty, with snowy napery 
 and brilliant glass upon its tables, and his companion 
 nodded approval. ' I like this. The people aren't 
 too well dressed, and so I don't feel so much ashamed 
 of myself. They look nice and cheerful, too." She 
 regarded the menu favourably, and at Laurence's 
 bidding set herself to select from the modest carte 
 du jour. 
 
 Laurence looked around him curiously, his eyes 
 opened at her naive expressions of pleasure. Yes, 
 the place was cheerful. It had pleased him at his 
 first visit, he remembered ; but any place where
 
 106 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 meals were decently served would have done that 
 then. Since that first evening his lines had been 
 cast in pleasanter places. Were they pleasanter, 
 though ? His glance fell on the little happy face 
 beneath the big brown hat. No ; he'd be hanged 
 if fbey "were. More expensive — yes. Better food 
 and choicer wines, perhaps. A gourmand might 
 perceive the advantage of being fed by a chef with a 
 world-wide reputation, but who was he, after all, 
 to pick and choose ? Was he either gourmand or 
 gourmet ? — he who for two years had eaten without 
 complaint, almost without remark, the wretched 
 food that was set before him on a trawler. And those 
 places were stiff — constrained. Well-dressed immor- 
 ality might enter there, and welcome, it was true — but 
 after six not even purity itself in any raiment but 
 accepted evening wear. Pah ! what a silly sham 
 it all had been. 
 
 The girl called his attention to the menu, pointing 
 with an ungloved finger ; and though her little 
 hands gave him no clue to her occupation, lie saw 
 with satisfaction that they were strong and shapely. 
 Scarcely glancing at the card, he nodded consent to 
 her suggestions, and resumed his inspection of the 
 crowded room. At the next table two bushy-haired 
 Scandinavians — man and maid — talked in low voices. 
 He could catch a word here and there that sounded 
 like Danish, and felt well pleased at the recognition. 
 On the other side a young Jewess vivaciously told 
 a long story to two older women, perhaps her mother 
 and aunt, with bright expression and swift gestures 
 of her hands, the two. listeners laughing merrily 
 at the recitation. At half a dozen tables more were 
 Frenchmen, Spaniards, and Italians with their 
 Womankind, eating and drinking, smoking and
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 107 
 
 chattering, and unrestrained laughter and tobacco 
 smoke ascended into the air above them. The light- 
 hearted cheerfulness of the place moved Laurence 
 to contentment, and he turned to the girl again with 
 
 1 " There's plenty of smoking, since you demanded 
 it," he said. " I'm sorry the place is so well ven- 
 tilated." 
 
 "I'm not," she answered. "I don t want to 
 be hidden from my neighbours here. Why is it 
 foreigners are always so jolly-so much happier 
 than we English ? " 
 
 " Thank you," he said. " Is that a comphment to 
 
 1 _c i 
 
 "You? Oh no. You look quite cheerful now. 
 Do you know, I thought you looked an awful bear 
 
 this morning." . 
 
 " Did I ? I felt sour, and that's a fact. 1 ve 
 been keeping late hours and playing the fool gen- 
 erally and I suppose it got hold of my liver, or 
 
 something." . 
 
 *' Moral, don't keep late hours. I don t, if 1 can 
 help it_and when I do, it's work. I shouldn't 
 have thought vou were the sort to play the fool, 
 as you call it, or do any silly things like that." 
 
 " Indeed. And what sort— as you call it— would 
 
 you think I am ? " 
 
 She put her head on one side, looking straight 
 into his eyes— and again came the irresistible sug- 
 gestion of golden brown butterfly wings. 
 * « i—I'm not sure. I don't think you're a good 
 man— not Sunday-school good, anyhow. I'd rather 
 suspect you of murder than minor peccadilloes. . . . 
 
 Oh, I don't know— and as I sha'n't ever see you 
 again, I can't see that it matters. Can you ? '
 
 108 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 ' No — not if you're never to see me again, as you 
 say. Now what fish are you going to have ? ' 
 
 They chose fish, laughing and chattering merrily 
 over the translation of the menu. Cabillaud, he 
 insisted, was cod ; she was equally positive it was 
 not. " I don't know what cabillaud means," she 
 admitted, ' ' but I do know rnorue is French for 
 cod-fish." 
 
 ' Then we'll agree to differ," Laurence decided. 
 
 : ' One would think you knew all there was to know 
 of French," she pouted. 
 
 ' I know all there is to know of cod, at all events," 
 he said. 
 " Do you ? How ? " 
 
 'I've been catching the beastly things these last 
 two years." 
 
 ' You ? How queer ! But I thought cod were 
 taken on the deep-sea fishery — hundreds of miles 
 from shore — in fishing boats." 
 
 ' In trawlers. That's so. I was skipper of one 
 until last month," Laurence confessed, and was 
 rewarded by a flash of interest from the brown 
 eyes. 
 
 ' Were you ? How interesting ! Fancy, you ! 
 I thought you were just an idler. Tell me all about 
 it. Isn't it a rough life ? " 
 
 ' Rough ? My faith ! ' His voice dropped, and 
 under cover of the buzz of talk around them he 
 told her of the dread toil that had soured his life. 
 Because those new bright eyes were upon him, 
 with the girl's own brave individuality behind them, 
 he told his tale strongly and well, dropping the 
 meaningless idioms of daily life from his speech 
 and replacing them by the rude, clear-cut collo- 
 quialisms of the north, whenever he deemed them
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 109 
 
 comprehensible to her. And the knowledge— he 
 saw it in her eyes— the knowledge of all that bitter 
 past had meant to him, knocked at the door of the 
 girl's heart, and her eyes met his in comradeship— 
 the brave comradeship of toil. Once she put out a 
 hand as though to place it on his own, but, remember- 
 ing her surroundings, withdrew it. Then Laurence, 
 vowing to himself to move her to that action again, 
 told of Clitheroe's death in gentler speech than had 
 passed his lips for many a day, feeling himself that he 
 had lost one who had loved him. As he had desired, 
 the hand came out and touched his own, but when 
 he saw her lips shake, and the moist eyes as she said 
 softly, " Oh, don't ! Oh, the pity of it !" he only 
 felt shame in his success. 
 
 " And now," he asked, " won't you talk of your 
 
 work ? " 
 
 " Me ? I'm a writer — of sorts. I write for women s 
 papers generally— fashion notes, short stories, any- 
 thing I can sell. Sometimes I get reference work 
 —grubbing in the British Museum, you know. 
 I've just done some for Mr. Webster. That's how 
 I came to your rooms this morning. I ought to 
 have done it a fortnight ago, but I've been busy, 
 and so it had to wait. Now he's gone away, and 
 the MS. '11 be hunting him about, and I shall have 
 to wait for my money, bother him ! " 
 
 "Can't I ?" Laurence began, but silenced 
 
 himself at the danger-signal in her eyes. 
 
 " Certainly not. Thank you, all the same. I'm 
 sorry you should even suggest — — " 
 
 *' You didn't let me suggest anything," Laurence 
 said shortly. Then at the flush in the girl's face, 
 " But I will own I meant to ask you if you'd accept 
 a loan from me. So you didn't jump at a wrong
 
 110 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 conclusion — and you may look angry, if you like. 
 You'll be more comfortable so. You needn't look 
 upset, anyway." 
 
 She glanced at him, half quizzical, half angry. 
 
 ' You really are Do they teach thought- 
 reading on fishing boats ? Goodness me ! It's 
 half-past two. I must be going. Thank you for 
 the lunch. I'm glad I came. I've enjoyed it very 
 much." She held out her hand frankly. : ' No, 
 you can't come with me. I'm in a hurry to keep an 
 appointment. Sit here and finish your smoke. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 With a handshake and a bright smile she was 
 gone, and Laurence sat and looked at her empty 
 chair, at her crumpled serviette flung upon the table, 
 and the room suddenly became empty, stupid, and 
 uninteresting. 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 LAURENCE finished his cigarette, paid his 
 bill, and came out into the sunlight with his 
 head in a whirl. Here was a shattering of ideas ! 
 That he, the brute, the unchained danger to all 
 who opposed his desires— What was his last nick- 
 name ? Lucifer ? A pretty testimony to disposition 
 tliat ! — to think that he, after laughing and chattering 
 over a lunch with a girl he had never seen till that 
 day — whose very name he did not know — should 
 find his Armida's garden dusty and dry, his Dead 
 Sea apples more full of bitter ash even than he had 
 b< fore guessed them to be. He had come to London 
 intent on folly and debauchery, and in all things 
 had done as he had vowed to do. Tired of the game
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 111 
 
 he certainly had been only that morning, but not 
 tired with this fulness of disgust. And all because 
 two brown eyes had looked into his own, and a 
 soft voice had said, " Don't ! Oh, don't ! Oh, the 
 pity of it ! " 
 
 And now to reconstruct his philosophy. What 
 was he next to do ? He walked down Shaftesbury 
 Avenue with his eyes on the ground, heedless of 
 the passers-by. 
 
 High clamour around him at the corner of Windmill 
 Street brought him back to earth, to find a horse's 
 head nuzzling at his left ear, its sprawling forehoofs 
 close to his feet. The cabman was leaning over 
 from his seat, dragging at the reins, and whistling 
 himself into a state of apoplexy. He stepped back, 
 and the cab drove on, the raging driver flinging a 
 curse at him as he passed. Laurence replied with 
 a jibe that brought the man round in his seat with a 
 jump, his face one red picture of astonishment, and 
 then, feeling soothed, passed behind the wheels 
 with all the honours of war. 
 
 No man could think here, in this noise and traffic. 
 He would go home, and smoke — and think things 
 over. He looked at his watch. Nearly three, and 
 he had an appointment with the Lady of the Shoe 
 at half-past. Never mind her. She could wait an 
 hour. He would go home to New Cavendish Street 
 and think things over- — make up his mind as to 
 what he should do in this new and unforeseen state 
 of affairs. 
 
 He went up the stairway and entered his rooms 
 bemused with thought. A little leather bag lay 
 upon the table. By all that was lucky ! — that must 
 be hers ! He pounced upon it like a hawk, and 
 emptied it upon the table. It contained a hand-
 
 112 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 kerchief, a purse, and a memorandum and address 
 book. He examined the handkerchief first. It told 
 him little, being but a little workaday square of 
 cambric without lace or other adornment, and with 
 the monogram M. S. or S. M. — he could not tell 
 which — embroidered in one corner. The memo- 
 randum book helped him no more. A few addresses, 
 mostly of editorial offices, filled its pages. His own, 
 under the name of " H. S. Webster," was among 
 them. Some names of books, with page numbers, 
 and that was all. ' I've got to have a look at your 
 purse, then, young lady," he said, and opened it. 
 
 Fourteen shillings in silver, some odd coppers, 
 a cheque for two guineas, half a dozen priced slips 
 from drapers' shops, and — happy Fortune ! — a card- 
 case ! There lay the answer to his unspoken ques- 
 tion. 
 
 " Marion Stewart " ; and in the lower corner was 
 the address : ' Baron's Court Road, West Kensing- 
 ton." Joy ! He waved the card-case aloft, exulting 
 silently ; then repacked the little bag's belongings, 
 sat down, and ineffectually tried to smoke. 
 
 First, he must write to Harper and ask that the 
 month given him for decision might be extended to 
 six or even seven weeks. That gave him a clear 
 month in which to make the girl's acquaintance. 
 
 ext, he must cut the whole of the set he had been 
 with for the last three weeks. He would quarrel 
 with the fair Constance — whose name so belied her 
 fame — that very afternoon. Next, how much money 
 had he got ? He fetched his bank and cheque- 
 books, adding up the sums on the counter-foil of 
 the latter to subtract from the last balance shown 
 in his favour,
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 113 
 
 ' Thirty-five quid ! Um. Cheering ! " he said, 
 and emptied his pockets on the table. " And seven's 
 forty-two. A hundred at Dwyer's, less a month's 
 rent. Any commission, I wonder ? No ! Pat'll 
 make the Webster man pay that. Eighty and 
 forty's a hundred and twenty. I'll get back to 
 Leith with most of the hundred in my pocket. That's 
 something towards setting up house, anyway. 
 
 " Oh ! what a perishing fool I have been. Will 
 she have me ? She's got to— the little brown darling. 
 I'll make her, by gad ! " He stood up and stretched 
 himself, delighting in his strength. " I could pick 
 her up in one hand— I'll do it yet, just to show her. 
 And now to write Clement Harper, and then to take 
 tea with Constance the inconstant. ' It's well to be 
 off with the old love before you are on with the new.' " 
 He locked the little handbag away in his bedroom. 
 In the drawer in which he placed it lay the fragment 
 of stone he had declared should act as death's head 
 at his feast, forgotten this last fortnight. "I'll 
 take it with me now," he said to himself. " It'll 
 remind me of what's taken its place in the drawer — 
 if I want reminding." 
 
 He wrote to Harper, asking him to wire reply, 
 
 and went downstairs, slamming his door behind him. 
 
 ' That young lady who called this morning left her 
 
 purse behind, Ferguson," he told the hall porter. 
 
 ' If she calls, ask her to leave her address, and I'll 
 
 return it." 
 
 ' Yes sir. Are you expecting her to call, sir ? " 
 ' No. I don't know, though ; she might." He 
 reflected rapidly that in all probability she would 
 call when her afternoon's work was done. " Here's 
 my key. If she comes, show her in and ask her to 
 wa : t . Mrs, Ferguson can make her a cup of tea. I
 
 114 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 shall be back about six." He went off to post his 
 letter and make his adieux to his discarded fair. 
 
 But it is one thing to resolve to discard a woman 
 and very much another thing to find the parting 
 seriously discommoded by the presence of a third 
 person. Moreover, if one is possessed by the firm 
 idea that that third person only waits to step into 
 one's owti shoes, there is a tendency to delay the 
 parting awhile. A Final Parting, to the male mind, 
 should be a ceremony decently attended by regrets, 
 even by tears — at least on the part of the deserted 
 maiden ; and it is an intensely irritating perversion 
 of this order of things to find that, despite some 
 polite expressions of sorrow, the said deserted maiden, 
 so far from bursting into tears and clinging despond- 
 ency, shows a disagreeable readiness to part good 
 friends and to turn the light of her smiles on another 
 man who, again, appears perfectly prepared to act 
 as a willing substitute. 
 
 He found his Constance at tea with another 
 admirer, a youth who held some obscure position 
 in the Geological Survey. Laurence glowered at him 
 sulkily, scarcely vouchsafing a word at their in- 
 troduction. 
 
 :< And now for tea, Mr. Bear," said the lady cheer- 
 fully. ' You won't take sugar, of course." 
 
 " Always do," Laurence growled. " Why not 
 now ? " 
 
 ' You look quite too perfectly sweet without it," 
 was the reply, at which the hated rival laughed 
 maliciously. 
 
 " And have you found my shoe ? " she asked, 
 a little nervously, to change the conversation. Not 
 for nothing had she known and borne with Laurence's 
 furious temper during the last three weeks.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 115 
 
 " Yes, I have." 
 
 "Where is it? " 
 
 " If it's where I left it, it's in my fireplace," 
 Laurence said coarsely. " That's where I chucked 
 it when I found it." 
 
 " Very thoughtful of you, I'm sure. And what 
 are you going to give me to replace it ? ' 
 
 " Nothing," said Laurence the brute. " You 
 shouldn't leave your things about." 
 
 " I won't — in your rooms," the lady replied with 
 meaning, and turned her conversation to the other 
 man, thanking him gently for some present he had 
 made her that afternoon before Laurence's arrival. 
 For his greater chastening it was produced, and she 
 held it up before him, inviting admiration. 
 
 It was a little pendant of good modern design, 
 gold, set with a matrix turquoise and hanging opals. 
 She dangled it before his nose and he leant back to 
 avoid it, pushing his thumbs into his waistcoat 
 pockets as he did so. One of them came in contact 
 with his fragment of Iceland stone, and he pulled 
 it out and threw it on the little tea-tray, greatly 
 endangering the fragile china. 
 
 " I wouldn't give that stone for all the turquoises 
 ever dug," he said — and was immediately ashamed 
 at heart for the sentiment underlying his words. 
 To think of Her memory in this place ! 
 
 The young geologist picked it up, glanced at it, 
 and replaced it. 
 
 " I wouldn't give much for your knowledge oi 
 stones, then," he said superciliously. " If you 
 could trade malachite for turquoise, weight for 
 weight, you'd make money." 
 
 " Trade how much ? " asked Laurence. " What 
 
 * 
 
 do you call it ? "
 
 116 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " That stone of yours? Malachite." 
 
 " What's it worth ? 
 
 ' I really couldn't tell you. I'm not a Brummagem 
 jeweller." 
 
 Laurence sat upright in his chair. " What — the — 
 deuce," he said, " has that stone got to do with 
 Brummagem jewellery ? " 
 
 " That's all it's fit for. You seem to have an 
 exaggerated idea of its value." 
 
 " Perhaps so. W'hat's it worth a ton ? ' 
 
 "A ton, eh?" He laughed. "You don't buy 
 malachite by the ton, my dear sir. Might as well 
 buy precious stones — really precious ones, I mean — 
 by the pound instead of the carat." 
 
 " Look here " — Laurence began to get excited — 
 " what is malachite, anyway ? 
 
 The young man entered into a learned disquisition 
 on copper ores and their deposits—" Something 
 after the manner in which stalagmites are formed," 
 he concluded, emerging from a mist of technical 
 terms. 
 
 Laurence looked at the woman sitting gracefully 
 between them. Her face, turned towards the speaker, 
 showed polite meaningless interest, but he could see 
 that every word had passed unheeded. 
 
 ' Is the stuff of any real value ? " he asked. 
 ' In large slabs — yes. The Emperor of Russia, 
 I believe, presented a pair of doors to the late Queen 
 that were considered priceless. In small pieces 
 like that — no, not much. As I tell you, it's very 
 largely used for cheap jewellery, being of a fine green 
 colour with variegated surface. It polishes well, 
 too. I can't tell you what it's worth. You must 
 ask a practical jeweller." 
 
 Laurence had made his adieux, with some in-
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 117 
 
 coherent promise to meet the pair at dinner that 
 evening, had taken the staircase three steps at a 
 time and hailed a cab in Tottenham Court Road 
 within three minutes of the youth's last words. 
 
 ' Bond Street," he said excitedly. " No : first 
 jeweller's you come to. Drive like mad ! " 
 
 The cab drew up only a short way past the Tube 
 
 station, and Laurence was across the pavement 
 
 and into the shop almost before it had stopped. 
 
 He placed his precious possession on the counter. 
 
 ' What's that worth ? " he demanded. 
 
 The assistant picked it up and looked at it curi^ 
 
 ously. ' It's— it's ? " he said, and looked at 
 
 Laurence for information. 
 
 " Malachite, man ! Malachite. I don't want you 
 to tell me what it is, but what it's worth— by the 
 pound, say." 
 
 The assistant really could not say. He would 
 call the proprietor. Would Laurence have the 
 goodness to take a seat ? 
 
 No, he wouldn't. He preferred to pace the floor, 
 to and fro, his brain spinning in the endeavour to 
 see how far this had bearing on his new plans. One 
 thing was certain— the jewellery suggested it. He 
 would cover Marion— yes, Marion— the prospective 
 owner of malachite mines, or quarries, or whatever 
 they were, could call an}- woman by her Christian 
 name— he would cover Marion with jewels, he 
 promised himself. The little hands should be 
 weighted down with their flashing burden; tiaras 
 of great price should lie on the cloudy hair, even 
 though all of them must dim with shame for their 
 dulness whenever her eyes laughed or grew moist 
 with tears. 
 
 His castles in the air were rudely shaken at the
 
 118 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 fussy entrance of the proprietor, annoyed at being 
 disturbed from his afternoon of quiet. 
 
 " Malachite, sir ! " he fumed. " This is a jeweller's 
 establishment, sir — not a lapidary's. If you want to 
 ascertain the value of such rubbish as that you 
 had better go to a stone-mason, sir. Malachite, 
 indeed ! Good-afternoon." He retreated furiously, 
 and Laurence, somewhat subdued, sought his cab. 
 
 ' This is not the class of crib I want," he told the 
 driver. ' I want a little cheap jeweller's and watch 
 repairer's, where they sell Brummagem goods. 
 And if it's kept by a Jew, so much the better. He 
 won't exaggerate values if he thinks I want to sell," 
 he added to himself. 
 
 The cabman reflected a moment. " Right 0, 
 sir ! " he said. ' I fancy I know the clawss o' plyce 
 you mean. Jump in, sir." 
 
 He drove up Tottenham Court Road, turning to 
 the left this time, and halting before just such a shop 
 as Laurence had demanded. A score of shabby 
 silver watches hung in its low-browed front, and the 
 shelving slope beneath them was sparsely covered 
 with little ornaments of the same metal, mostly 
 cross-shaped brooches, with an occasional crucifix 
 or two here and there among them. 
 
 Laurence entered. 'Do you buy_ malachite ? " 
 he asked of a man seated behind the counter. 
 
 The shopman removed a watchmaker's glass from 
 his eye and stood up carefully, gathering together 
 the corners of his leather apron with one hand as he 
 did so. He turned one ear towards Laurence. 
 
 " Eh ? What sye ? " he asked, with the purest 
 Cockney accent. 
 
 " Do — you — buy — malachite ? " Laurence almost 
 shouted.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 119 
 
 He shook his head. " Not much nowadays. 
 There ain't no demand for it in the south. They 
 sell more north— in the manufacturin' districks." 
 
 " What's its value ? " 
 
 " I 'ardly know— 'olcsyle. In the old dyes, when 
 it was all Russian malachite an' fash'nable, it used 
 to be worth five-an'-twenty bob a pahnd. Nah they 
 get it from Austrylier— and the price is gone dahn 
 'orrible. I wouldn't give yer more'n five shillin's a 
 pahnd for it. 'Ow much 'ave yer got ter sell ? ' 
 
 Laurence extracted the fragment from his pocket 
 and handed it over the counter. 
 
 " This all? " He threw it into a scales, where it 
 just turned the quarter pound. ' Give >cr a tanner 
 for it. Yer see, it'll lose 'arf its weight in cuttin' 
 and polishin'— an' there ain't but little demand " 
 
 " I wouldn't sell it for twenty pounds," Laurence 
 
 cried. 
 
 " Then yer must be balmy," the man said calmly, 
 sitting down and resuming his glass. " I don't 
 mind springin' tuppence more, but •" 
 
 His voice died away into an incoherent whine 
 behind Laurence's fleeing footsteps. He almost 
 danced across the pavement to his cab. 
 
 " Cabby," he said, " this is an occasion. You 
 drive me where I can get a great, long, beautiful 
 drink. And you're to have one too. Forty, if you 
 like." 
 
 The man grinned. " If I like, sir ! Wotto ! But 
 'oo'll look after my keb ? " 
 
 "Never mind the cab. I'll buy it. Hurry up 
 and drive me where I can get a decent drink. That's 
 your job. Skip." 
 
 He drank a whisky and soda at a gulp and sent 
 another out to the cabman, bidding him wait. On
 
 120 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 the back of an envelope he made a few rough calcula- 
 tions in pencil, and then ordered another drink whilst 
 he checked his figures. 
 
 " Five bob a pound — call it four. Four bob a 
 pound is a hundred and twelve times four bob 
 for a hundredweight. P'raps it's Troy, though. 
 A hundred times four bob — that's twenty quid. 
 Twenty times twenty quid is four hundred. 
 Saints above us ! Foiir hundred quid a ton ! Why 
 didn't I live in the happy days before Australian 
 goods spoilt the market — when it was twenty-five 
 bob a pound ? Never mind : enough's as good as a 
 feast. Four hundred quid a ton, less expenses of 
 quarrying and freight. Call it three hundred quid, 
 just for fun. And perhaps this chap was bluffing. He 
 sprung twopence more on his sixpence when I 
 wouldn't sell, bless his heart. Here's to him. I 
 must have one more drink whilst I make sure I'm 
 not making a fool's paradise for myself. Oh ho ! and 
 not two hours ago I wrote Clement Harper to keep my 
 place in the office open for a fortnight longer. I'll 
 wire him to go to Blazes. No, I won't though. 
 If he hadn't sold this ground to my father, p'raps I 
 should never have gone to Uthlld — never have 
 kicked off this precious souvenir of woe. Besides, 
 I should never have got to sea at all. 
 
 " How am I to get hold of those shares ? Don't 
 suppose they're worth a cent, market price now. I 
 must go slow — devilish slow. Mighty gay job for 
 me if anybody smells a rat. And there'll be guinea- 
 pig shares, too. Bought at a quid and chucked into 
 the wastepaper basket, most likely. But I'll get 
 them easily enough. Rich son of bankrupt father 
 desires to make amends. The thieves ! They'll 
 grin, I bet. But they'll grin the wrong side of their
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 121 
 
 mouths, when My dynamite has blown My lava to 
 glory, and My winches are hoisting My malachite 
 out on the quayside. My quayside too, perhaps, after 
 a bit. And My Marion shall wear this My precious 
 sample in the middle of a diamond tarara, as big as 
 the Marble Arch. . . . That rotten whisky's laying 
 hold of me. I'll go home and dress for dinner and wire 
 Pat to come. I shall bo able to ask him questions 
 about the shareholders. Must be careful, though. 
 It won't do to give the show away, even to him." 
 
 He sent the wire, but on the way home an awful 
 fear laid hold on him. Supposing the vein or lode, 
 or whatever the deposit ought to be called, were only 
 a tiny patch ? But the memory of the tumbled heap 
 of fragments beneath Uthlid rock somewhat reassured 
 him. There must be more below. A surface deposit 
 would have crumbled into thinner pieces. He wished 
 he had asked the geologist for his explanation all 
 over again. He remembered something about 
 " copper sulphates." That must mean a combina- 
 tion of copper and sulphur. Sulphur ! What was it 
 Harper had said at the inquiry two years ago? 
 " Sulphur. Not a speck." Well— he was wrong, 
 then. Where there were sulphates there must be 
 sulphur to make 'em. But that was a geologist's 
 affair, anyway. 
 
 And even though the deposit should prove small, 
 surely there might be a deal to be done in the shares, 
 somehow. Worthless paper ought to jump to some 
 sort of a price on the evidence he had before him. 
 If he could corner the lot at a low price, and then go 
 and have a look at the stuff with some practical 
 man, whether it turned out well or no he surely 
 could get the shares off his hands with profit. ' Even 
 if I have to salt the claim," he said to himself,
 
 122 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 On reaching home he gave the cabman half a 
 sovereign, and ascended the stairs. His heart leapt 
 at the sight of his open door ; and he ran in to find 
 his luncheon guest seated by the open window, a 
 table covered with empty tea-things standing beside 
 her. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SHE rose as he entered, a friendly smile upon 
 her face. 
 
 " You're more than punctual," she said. " The 
 porter told me you'd be back by six, but it wants a 
 quarter of an hour of that yet." 
 
 Though wisdom warned him to put a guard upon- 
 his feet and tongue, the excitement of the after- 
 noon and the drinks he had so speedily absorbed 
 betrayed him. His eyes were bright and his step 
 light and careless as he came to the window. He 
 took her hand and bent over her closely — too closely. 
 
 " I— I've had great news," he said. " Glorious 
 news — a great stroke of luck ! " and looked in her 
 face for an answering smile. 
 
 She hardened into dignity at once. " I'm glad 
 to hear it. And now, will you please let me have 
 n v purse ? I am in a hurry." 
 
 He saw his mistake ; and, fatal error ! made a 
 bad matter worse by remonstrating. 
 
 " But you can't be. Stay here awhile. You can't 
 imagine how good it is to see you having tea in these 
 rooms — and besides " 
 
 " Will you kindly let me have my purse ? " Her 
 fare was impassive as a statue's. 
 
 ' Yes — of course. In a minute ; it's only in the
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 123 
 
 next room. But do sit down. I want to talk to 
 you. I " 
 
 ' My purse." Laurence himself could have given 
 the order with no more of curt authority. 
 
 " But " 
 
 ' Will you get my purse, or shall I call the hall 
 porter ? ' she demanded, flushed with anger, 
 stamping her little foot. 
 
 Laurence turned and walked to the door. Per- 
 fectly sober as he was, he knew the girl's eyes were 
 upon him, and solely because he took care for every 
 footstep he lurched as he passed the table. When 
 he reached the bedroom he was in a state bordering 
 on frenzy. Taking the bag from the drawer in 
 which he had left it, he returned to the living room, 
 placing it upon' the table and crossing the room to 
 the fireplace. 
 
 'There's your purse," he said; and the deadly 
 distinctness of his words only confirmed the girl's 
 suspicions, so careful was he to avoid the slightest 
 slip. ' There's your purse, and there's the door, and 
 here am I — on the other side of the room. If you 
 wish, you can pick it up and walk straight down 
 the stairs. Nobody'll interfere with you. 
 
 ' But I beg of you to stay where you are and hear 
 me out. My — my circumstances have changed 
 entirely since I saw you at midday. And as they 
 concern — as I hope they may concern you a little — 
 I want you to hear what I have to say. It's — 
 it's your business as well as my- own — at least, I 
 want to make it so." 
 
 She took a watch from her belt. " Providing you 
 stand just where you arc, I'll give you three minutes 
 to tell your tale," she said coldlv. 
 
 ' It may take more than three minutes, but I'll
 
 124 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 promise to stay where I am"; and he looked at 
 her appealingly. 
 
 " Go on," she said. ' You've lost a quarter of a 
 minute already." 
 
 Laurence laughed uneasily. " Very well, then. 
 Here goes. Tell me if anything isn't clear. 
 
 ' I told you I'd been in the North Sea fishery. 
 That's true — nearly two \cars of it, worse luck. 
 Last April my employer told me he intended to 
 remove me from the fleet and put me into the office. 
 I said I wouldn't go there — that I preferred the 
 fleet. It's — it's a wretched life — a blackguardly 
 life, — but it seemed to me better than making any 
 change. I had got into the groove and meant to 
 stay there, you see. 
 
 ' But he gave me no choice. He said I was grow- 
 ing into a blackguard and a brute — which was 
 true — and that whether I went into the office or 
 not he would discharge me from the trawler I was 
 on. He would keep a place open in the office for 
 me for a month — if I didn't choose to take it then 
 I could shift for myself. My father was a friend of 
 his, and he said he'd let me go to the bad no longer. 
 
 " I had some money saved — about three hundred 
 pounds — and I made up my mind to spend it as 
 fast as I could, and go back to him broke to the 
 world. If he couldn't let me go to the bad on the 
 boats he couldn't very well let me go there ashore, 
 and I reckoned he give in and let me go back to the 
 fleet if I showed him plainly that I hadn't any money 
 and wouldn't work ashore. Do you follow me ? ' 
 
 The girl nodded, and glanced at the watch lying 
 in the hollow of her hand. " Half of the three 
 minutes is gone," she said without emotion. 
 
 "So I came here and played the fool and spent
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 125 
 
 the money— the best part of it, at all events. And 
 only this morning I was thinking how sick I was of 
 it all when you came into the room. Then we had 
 lunch together ; and when I came back I wrote 
 Harper— that's my late employer— to keep the place 
 open in the office for another month." 
 
 He paused, and she glanced at the watch again. 
 
 "Well? " she said. Her tone was devoid of the 
 
 slightest interest. 
 
 " Well— that was because ■ But there s more 
 
 before I come to that. 
 
 " This afternoon I've had good news. I m rich, 
 I believe. It may be just a few hundreds, or it 
 may be thousands and thousands of pounds." 
 
 " A legacy ? " Only a shadow of polite inquiry 
 was in her voice— no trace of interest or curiosity. 
 
 « y es a— a legacy— of a sort. I haven't any 
 particulars. Don't know in the least what if s 
 worth. But anyhow there's the billet in Harper s 
 office— that's a cert." 
 
 " I'm glad you've decided to accept it," she said 
 gravely. " It seems a pity for a man to go to the 
 bad. And I'm glad to hear of your legacy. I hope 
 it may turn out to be a good one. And now, will 
 you kindly tell me where this rigmarole concerns 
 me ? " She returned the watch to her belt and 
 glanced at the purse on the table. 
 
 Laurence flushed to the roots of his hair, stammer- 
 ing like a schoolboy. 
 
 " i_i asked Harper to give me the extra month 
 because— because I wanted opportunity to make 
 your acquaintance." 
 
 " And why ? " Her manner was perfectly com- 
 posed and the little head was poised erect in slight 
 scorn.
 
 12G THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " I— I Oh, d— n it ! I want to marry 
 
 you," he said. 
 
 She picked up her purse and looked at him steadily, 
 
 " I have already made as much of your acquaint- 
 ance as I desire," she said, very calmly. ' You 
 led off by insulting me in the street — a good begin- 
 ning. You atoned for that — or I condoned it — 
 when we lunched together. On the same day you 
 take advantage of my carelessness in leaving my 
 purse in your rooms to insult me again. I won't 
 tell you what I think of you — indeed, I'm at a loss 
 for words. ' Blackguard and brute,' you said your 
 late employer called you. He chooses his language 
 better than his servants. 
 
 " I had no right to lunch with you — fool that I 
 was. But I've done nothing to deserve this drunken 
 insult. If vou ever had womenkind of vour own, I 
 hope when you are sober you will reflect what this 
 has meant for me. Good-afternoon." 
 
 She turned to the door, but Laurence, maddened, 
 was across the room in two strides and had her by 
 the wrist. 
 
 " You — you sha'n't go like this," he cried. ' I 
 tell 3'ou I — I know your address, and I will see you 
 again." 
 
 She looked up fearlessly, but her eyes dropped at 
 the blaze in his own. 
 
 " How did you find that out ? " she asked. 
 
 He released her. Knowing he was forfeiting the 
 last faint claim to her favour, he yet told the truth. 
 
 " I opened your purse," he admitted. 
 
 \h ! " She looked him up and down coldly and 
 
 dain fully, and turning to the table, emptied bag 
 
 and purse on to the cloth, counting her poor change 
 
 fore his eyes. " Thirteen — fourteen and nine.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 127 
 
 Thank you," she said. " I'm glad to find you stop 
 at petty theft." 
 
 Though raging at the imputation, Laurence noticed 
 that her hand was steady as she swept back the coins 
 into the bag, and admiration of her courage rushed 
 over him like a wave. She curtseyed to him before 
 reaching her hand to the door. 
 
 " Or — perhaps you were afraid," she said, with a 
 little sneer. " Taking money is a matter for the 
 police, you sec. Insulting a woman isn't." 
 
 Furious anger — and something else ; the light 
 movements of her graceful figure, the curve of her 
 cheek and neck as she had stooped over the table — 
 drove him mad for the moment. As quick as light- 
 ning he had her again by the shoulder. " This 
 is a punishable offence," he cried, choking, and 
 kissed her fair upon the lips. " And now prosecute 
 me. I shan't deny it." 
 
 Struggling, she struck him twice savagely upon 
 the mouth with her little clenched hand ; and then 
 her body, obedient to his hold, yielded to his strong 
 arm and was drawn closer to his breast. 
 
 "Oh, coward — coward ! ' ' she wailed softly. ' ' And 
 I alone. Oh ! is there no man in you ? — I thought 
 you were a man." Her head was bowed and she 
 was crying to herself in little lengthened sobs. 
 
 He placed her in a chair and returned to the 
 mantelpiece, leaning his elbows on the shelf, his head 
 between his hands. All his anger had given place 
 to black shame — to despair. Fool — fool and beast ! 
 How could he ever hope to make amends for this ? 
 
 The girl was the first to recover herself. 
 
 She sat upright and wiped her eyes before rising to 
 her feet. Then — 
 
 " I'm sorry," she said. " I had no right to insult
 
 128 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 you about the money as I did " ; and without 
 another word she was gone. 
 
 Laurence took a step towards the closing door, 
 but, on swift reflection, stayed himself. He could 
 do nothing further now that would help him, for 
 certain ; and as the memory of the whole unlucky 
 interview returned to torture him he cursed his 
 ill-luck — his folly — aloud. 
 
 Not a quarter of an hour before he had come up 
 the staircase full of joy and hope, and in that quarter 
 of an hour had wrecked his own plans as fully and 
 completely as though he had come there for the 
 purpose. True, he knew her name and address, but 
 what chance had he of ever getting on good terms — on 
 even bare terms of acquaintance — with her again ? 
 He thought of their friendly parting at Rupert 
 Street in the morning, and the memory moved him 
 to more smothered blasphemy. 
 
 He raged ineffectually up and down the room, 
 until the clock, striking seven, reminded him that 
 though he had very successfully pulled his castle in 
 Spain about his ears, he yet had an appointment 
 with Dwyer at dinner. He dressed hastily and 
 hurried off, his face calm enough, but his mind in 
 a tumult of rage and despair. 
 
 Dwyer soon remarked upon it. " Cheerful bird 
 you are to-night,"., he said. " What's wrong ? 
 Connie given you the go by ? I notice young Far- 
 rant's been pretty much in evidence lately." 
 
 Laurence briefly consigned young Farrant and 
 his inamorata to unspeakable depths. " As a 
 matter of fact, I believe I promised to dine with 
 the pair of 'em to-night," he concluded. " Forget 
 where, though."
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 129 
 
 " And so you wired to me — as a pis aller, eh ? 
 Complimentary, I'm sure." 
 
 " Don't drivel," Laurence interrupted. ' I wanted 
 to see you — on business, in a way. I want to buy 
 some shares, Pat ; and I haven't much money 
 to spare, and I want it done on the quiet— dead 
 quiet, see ? " 
 
 Dwyer nodded. " Not much money to spare, eh ? ' 
 he remarked. " What about that pile you were 
 retiring with ? " 
 
 " My pile — all that's left of it — amounts to about 
 a hundred and twenty quid, of which you've eighty 
 in your care." 
 
 " A hundred," Dwyer corrected him. 
 
 ' Less twenty for a month's rent. I shall leave 
 the flat next week. And I've about forty quid 
 besides. When I came to town my ' pile ' amounted 
 to about three-fifty, and I've blued more than half 
 of it. I meant to get rid of the lot in evil living, 
 but now I've changed my mind, and I'm going to 
 devote the rest to good works." 
 
 "Goon. Expound." 
 
 " Do you remember a very shady bit of work of 
 my father's — doing an old Somerset sea-captain out 
 of his savings with a bogus sulphur-mining scheme ? " 
 
 ' In Iceland, was it ? I fancy I do remember 
 something of it." 
 
 " Any idea what shares were sold ? " 
 
 Dwyer shook his head. :< Only debentures, I 
 believe. Nobody 'd be fool enough to look at ordin- 
 aries m a wild-cat scheme like that. Six per cent, 
 debentures they were, I remember. That ought to 
 have opened the guileless sailor-man's eyes." 
 
 ' There must have been a few guinea-pig shares, 
 I suppose ? " 
 
 5
 
 130 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " Of course. I can easily find out all about that, 
 if you want to know." 
 
 I do. And I want to buy 'em. You know 
 how I stand now, but your tale had better be that 
 I've come into a pile, and being honest — you needn't 
 grin, fool — being honest, I want to pay off some of 
 my father's liabilities. 
 
 ;< And I want the debentures too — every scrap of 
 shares in the Company. Can you manage it on a 
 hundred and twenty quid ? " 
 
 " Lord knows. Of course the stuff's worth nothing 
 now. I remember your father's pal Harper went 
 into the box and described the ground. But in- 
 quiries mean a jump in price immediately. Sup- 
 posing I can't rope it all in for the sum you name ? " 
 
 " Do your best. Remember, ordinaries first, 
 and as many debentures as you can get afterwards. 
 Shouldn't be surprised if the ordinary scrip's been 
 used for lighting fires long ago. But you'll be able 
 to work it somehow. Get the transfers — or what 
 d'you call 'em — made clearly to me, and the scrip 
 can look after itself." 
 
 " All right. Am I in this too ? " 
 
 ' That's as you please. I tell you straight, it's 
 the wickedest gamble I ever put my money in. I can 
 
 guarantee that No, I can't guarantee anything. 
 
 Only I'm broke, anyhow. As I've been going on 
 I shall be on my uppers in a fortnight, and it simply 
 
 i ans that I'm going to barter a fortnight's spree — 
 and I'm sick of spree, if yOu want to know — for the 
 thinnest possible chance of something turning up on 
 that land." 
 
 ' Is it sulphur, Laurie ? " Dwyer asked in- 
 sinuatingly. 
 
 " No, it isn't sulphur ; and if you guess for a
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 131 
 
 month of Sundays you'll be none the wiser, for I'll 
 lie even if you guess right. You go and spend toy 
 hundred and twenty quid on as many shares as 
 you can get. If you can get the lot by a deposit now 
 and full payment in twelve months' time, do it 
 that way. In twelve months I shall either be 
 broke to glory or shall be able to pay up. If you've 
 got twenty quid tying idle, and you'd like tcf play 
 ducks and drakes with it, you can put it in as well. 
 But I warn you beforehand that I'm staking nothing 
 — only a fortnight's spree I don't want— and likely 
 you've better uses for your money. That's all." 
 
 ' Thanks. I think I'll leave it alone. Give me 
 a week to ask questions and find out what I can. 
 This is Thursday. Come round to the office a \ 
 to-day, and in the meantime I'll find out the guinea- 
 pigs and approach 'em warily, and I'll also see what 
 information is available about the debentures. But, 
 see you — I've eighty quid of yours in hand. I spend 
 no more than that. Your ways are the least thing 
 too erratic for me. What on earth prompted you 
 to come and chuck away your little capital in this 
 way ? " 
 
 ' I was sick of things, Pat, and I wanted a change. 
 That's all. I'll tell you more about it some day." 
 
 " Please yourself. And now, what are we going 
 to do ? A theatre ? " 
 
 " Not me. I'm going home to be good. I've 
 had a tiring day, and a late night last night — and 
 another the night before — and the night before that 
 — and so on, ad infinitum. I'm going to bed to sleep 
 till Thursday. Bye-bye." 
 
 " Good-night, my virtuous one. Sleep well," 
 and the two men shook hands and parted.
 
 132 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 BY ten next morning Laurence had finished his 
 breakfast, declined two invitations, and burnt 
 another unanswered — this last written on grey 
 paper with a demure white monogram on the envelope 
 flap- — and was on his way to West Kensington. 
 Prompted by a new motive of economy he travelled 
 by underground, and after a wait at Gloucester Road 
 was delivered at West Kensington station just before 
 eleven o'clock. Fate ordained that he should meet 
 Marion Stewart at the entrance to the booking-office, 
 and the draughty entry straightway became a 
 sunlit Fairyland. 
 
 He stopped to speak to her, hat in hand ; but, 
 deliberately looking through him, she passed on 
 down the stairway with pink cheeks and head erect. 
 Wickedly congratulating himself on her flushed face, 
 he followed her to the platform, and there commenced 
 a lame apology. 
 
 Very quietly and gravely she heard him out. 
 Then, inclining her head, " And I owe you an apology 
 too," she said. ' I had no right to behave as I did. 
 Please believe I am sorry — and now, good-bye." 
 
 ' May I hope to see you again ? " he asked, 
 holding out his hand. 
 
 ' I think not." She altogether disregarded his 
 outstretched hand. ' Here is my train. Good- 
 morning," —and with a slammed door and the guard's 
 whistle she was whirled away. 
 
 Laurence could have despaired at her impassive 
 demeanour, and the sunlight on the platform turned 
 cold and grey on the moment. " But the game's
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 188 
 
 never lost till it's won — by somebody," he said to 
 himself ; and lighting a cigarette, he re-ascended the 
 stairway, crossed the bridge, and made his way to 
 her address in Baron's Court Road. 
 
 " Have you any rooms to let ? " he asked of the 
 diminutive servant who answered the door. 
 
 " I'll see, sir. What nime, please ? " 
 
 " Averil," mumbled Laurence, his cigarette be- 
 tween his lips, and then, seeing she still held the 
 door open, threw it away and waited in the narrow 
 hall. 
 
 The landlady, a cleanly, large-boned Scotswoman, 
 admitted that she had a room vacant — a bed-sitting- 
 room on the second floor — and showed it to him. 
 Though plainly furnished, he was glad to find it 
 as spotlessly clean as the landlady's own person ; 
 and, surprised, found himself none the less pleased 
 because she saw fit to subject him to rigid scrutiny, 
 and even to a catechism that in parts might have 
 been deemed impertinent. 
 
 Such a severe examination before permission to 
 reside beneath the same roof with his lady-love was 
 all as it should be. Recognising the Lowland accent 
 in the woman's speech, he informed her that he 
 was from Leith — -had come to London for a month's 
 holiday- — and was rewarded for his candour by an 
 immediate access of friendliness on her part, and 
 after ten minutes' conversation was accepted as a 
 lodger. 
 
 "I ha' to be careful, sir, ye see," she said. " I ha' 
 ithers stay in' in the house — a young leddy forbye." 
 
 Laurence found himself audibly and cordially 
 assenting to her careful selection, and promising to 
 take possession of the room on the following Monday, 
 fie returned to New Cavendish Street.
 
 134 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 That afternoon he bought a selection of women's 
 papers in High Street, Marylebone, and spent the 
 remainder of the day until dusk turning over page 
 after page dealing with the mysteries of the toilet 
 and the nursery, in the insane hope of being able 
 to recognise amid the columns of nonsense some 
 approach to the bravely independent style in which 
 he conceived Marion Stewart must write. He 
 walked to Rupert Street for dinner, carrying one 
 of the periodicals with him. During the meal he 
 glanced at it from time to time, until the futility 
 of his behaviour was revealed to him, and he flung 
 it under the table. 
 
 ' Chiffon and dress patterns — titled brats and 
 tomfoolery," he growled. " Lord ! and she's in 
 that — and how in the name of Heaven I'm to get 
 her out of it He only knows." He thought of her 
 coldly polite bearing at West Kensington that morn- 
 ing, and despaired. " If she only hated me," he 
 groaned in spirit, with a too certain knowledge of 
 her sex. " If only she hated me, I'd stand a chance. 
 But now I'm just beneath her feet — she's as polite 
 to me as she would be to a flunkey — just the same. 
 I'm a blackguard yokel, up in London for a drunken 
 spree— that's all." He walked home through the 
 lights and clamour of Regent Street in that fine state 
 of soft melancholy peculiar to despairing lovers, 
 and, cherishing his cares, had the benefit of a night's 
 sleeplessness, for the first time since the wretched 
 days when the inquir3 r into his father's affairs was 
 taking place. He found this occasion no more 
 enviable than those had been. As he tossed to and 
 fro, or lay still, staring unwinking into the darkness, 
 pictures came to torture him over and over again. 
 
 Marion, her hand in some unknown man's, her
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 135 
 
 eyes looking into his as they had never looked into 
 his own ; Marion, being kissed by another man- 
 or sitting, Wife, on another man's knee. And then 
 the knowledge of this great hungry city came on 
 him, bringing cold perspiration to his forehead. A 
 lonely woman— worse, a lonely pretty woman— and 
 temptation on every side of her. Of course, that 
 couldn't hurt her— he pictured her calm eyes as she 
 rebuked him in Chancery Lane the day before— but 
 she might fall ill, or get into some other man's hands. 
 Black shame was added to sickening fear as he 
 remembered her, struggling, in his own anus. 
 
 " This'll never do," he decided aloud, and paddling 
 into the other room on his bare feet, he switched on 
 the light to look for something- to read. On the 
 table lay the women's papers, and he took a bundle of 
 them with him back to bed for re-reading, reason, 
 preternaturally alert in the restless stillness of the 
 night, crying " Fool ! " at every step. He dozed 
 off to sleep about five, and rose in the morning 
 haggard and unrested, more than half angry with 
 the impulse that had prompted him to litter his bed 
 with the nonsensical magazines. 
 
 All the morning he mooned about idly, but in the 
 afternoon restlessness and the fear of another wake- 
 ful night sent him to the river to seek comfort. He 
 sailed on a steamer as far down the Thames as it 
 would take him, returning on another to Chelsea. 
 The motion of the boat, the fresh air, and sight of 
 the mighty ocean-going traffic of the lower reaches 
 calmed him somewhat, and he returned to his rooms 
 and slept well and heavily. 
 
 On Sunday he went to church. Remembering 
 a red brick Gothic erection at the end of Baron's 
 Court Road, he arrayed himself gorgeously and went
 
 136 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 there, cherishing vain hopes. His landlady passed 
 him as he stood waiting in the porch after service, 
 but there was no sign of the face he looked for. On 
 the way home he reflected that the landlady might 
 mention that she had seen him in such godly sur- 
 roundings, and derived some pleasure from the idea 
 until he recalled that Marion did not as yet know 
 he was to be her fellow-lodger. By nightfall he was 
 again in a grievous state of depression, and the pave- 
 ment of Oxford Street — desiring music and lights, 
 he went to Frascati's for dinner — did little towards 
 cheering him. It brought back his first impression 
 of a roaring torrent flowing through the streets — 
 this evening of the Day of Rest. Brave he knew 
 Marion was, and fearless, but who could say where 
 such a straw might be swept unconsidered in this 
 flood of life ? Evidences of the broken debris of the 
 stream were plain in view at every step he took. 
 Accident of cataract and shoal everywhere beset 
 the course of the current, and who was she—though 
 she was Queen of all his world — that she should 
 be immune from accident ? And he — the one that 
 was strong enough to float by her side, fighting the 
 waters for her sake— he had himself put gulfs between 
 them by his own cursed folly. 
 
 He went home sweating and shaking, but having 
 some fragments of common-sense still remaining, 
 reflected that his fears for her could help her little, 
 and ensured a good night's sleep by bottled beer 
 and a pipe of sailor's cake tobacco, a fragment of 
 Vhich he found in the coat which he had worn on 
 fris arrival in London. 
 
 The next day he quitted the flat for good, and 
 was installed amid the poorer surroundings of Baron's 
 Court Road. Though anticipating tribulation, he
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 137 
 
 yet embarked upon his course methodically. Timing 
 his departure with care, he was fortunate enough 
 to meet her at the door as she left the house in the 
 morning and her face showed unbounded astonish- 
 ment. 
 
 ' I'm lodging with Mrs. Jardine," he explained, 
 discarding the conventional " Good-morning." 
 
 " You ! " Her tone told nothing. 
 
 " Yes. You know how I got your address. Will 
 — will you try and forget that ? I want to see more 
 of you." 
 
 " But this — this amounts to persecution." 
 
 " Before Heaven, I mean no such thing," Laurence 
 said earnestly. " But I must and will see more of 
 you, if you'll allow me. You haven't encouraged 
 me, you know well enough. You needn't reproach 
 yourself with that. Can't you try and think that 
 circumstances have been against me, up to now ? " 
 
 "Circumstances? " was all she said. 
 ' Yes, circumstances. I wasn't drunk ; I hadn't 
 been drinking — at least, only a very little — when 
 you called the other afternoon for your purse. You 
 maddened me. . . . No : for Heaven's sake don't 
 start apologising again for what you said. I richly 
 deserved it, and it makes me hot and ashamed 
 to hear you say you're sorry for it. 
 
 ' Perhaps I was responsible — of course, I know 
 I was — for the whole unlucky business ; but I could 
 have kicked myself when you'd gone. I told you 
 
 how things were — how I'd been playing the fool " 
 
 He caught a glimpse of her face as she walked beside 
 him, and was warned, if only by the flutter of an 
 eyelid, that he was on dangerous ground — " I didn't 
 know you then. And now, please, believe me, I 
 want to pull up, and you can help me, if you will."
 
 138 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " How ? " 
 
 " By forgetting all I said or did in that unlucky 
 quarter of an hour, and allowing me to — to be a 
 friend of yours." 
 
 " Am I to forget all you said ? " 
 
 " Yes — no. I'll sail under no false colours. I said 
 I wanted to marry you. I want to be a friend of 
 yours now with that end in view." 
 
 " But, how ridiculous ! I don't even know you — 
 and you don't know me." 
 
 " I don't want " 
 
 "No. Of course you don't. There's a man all 
 over. You don't want to know more of me — only 
 to marry me. Oh, you're mad ! " 
 
 " I am— a bit." 
 
 " I'm glad you've the grace to admit it. Now, 
 listen to me." She turned on the pavement outside 
 the suburban station, and held up a finger ad- 
 monishingly. " I met you for the first time five 
 days ago. Our first meeting was accidental. Then 
 — I don't want to rub it in — you showed your respect 
 and admiration for me by stopping me in Chancery 
 Lane and asking me to lunch. I accepted because 
 it saved me the price of a lunch. No ; I won't tell 
 stories either. I accepted because I was sorry for 
 you — your eyes looked tired and sad — and, besides, 
 I'm a writer, and all types of people are interesting, 
 and you had a brown, healthy skin, and looked like 
 a strong man who had lived in the open air. It 
 seemed strange that you should be idling as you 
 were, and so I thought perhaps you would be useful 
 material. I'll admit I congratulated myself on that 
 lunch. Your stories of the North Sea were very 
 interesting ; you told them well, and I liked you. 
 
 ' Then — forgive me for recalling it — came that
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 139 
 
 dreadful time in your rooms, and I was shocked 
 beyond measure. You had been drinking— I don't 
 know how much, and I don't care — and you treated 
 
 me How did you treat me ? Do you want 
 
 me to remind you ? " 
 
 Laurence looked at his boots. " No," he said 
 shortly. 
 
 ' Now I put it to you. If anyone had served you 
 so, and then came seeking your further acquaintance, 
 how would you feel ? Remember all I know of you 
 is that you were a fisherman ; that you've come into 
 money ; that you have been living a life of folly — 
 and perhaps worse ; and that you've grievously 
 insulted me. That you are obviously an educated 
 man only makes matters worse. And now, can you 
 blame me for wishing to see no more of you ? " 
 
 " Lord knows I can't," Laurence said humbly. 
 ' You think that I'm just a drunken, vicious brute 
 of the lower orders who has come to London to spend 
 money he would be better without. I know that, and 
 it's true, worse luck. That's pretty much what I am. 
 But see here, I wasn't always a fisherman or a brute 
 either. It was no fault of mine that I had to take 
 to the life and live among brutes that have left 
 their stamp on me. And now I want — I really do 
 want to reform. And you can help me — nobody 
 else can." 
 
 " But how ? Why should I ? You've talked of 
 marrying me. If I allow you to be friendly with me 
 you'll have that idea at the back of your head all 
 the time, and when you find out the truth you'll 
 only go back to your bad ways again." 
 
 " The truth ? " Laurence asked. 
 
 ' Yes, the truth. I don't want to marry you. 
 I don't want to marry anybody, as far as that goes.
 
 140 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 But you — great heavens ! man, I wouldn't marry 
 you if you were the last man on earth. A man who 
 has behaved as you have — a man who gives the 
 impression of being strong, and yet can't cut himself 
 adrift from a horribly unclean life without the help 
 of a woman he hasn't known for five days ! . . . Oh, 
 I know what you're going to say ! That it shows 
 the strength of your feelings. It doesn't. It shows 
 your weak- -your babyish want of self-control. If 
 ever I marry it will be a man who could be my 
 master — not one I have to lead. And besides," she 
 finished lamely, with a little nervous, womanly 
 laugh, " you're dark, and I prefer fa'r men. I'm 
 dark rr^self, you see. So" please put the idea out of 
 3'our head. I could never marry you. Never- 
 never — never ! " 
 
 Laurence's self-conceit was returning. He con- 
 gratulated himself on arriving at the dignity of so 
 lengthy, so temperate a reprimand, but his tongue 
 was bitted as he answered. 
 
 ' Then we'll say no more about it. But now, 
 marrying and giving in marriage being tabooed, 
 may I repeat my first request ? I still have nearly 
 a month to spend in town, and I should like to see 
 more of you. Will you allow me to be on friendly 
 terms with you — always understanding that it leads 
 to nothing else ? You spoke of persecution just now. 
 If you feel that, you have only to beckon the nearest 
 policeman." 
 
 She looked up, and there was a faint suspicion of 
 a smile in her eyes and about the corners of her 
 lips. 
 
 " We've met three times, and have suggested 
 calling in the police on two of them," she replied. 
 " That looks promising, doesn't it ? "
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 141 
 
 Laurence laughed. ' Unlucky circumstances, as 
 I told you. Now, please, your answer." 
 
 ' Very well. I go up West generally on Mondays 
 and Fridays. On those days you may see me this 
 far. On other days I won't promise, but providing 
 that you behave — I beg your pardon. I'm sure you 
 will, now. Won't you ? ' Laurence contented him- 
 self with a nod — " I won't promise, but Mrs. Jardine 
 has a season ticket at Earl's Court, and we go there 
 to listen to the band in the evenings. If she has no 
 objection, you may come as well— sometimes. And 
 now I must go. You've nearly made me lose my 
 train as it is. Good-bye." She held out her hand, 
 and Laurence took it, echoing her faiv>sell, and went 
 back to his room, walking on air. 
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 FOR the next three blissful days Laurence saw 
 his divinity at least once in every twenty-four 
 hours, and his heart sang paeans. On two occasions 
 he was privileged to go with her on her evening 
 promenade in the Exhibition grounds, once in the 
 company of Mrs. Jardine, the landlady, and once 
 alone. Fired with the determination to please, he 
 behaved excellently, and the roughness and curtness 
 once shorn from his manner, he proved a delightful 
 companion. Some of the gentle breeding of earty 
 years took form again, and the obvious strength of 
 the man, as narked in his cheery egotism as in his 
 mighty shoulders, did something towards modifying 
 Marion Stewart's first opinions. She watched him 
 covertly, noting his manner, his carriage, his firm 
 light footstep, rendered sure and agile by two years
 
 142 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 of cramped surroundings, of moving on rolling decks, 
 and the more she saw the more she approved of him. 
 To see him swing back a chair with one easy motion 
 of arm and body and seat himself in the requisite 
 pose for conversation without shufflings of feet or 
 uneasy fidgeting into position was a pleasure to her 
 eye, and she found herself mentally stringing words, 
 writer fashion, to describe the light quick strength 
 of his muscular frame. 
 
 He spoke well, too, and this, being a matter within 
 her own province, met with due appreciation. For 
 all that his early education had been relegated to 
 oblivion, the greatest benefit the classics have to 
 bestow still remained to him — the clear, free use of 
 an untrammelled vocabulary. To have the root- 
 stocks of modern tongues well grounded at childhood 
 and in 3<outh is to lay the foundation-stone of the 
 fabric of language well and truly. That he had upon 
 it acquired the broad strength of the rough-hewn 
 Northland speech was a benefit for which, being 
 ignorant of its value, he gave no thanks to Providence. 
 And yet, to the girl, striving at an apprenticeship in 
 her native tongue, his swift answers, his ready re- 
 partee, and the forceful strength of words in which 
 he clothed strongly held opinions, came as lesson on 
 lesson. She began to put cases to him, to demand 
 explanations of the scheme of things as it appeared 
 to her, less with the desire of gaining his opinion for 
 its own value, than for the sheer pleasure of hearing 
 the decisive and powerful construction of the sen- 
 tences in which he expressed it. 
 
 A woman with any other training would have 
 admired the man himself as seen looming behind the 
 compelling words ; but Marion Stewart, prepossessed 
 by an idea of his weakness of character, always ex-
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 143 
 
 plained away any feeling he might excite in her by 
 the same formula. 
 
 ' He's a speaker," she decided, with a sage nod' of 
 her little head. " Just a speaker. That's all. If 
 only I had the man's words to use, — and they're of 
 no use to him, not a bit, — I could do something with 
 them. A good education, and the need since to speak 
 and give orders clearly and distinctly without waste 
 of words or time. What a training ! I shall have to 
 wait twenty years before I shall have the right word 
 instinctively at command as he has. That's a man's 
 education. Why can't we all be trained alike ? " 
 
 She dimly resented Laurence's gift of tongues ; but 
 her analysis left one important point out of the ques- 
 tion. Her words, written never so carefully, could 
 never be {more than so many black and white symbols, 
 whilst Laurence's tongue was backed by his eyes and 
 hands, and — though of this she stood self-blinded — 
 by a strong individuality. Even had she been told 
 this very thing by the most admired of her fellow- 
 craftsmen, she would have rejected the idea with 
 scorn, so sure was she, in her singleness of mind, that 
 the man's words and not his personality were the 
 influencing factors in her thoughts. 
 
 As for Laurence, he walked precariously, although, 
 fortunately for himself, he had no fear of disillusioning 
 his lady's eyes. The ice once broken, he progressed 
 rapidly in her favour, and, conscious that unrestrained 
 speech and action could hurt him but little in her 
 opinion since that evil beginning of acquaintance, 
 spoke almost as freely to her as he would have done 
 to another man. Once or twice, indeed, he slipped 
 into such a careless oath as men commonly use in 
 nearer intercourse, receiving no further reprimand 
 than an uplifted finger and a disapproving shake of
 
 144 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 her head. Fearing to put restrictions on his speech, 
 she made no further objection ; but Laurence, ap- 
 preciating her leniency, swore no more, though his 
 criticisms and comments in ordinary conversation 
 lost nothing of their freedom and caustic point. 
 
 On Thursday he went to call on Dwyer according 
 to appointment. To his delight, his friend was able 
 to report some progress. 
 
 ' There were six guinea-pigs, and I think I've got 
 'em all," he said. " All that are alive and at large, 
 that is. Dewhurst blew his brains out last year — 
 best thing he ever did in his life, I should say. I've 
 written to his executors, and that'll be all right, 
 for certain. Poultney, chairman of directors— Sir 
 Thomas George Evelyn Poultney, of Middlemarsh 
 Hall, Berks — has changed his address. Virginia 
 Water's his country house now — though why they 
 wanted to lock up that poor water-headed softy, Lord 
 knows. I've written to his man of business as well. 
 Mortimer & Reingold held a share apiece, the pretty 
 dears, and the other two were a shirt merchant 
 in the city and his head clerk. Well-sounding 
 suburban addresses they had, and they'd done busi- 
 ness with your father before. How the deuce any 
 man could have been fooled with such a palpable 
 fraud, I'm dashed if I know." 
 
 ' Never mind about the fraud," Laurence in- 
 terrupted. ' Have you got the shares ? " 
 
 ' All except Poultney 's and Dewhurst's, and there 
 won't be any bother with them. I didn't dare go to 
 M. & R. for the purpose, so I met 'em accidentally — 
 I know where they're to be found at midday — and 
 had a drink with 'em. Whilst we were chatting I 
 mentioned that I'd seen you a few days before, and 
 that you were in fair raiment, beautiful to behold.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 145 
 
 and fatted and sleek. I also mentioned that you'd 
 been breaking hearts, and mentioned the fair Con- 
 stance. D'you mind ? " 
 
 " I don't see why you need have dragged that in,". 
 Laurence grumbled. " Go on." 
 
 " Don't you ? Well, I do. Your being back here 
 amounts to nothing, but if you've been hanging 
 around that description of shop window, it's possible 
 you've money to spend. Anyhow, that sheeny, 
 Reingold, pricked up his ears. 
 
 " ' Where 'd he get the brath ? ' he asked. 
 
 " ' How should I know ? ' I said. ' No affair of 
 mine.' 
 
 " Then they talked about you for a bit, and 
 Reingold said he supposed you'd done pretty well 
 out of the estate. ' Artful young cove,' he said you 
 were. ' Fancy his selling hith yacht, an' all. Spec- 
 ulation couldn't account for all those thousands, my 
 dear. I tell you, Herman Averil wathn't a gambler, 
 really thpeakin'.' " 
 
 " Didn't you kick him ? " Laurence asked savagely. 
 
 " Kick him ? Not much. What for, my grossly 
 libelled angel ? Nothing about kicking in my in- 
 structions. I drank up and made out I was going to 
 quit, and they asked me to have another. I v. ouldn't, 
 I said, and then as an afterthought I suggested tossing 
 for the three drinks. ' Let's make a little gamble of 
 it,' I said. ' I've got a share in that company of old 
 Averil's — the Iceland Development Company, that 
 showed up so at the inquiry. You two have a share 
 each. Let's toss for drinks, the loser to take all three 
 shares and see what he can get for 'em from young 
 Averil. The pup may be ready to pay a quid apiece 
 for 'em rather than have us rubbing 'em on his nose.' 
 " They agreed, and I'm hanged if Mortimer didn't
 
 146 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 win the shares. He growled at it — said he didn't 
 know you personally, and so what chance had he of 
 pulling your leg ? I laughed, and offered to toss him 
 again, half a quid or nothing for the three shares— 
 and here they are." 
 
 He showed the scrip to Laurence, laughing. 
 
 " Good man you are, Pat." 
 
 " Oh, that's all right ! It's a pleasure to do that 
 pack. I enjoyed it, man." 
 
 " And how about the debentures, and were there 
 any other ordinaries, and if so, who's got them ? ' 
 Laurence demanded. 
 
 ' There were a hundred debentures at a hundred 
 pounds each, and they were all taken up by that old 
 fool down in Somerset. He paid ninety-five quid 
 apiece for 'em — six per cent, debentures. The thing 
 screams aloud, don't it ? " 
 
 ' Finance isn't taught at sea — much. Go on." 
 
 " Experto crede, eh ? I told you I judged you'd 
 been seafaring, at the very first. 
 
 ' Well, in addition to this ten thousand quids' 
 worth of bee-you-tiful paper, he weighed out for 
 eight hundred of the ordinary stock, and that's all 
 that was ever issued." 
 
 " Who's got 'em?" 
 
 ' His daughter. She's a lone, lorn spinster, and if 
 — mark you, I say if — there's anything in this deal, 
 and you make money by it, I think you're a worthy 
 son of a worthy father — that's all." 
 
 Laurence thought of Marion, and the crowded, 
 hungry town so full of danger, and hardened his heart. 
 
 " She's not the only single woman in the world. I 
 want those shares, Pat, and I must have 'em. If 
 you're going to get conscience-stricken at dealing 
 with a woman "
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 147 
 
 " Pooh, man, that's nothing to do with it. I'm 
 acting as your agent. It's for yon to say what's to 
 be done." 
 
 " Can you get 'em, do you think ? " 
 
 " Yes, I think so. The lady is alone, without 
 advisers', and I shouldn't think there ought to be 
 any difficulty. Harper's evidence as to the value of 
 the land was pretty conclusive, and I should think 
 she ought to be glad to see a hundred quid down in 
 place of paper that anyone can tell her is valueless. 
 She's called " 
 
 " Don't tell me," Laurence interrupted quickly. 
 " I don't want to know who she is. It's one thing to 
 rob an abstract nonentity, but another to do a woman 
 down when you know her name or anything about 
 her. I'll tell you what I'll do. I've got a billet 
 waiting for me, and I ought to be able to save a 
 hundred by the end of the year. I live small, you 
 
 know." 
 
 " I don't know anything of the sort. On the 
 
 contrary " 
 
 " Oh* shut up, do. I'll reckon on saving that 
 hundred. You can offer her a hundred down, and a 
 hundred in twelve months' time. I'll undertake that 
 much— and that's all I jolly well will do. Will that 
 be enough ? 
 
 " It'll be enough to buy the shares, for certain," 
 Dwyer said. " I really think a hundred would do 
 that. If you desire to salve your conscience you can 
 offer the extra sum." 
 
 " Well, I'll do it, then. Conscience be sugared !— 
 I haven't got one. But since it's a woman I'll do 
 that much for her." 
 
 " Wry well. Call again on Monday, and if I've got 
 the shares you shall have 'em then. Oh, by the way,
 
 148 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 one thing. The day after I got those shares from 
 Mortimer & Reingold that sheeny came here. 
 
 " ' Look here,' he said. ' A joke'th a joke, Dwyer, 
 my boy. About those shares of Averil's we tossed 
 for yethterday — I understood you to thay you were 
 a holder. ' 
 
 " I told him I was, and he wanted to know how 
 that could be ? Artful devils they are. Would you 
 believe it, he'd gone and had a look at the list of 
 shareholders — after carrying the thing out as a joke 
 like that." 
 
 " They must have suspected something from your 
 manner," Laurence suggested, a sinking at his heart. 
 " Not they — I don't think so, anyway. It's just 
 their infernal methodical way of doing things. 
 
 " Well, he asked how I was a shareholder, and like 
 a fool — I ought to have grinned at the idea of diddling 
 'em out of a couple of shares, as if it were of no im- 
 portance—like a fool I pulled open my drawer and 
 showed him the shares I'd got from Hay ley and his 
 clerk. ' I bought them yesterday,' I told him. 
 Blame fool ! I could have kicked myself the moment 
 I'd spoken." 
 
 " What did he say ? " 
 
 " Nothing to speak of. He just glanced at them : 
 ' Ah ! four shares,' he said. ' Well, if you get 'em 
 all for nothing you'll be able to treat yourthelf to a 
 dinner out of young Averil,' and then he cleared out." 
 " Can he find out who's got the other shares ? ' 
 Laurence asked anxiously. 
 
 " Course he can. We're a bit ahead of the game, 
 because we've got the address of the present holder, 
 and it'll take him a day or two to get that, however 
 much he hurries. But I shouldn't bother, if I were 
 you, I don't expect he'll think any more of it, and
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 149 
 
 if he does, he's first got to get the address, as I say ; 
 and after that he won't offer twenty pounds for the 
 shares. Trust a Jew, my boy. We shall have 
 bagged the lot by the time he's made a move." 
 
 " Let's hope so," Laurence said, with some fore- 
 bodings. " Is that all ? " 
 
 " Yes. And now, are you going to stand me a 
 lunch, or am I going to stand you one ? Toss for it, 
 eh ? Right. Where have you been keeping yourself 
 this last week ? I'm bored and Connie's disconsolate. 
 She was here after your address last Monday — and 
 young Farrant puts on more side than ever. If I 
 were as big as you, Laurie, and any geological whelp 
 cut me out, I'd kick him, hard. Why this sudden 
 retirement from a life of pleasure ? " 
 
 " A life of footle. I'm fed with it, man. I've had 
 my fling, and it's but a weary business at best. I 
 shan't be in town longer than another month, Pat, 
 and then I'm going back to work, like a good boy." 
 
 " Well, that's good hearing. I tell you, when first 
 you arrived in town a month ago, I felt nervous. 
 Y'see, you were always such a whole-hog sort of cove, 
 and you gave me to understand that you were rolling 
 in wealth. And certainly you managed to put in a 
 month of spree that would have killed a horse if it 
 had lasted a year. What's the meaning of this sudden 
 pull up ? And when are you going to disclose your 
 'orriblc past ? " 
 
 " I'll tell you now," Laurence said, desirous of 
 turning aside inquiries as to his present manner of 
 living. " I'll tell you all about it, Pat, and you can 
 see for yourself whether I was driven hard or no." 
 And. over the luncheon table, omitting only all 
 mention of his landing in Iceland, he gave Dwyer the 
 history of the past two years.
 
 150 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 ALTHOUGH Miss Constance Armitage's char- 
 acter presented many traits not generally 
 esteemed as virtues, she possessed at least one, the 
 \ alue of which is rarely denied — she was a business 
 woman. Some few years of a precarious existence, 
 spent for the greater part in touring companies of 
 the " No. 2 " grade, had destroyed any of the small 
 trust she had ever been inclined to put in mankind, 
 and although an occasional advertisement in the Era 
 described her as " resting " at the present time, it 
 may safely be averred that the description was in- 
 accurate. Indeed, before her meeting with Laurence 
 she was pressed for money harshly, and her exertions 
 towards amassing it were as little restful as they well 
 could be. In this predicament his advent on her 
 horizon had seemed like- providence, and an almost 
 genuine warmth at heart testified not only to the 
 value of his gifts, but also to the straits to which she 
 had been reduced before she had met him. 
 
 Added to this, purely business woman though she 
 esteemed herself to be, was another feeling. Thor- 
 oughly and heartily weary of the types of men most 
 commonly met by the women of her class, Laurence 
 came to her with the freshness of salt sea breezes. 
 His strength and quickness, even his coarseness and 
 brutality, were a change from the sickly sweetened 
 compliments and cheap adulation paid to her hitherto. 
 Moreover— most endearing of characteristics — he 
 spent money royally, and their last drive to Rich- 
 mond, followed by the supper at his rooms, had been 
 invested with a new and novel interest for her — the 
 extraordinary feeling of really liking a man for his
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 151 
 
 own sake, and not as a matter of convenience. She 
 had kissed him at parting with some approach to real 
 emotion ; and as she stood outside the carriage door 
 —jobbed by the kindness of Mr. Mortimer, stock- 
 broker, of the firm of Mortimer & Reingold— she looked 
 at his tall figure upon the pavement with the first 
 feeling of admiration for a man she had felt since she 
 was seventeen. And, alas! she was nine-and- 
 twenty now, although she successfully denied it. 
 
 She spoke of the feelings of her maiden heart to a 
 bosom friend next morning. The friend, who was 
 shopping, had called in to borrow three shillings with 
 which to buy gloves. " My tick's stopped at Stagg 
 & Mantle's," she said in extenuation, and narrated a 
 little piece of personal history that would have been 
 the most commonplace of domestic squabbles had 
 she but been married to the gentleman with whom 
 she had disagreed. As she was not, the tale possessed 
 an interest all its own. 
 
 *' Men are beasts, anyway," she concluded. 
 " M-m," murmured Miss Armitage. She was 
 standing before a mirror, her mouth full of hairpins 
 and her fingers busy at a stray tress behind her ears. 
 She pushed in the last pin with exact accuracy, re- 
 garding the effect sideways in the glass, then with a 
 swishing of disarranged petticoats produced a small 
 puff from the neighbourhood of her knee and dabbed 
 at her nose meditatively. 
 
 " M-m," she said again, replacing the puff. " Yes 
 I suppose they are— of course they are. But it's our 
 fault. We're such fools." 
 
 " What on earth makes you take that tone ? " her 
 friend asked indignantly. " Fools ! You speak for 
 yourself, Connie, my dear. If you like to call your- 
 self a fool you're welcome, I'm sure."
 
 152 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 ' I believe I am half a fool, and that's a fact. 
 
 I Do you think you could get silly about a 
 
 man, Lucy ? " 
 
 " I ? The idea ! And you — -of all girls in the 
 world. Who is it ? Do tell me. I'm just dying " 
 
 ' You know him. He was here at tea last week 
 when you came in." 
 
 " What — young Avery, or whatever his name is ? 
 The one } T ou called Lucifer ? The man with big ugly 
 hands and a bad temper ? Is that the one ? ' 
 
 Constance Armitagc walked to the window and 
 looked out upon the quiet street. 
 
 " Y-yes," she said. " What do you think of 
 him ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. Bit of a brute, I should 
 think. But he's rich, isn't he ? " 
 
 " I suppose so "■ — -wearily. " I — I don't care if he 
 isn't. He's a man. Yes, and he's a bit of a brute 
 too — that's what I like him for." 
 
 " 'Twouldn't do for all of us to think alike," the 
 friend sagely remarked. " Personally, I should prefer 
 young Farrant. He's quite the gentleman — and 
 the other isn't. But, fool as you call yourself, I 
 notice you choose the richer man to get silly about. 
 You'll steer clear of Hanwell if you don't get worse 
 symptoms than that, my dear." She wandered 
 down the stairs and took her three shillings to 
 Leicester Square, leaving Miss Armitagc to indulge 
 in day-dreams. 
 
 Her newly discovered predilection for Laurence 
 was not a sufficiently strong impulse to make her 
 manner anything but pleasant to Farrant, who pre- 
 ceded him that afternoon, as has already been told. 
 Laurence's rudeness alarmed her but little. She had 
 often enough before now been subjected to insults
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 153 
 
 beside which mere discourtesy paled ; and she never 
 conceived it possible that Laurence, who had sought 
 her acquaintance, could be wearying of her just at 
 the moment when her own thoughts began steadily 
 to turn towards him. She wondered when he failed 
 to arrive at dinner, but her manner to her companion 
 lacked nothing of charm on that account. Only, on 
 her return home, " He's jealous of that fool boy," 
 she reflected. " I oughtn't to have shown him that 
 pendant. I'll write and ask him to call again to- 
 morrow, or maybe he'll sulk for a week." The note 
 spoke only of a future meeting ; but in its carefully 
 chosen words were gentle hope, a foreshadowed meek- 
 ness and sorrow in the event of that meeting not 
 taking place, and a vague regret at the untoward 
 occurrences of the afternoon before. In a word, it 
 was a little chef d'eeuvre of its kind, and it is to be 
 regretted that Laurence burnt it unanswered on the 
 morning of its arrival. 
 
 All through that day she waited, and through the 
 next. The last three Sundays had seen him at her 
 tea-table, and she made sure that he must call on 
 this, only to be again disappointed. Though bitter 
 experience had before now taught her how little 
 value attaches to easily plucked fruit, on Monday 
 she took the, for her, unusual course of calling upon 
 him at New Cavendish Street, only to find him gone 
 and the key of his rooms in the hall porter's hands. 
 It says much for her self-possession that she was 
 able to make perfectly coherent inquiries about her 
 missing shoe ; and the porter's wife being called, it 
 was handed to her, with an audible accompaniment 
 of virtuous sniffs. 
 
 " Them smutty marks was on it when I found it," 
 that lady informed her. " Mr. Averil, 'e'd throwed
 
 154 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 it be'ind the fireplace," she was glad to be able to 
 add. 
 
 ' So he tells me," Miss Armitage replied, in her 
 sweetest manner. Her use of the present tense 
 adroitly turned the tables on the matron by imply- 
 ing that Laurence had left the rooms for the purpose 
 of enjoying more of her society. 
 
 The porter's wife sniffed again and retired, and 
 Constance drove to Chancery Lane to ask Dwyer for 
 Laurence's present address. 
 
 " I don't know it, my dear girl," he said. ' I 
 swear I don't — really and truly. I had dinner with 
 him last Thursday, and since then I haven't set eyes 
 on him. I've got an appointment with him on 
 Thursday next, and I'll tell him you want to see 
 him then, if you like." 
 
 " Oh no — no. Don't trouble. I don't really want 
 
 to see him, only — only " She stopped. Only 
 
 now did she begin to understand that she really did 
 want to see him very much indeed. But, " It's of 
 no importance," she assured Dwyer, and drove back 
 to her flat in a frame of mind bordering on jealous 
 tears. She guessed he had gone to Paris. He had 
 spoken of going — had even offered, in a careless 
 moment, to take her with him. With the thought 
 of Harry Mortimer before her eyes, she had refused. 
 Judicious lying would square this business with him, 
 but a trip to Paris meant a definite break and 
 probably an unpleasant row ; and although Morti- 
 mer was fat, and oily in pleasantry, she still could 
 hardly afford that until she was more sure of Laur- 
 ence. As has been remarked, she was pre-eminently 
 a business woman. And now Laurence had gone 
 alone, just as she discovered she liked him well 
 enough to go anywhere with him- — to Kamtschatka,
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 155 
 
 if need be— always assuming she could go by train 
 de luxe, of course. It was intensely annoying, and 
 picturing him behaving in Paris as he had in London, 
 she really did cry a little when she went to bed that 
 night. 
 
 When next morning brought a wire from Mortimer 
 announcing his intention of calling on her that after- 
 noon, she did not cry— she swore. None the less 
 she did her hair carefully, put on a new blouse, and 
 went through her desk with vigilance. Mortimer 
 had a nasty knack of demanding keys— which could 
 not well be refused — and routing out drawers with 
 a wary eye for unpaid bills. It showed the vilest 
 taste, she had many times assured him ; but bluff 
 Harry, who had been a butcher in a small way 
 before a lucky bet had placed the capital for his 
 first stock and share transaction in his hands, was 
 moved by her opinion no whit. His habit of an- 
 nouncing his intended visits by wire Constance re- 
 garded as a special interposition of Fate on her behalf. 
 
 " I hear that young whelp Averil's been hanging 
 about after you," he remarked genially over the 
 teacups. The warmth of the day had induced him 
 to remove his coat, and his tight waistcoat showed 
 his overfed figure to advantage. Constance, reclin- 
 ing in a long chair with her back to the window, 
 looked at him with a new feeling that was not at all 
 admiration. 
 
 " Why ' whelp ' ? " she asked languidly. 
 
 " 'Cause he is — 'cause I say he is." 
 
 " Do you know him ? " 
 
 " No — nor don't want to. I knew his father — 
 stuck-up hypocrite ! — and that's all I want to know 
 of that lot. He shot himself. You've hoard of the 
 big Averil smash two years ago, ain't you ? '
 
 156 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " Yes, of course. Who told you I knew him ? ' 
 
 " Young Dwyer — yesterday. Reingold and me 
 was having a drink, and he joined us." 
 
 " How did he come to mention Lau— young 
 Averil ? " 
 
 " Lau -what ? " 
 
 " Laurence, he's called." 
 
 " An' you've got to christened names, 'ave you ? ' 
 He grinned angrily. " You better take -care, my 
 dear. Of course I know you can't help havin' these 
 boys hangin' about you — lookin' out for an en- 
 gagement as you are. But if you make me 
 jealous, you're steerin' for trouble, I needn't tell 
 you." 
 
 " My dear Harry ! Don't be silly now, " 
 
 Her protestations having soothed him, she returned 
 warily to the subject. 
 
 " But }'ou didn't tell me how Dwyer came to be 
 speaking of me," she said. 
 
 " He said he'd seen this young whelp in town, an' 
 that he was hangia' about after you ; an' as your 
 acquaintance had a way of comin' expensive, he 
 supposed Averil had money. Then he said he'd 
 toss us for our shares in old man Averil's Iceland 
 Development Company flam, an' try to get the price 
 of a dinner out of Averil with 'em. Reingold an' 
 me we had a share each. I won 'em first, and then 
 'e tossed me again an' won 'em back himself. Rum 
 thing, too. He said he had one share before we 
 tossed ; so after we got back to the office, Reingold 
 'e looks out the original prospectus, and there was 
 nothin' about Dwyer bein' on the board— and nobody 
 'ud ever buy shares in the thing. So Reiny, 'e was 
 passin' Dwyer's office this mornin', an' called in to 
 pull his leg about being so hard up as to do us down
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 157 
 
 for a couple of shares that wasn't worth the paper 
 they was printed on. And s'help me, he had a share 
 after all— two shares. He'd got two more of the 
 original shares in his desk, and showed 'em to Rein- 
 gold." 
 
 " Where did he get them from ? " Constance asked, 
 with duly simulated interest. The man's talk was 
 going in at one ear and out at the other, but any 
 appearance of boredom was forbidden. 
 
 " Some old draper chap in the City. I forget his 
 name. Reingold was fair surprised at it, I tell you. 
 ' What should young Dwyer be gettin' 'old of them 
 shares for ? ' says he. Tossin' us was all right— 
 if 'e really 'ad a share of 'is own lyin' idle. But to 
 go an' buy two, an' then accidentally to meet us an' 
 toss for two more— an' all to try an' get young 
 Averil to brass up four quid— an' Averil 'is pal, an' 
 all ! Besides, there ain't no sense to it. There's 
 dozens of other things old man Averil touched. 
 This pup couldn't square 'em all, not unless 'e was 
 a millionaire ; an' what 'e should want meddlin' 
 with this particular company I can't see. Reingold 
 can't make it out neither. But they've come to the 
 wrong shop for once. Reiny's lookin' out the holders 
 of other shares — I reckon we can buy a good whack 
 of 'em for next to nothin'— and if Mr. Bloomin' 
 Pat Dwyer and his pal Averil think they can do 
 M. & R., they've come to the wrong shop." 
 
 Emerging from a reverie, which Laurence, Farrant, 
 and the urgent necessity for a new evening cloak 
 shared between them, the last few words caught and 
 arrested Miss Armitage's ear. No observer could 
 have detected that her expression meant aught but 
 admiration for Mr. Mortimer's business acumen. 
 
 " I'm sure of that," she said agreeably.
 
 158 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 Mortimer swelled pompously, much to her con- 
 cealed distaste. 
 
 " And what are these shares he was trying to 
 sell ? " 
 
 ' Sell ! There's a woman all over. He wasn't 
 selling. He tossed us for 'em — an', as I tell you, 
 Reiny's found out 'e's been buyin' elsewhere. Looks 
 queer, don't it ? " 
 
 " Very," she said, in total ignorance of what he 
 uas talking about. " And what is he bu} T ing them 
 for ? " 
 
 ' ' Who knows ? He says he wants 'em to pull 
 young Averil's leg with — make him pay full value 
 for 'em rather than 'ave it dragged up in conversa- 
 tion that 'is father was a swindler." 
 
 " I don't think '" said Constance Armitage, 
 
 and then relapsed into silence. She did not think 
 anything about it. She was positive that no power 
 on earth could get money — or anything else — out of 
 Laurence Averil without his own good will. And 
 that Pat Dwyer should be trying to blackmai 
 The thing was impossible. 
 
 By questioning, she got the whole story out oi 
 Mortimer again, and so judiciously did she frame 
 inquiries that she managed to convey the impi 
 sion that his own power as a raconteur was her sole 
 reason for asking for a second rendering of the tale. 
 He bloated as he repeated it in what he considered 
 a breezy, man-o'-the-world style, and poor Con- 
 stance — whose name, contrary to all traditional 
 precedent, really was Armitage, and whose dim girl- 
 hood had been spent among kindly folk of the middle 
 class — writhed inwardly. She controlled herself suc- 
 cessfully, however, and by her merry laughter and 
 naive comments managed not only to get all the
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 15!) 
 
 information she needed, but also, before Mortimer 
 departed, a promise of the desired evening cloak. 
 So that, when the door had closed behind him, her 
 action in stamping her foot and throwing a 
 book violently across her room was entirely un- 
 justified. 
 
 Her feelings relieved by this timely outburst, she 
 sat down in the same chair, her elbows on her knees 
 and her pretty chin in her hands, and thought her 
 very best. What bearing could this h^e upon 
 Laurence's absence ?— for that the circumstances 
 were in some way linked together she felt certain. 
 Dwycr buying snares in a worthless company to 
 threaten Laurence with ! She knew both the men 
 too well to conceive that possible for a moment. 
 Perhaps he was buying them as a mere speculation 
 on his own initiative ? And yet, Laurence was 
 away somewhere. True, Dwyer had sworn he didn't 
 know his address, and he seemed to be telling the 
 truth. But Laurence away — Laurence's father's 
 connection with the company when it was floated — 
 she felt sure he must have something to do with the 
 business. Her Jangled thoughts, brought to a knot 
 that refused to unravel, slid back to their last meeting 
 —and she sat upright and brought her hand down 
 on her knee with a slap of decision. 
 
 What was it he had got so excited about when he 
 was talking to Farrant ? Some silly piece of stone 
 that he had nearly smashed her china with. She 
 remembered his keen attention to Farrant's lengthy 
 geological explanations, and the way in which he 
 had rushed off down her stairs. That was it ! That 
 was it, for certain ! 
 
 Within ten minutes a telegraph operator in the 
 nearest post-office was tap-tapping a message to
 
 160 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 Farrant that ran : " Bored to death, come and take 
 me out to dinner. — C. A." 
 
 Farrant was delighted. This was promotion in- 
 deed. He kissed her hand prettily on his arrival, 
 and murmured compliments on her appearance which 
 were wholly sincere, for excitement had put more 
 brightness than usual into her eyes and an unwonted 
 colour on her cheeks. She smiled graciously, and 
 thanked him for his kindness in coming. 
 
 ' I was getting lonely and depressed," she said. 
 " Being out of an engagement so long, you know. 
 But I won't bother you with that, Fra — Mr. Farrant. 
 And now, we won't go to a big place this evening. 
 You shall take me to some dear little quiet restaurant, 
 where we can chat in peace, and you can talk to me 
 and cheer me up." 
 
 Farrant glanced at himself in the mirror, squaring 
 his narrow shoulders and straightening his tie. As 
 Constance had intended, her little slip into his 
 Christian name had sent him into the seventh 
 heaven ; and when she remembered hulking, sulky 
 Laurance, she could have laughed in the little dandy's 
 smirking face. However, dandy or no, he served her 
 turn, and he was at all events a gentlemanly little 
 fellow, a point that counts with every woman when 
 any man but the one man of her choice is in question. 
 From him oaths are pet sayings and kicks caresses. 
 From other men courtesy goes far. 
 
 They went to a little Italian restaurant in Oxford 
 Street, and, once ensconced in a quiet corner, Con- 
 stance was able to turn the conversation towards 
 Averil, half hinting that his brusque brutality of late 
 had incurred her displeasure. 
 
 Farrant, delighted and encouraged by her ac- 
 quiescence, launched out into a diatribe on Laurence's
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 161 
 
 vile manners and — as he put it — the rough clumsi- 
 ness of his personal appearance. 
 
 ' He could pull you in pieces with his hands," 
 Constance meditated, as she gazed at him critically 
 from under her drooping eyelids ; but all she said 
 was, " Oh, I think you're hard on him, Mr. Farrant. 
 Of course he hasn't had your advantages. Living 
 in town, don't you know — and travel." Farrant, 
 having once visited Liege for the purpose of inspect- 
 ing the Belgian coalfields, naturally preened himself. 
 " I used to like him," she went on. "He seemed 
 to me genuine — sincere, you know. But of late, 
 really, he seems so rough. You noticed his manner 
 the other afternoon ? " 
 
 " A perfect boor," Farrant declared. ' Personally 
 I should describe him as of a low type — animal, you 
 know.'' Laurence's square, strongly set head was 
 far more intellectual than his own, but perhaps 
 Farrant had in view his deep chest and long arms, 
 which certainly in no way approached the ethereal. 
 
 ' He's very strange sometimes," Constance as- 
 sented with a faint tinge of sadness in her tone, sug- 
 gestive of a rebuke wrung from a deeply charitable 
 nature. " What was that nonsense he was talking 
 the other day — about that bit of stone of his being 
 worth more than turquoise ? — more than that dear 
 prett} 7 turquoise you gave me ? See ? ' She held it 
 up from the laces in which it had been hiding, and 
 flashed a look at him that made the youth's head 
 spin with gratification. 
 
 " D'you like it ? I'm so glad I've been so fort- 
 unate What was it he was saying, did you ask ? 
 
 There ! There's an instance of the man's intelli- 
 gence. One would think anyone with any education 
 at all would have known better than to call mala- 
 6
 
 162 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 chite a precious stone. And he compared it with 
 turquoise ! Of course, what I gave you was only 
 matrix turquoise," -he added modestly. 
 
 ' It's perfectly sweet, whatever you call it. I like 
 these pretty streaks in it." 
 
 " Exactly. That's the matrix. But malachite ! 
 — it's quite common stuff relatively. One would be 
 inclined to call it merely an expensive marble, almost. 
 But why do you ask ? " 
 
 " He — he offered to have that little piece cut for 
 me," Constance lied promptly. " He seemed to value 
 it himself." 
 
 ' Polished, you mean, not cut. The man's merely 
 a cheap humbug, my dear lady — if you will allow me 
 to speak so of a friend of yours." She shook her 
 head slowly as one reluctant to acknowledge an un- 
 pleasant truth. " Why, the stuff's cheap and 
 rubbishly. People use it quite commonly for in- 
 laying with marble for such things as clock cases, 
 and as jewellery it shows atrocious taste. I told him 
 so at your rooms. ' It's only fit for Brummagem 
 jewellery/ I said. ' Quite Brummagem ! ' He went 
 after that, if you remember." A superior smile testi- 
 fied to the pleasant memory of Laurence vanquished 
 and retiring. 
 
 Constance remembered perfectly well, and said so. 
 The light from her fine eyes was such as that with 
 which a Queen of Beauty might have rewarded a 
 valiant knight of olden time, but behind the admiring 
 glance was vivid curiosity. Her conversation flowed 
 smoothly, but question after question rose in her 
 busy brain. Why had Laurence bolted as he did ? 
 What had he learnt from this little fool of a man that 
 he should fly downstairs three steps at a time ? 
 Why had he gone away ? — and where ? Why was
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 163 
 
 Pat Dwyer buying worthless shares ? What was the 
 name of the company ? The Iceland something or 
 other, she remembered. 
 
 " And where does malachite come from ? " she 
 asked, when next the conversation gave her an 
 opening. 
 
 " Russia, I believe — and, I think, Australia." 
 ' Is there any in Iceland ? " she asked innocently. 
 ' Hm— ha— I— ah— I really don't know. There's 
 sulphur there, of course, as you know." She didn't 
 know, but nodded as intelligently as if she did. " If 
 there's any copper there— I'm ashamed to say I 
 know little of the Iceland deposits beyond the fact 
 that they're mainly volcanic — but if there's copper 
 there, there's very probably malachite as well. But 
 I don't know." 
 
 Perhaps Laurence had gone to Iceland, she re- 
 flected. In that case Dwyer's statement that he was 
 ignorant of his address might be true — at least it 
 wasn't a deliberate lie if he was at sea. And despite 
 Pat's manner, a lie she had half believed it to be. 
 :< How far away is Iceland ? " she asked. 
 ' I really don't know the number of miles. It's 
 about a week's journey to get there. I knew some 
 fellows who once went there salmon fishing." 
 
 A week to get there, and a week back. That dis- 
 posed of her last theory. She had seen Laurence the 
 Thursday before, and next Thursday he had an ap- 
 pointment with Dwyer. Oh, bother it all! she, 
 couldn't think with this little idiot talking, talking, 
 talking — and expecting to be answered all the time. 
 So she shelved the whole matter for reference in some 
 remote recess of her brain, and devoted herself to 
 being as pleasant as possible to the man before her. 
 She bade him farewell at the foot of her stairs,
 
 164 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 thanking him profusely for his kindness. " Such a 
 pleasant evening," she declared. " I feel quite 
 another woman. I was so depressed before you 
 came. Good-bye, dear Mr. Farrant— well, Frank, 
 then. Come and see me next Monday." Her hand 
 lingered in his long enough to send the youth home 
 in a mood of jaunty confidence in the invincibility 
 of his manly charms. 
 
 To induce sleep she drank a glass of weak whisky 
 and water and smoked a cigarette before going to 
 bed ; but all through her dreams Laurence bore 
 great masses of malachite on his shoulders to build 
 a mighty green palace, and when it was finished he 
 knelt at her feet with a sneering laugh on his face and 
 told her it was for her. Whereupon she lifted him 
 by the hand and led him towards it ; but just as 
 they reached the door it vanished into thin air, and 
 all that was left was her friend Lucy, who was crying 
 and saying, " Men are beasts, Con. I really did want 
 a bit of that stuff to wear in an earring." 
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 ON the following Friday Laurence walked to the 
 station with Marion Stewart, and then, pre- 
 suming on three days of irreproachable behaviour, 
 petitioned to be allowed to lunch with her again. 
 " I've business in the City," he said. " At least- 
 Her fmger went up warningly, but she laughed 
 erfully nevertheless. 
 " The truth," she said. " Please." 
 " At least — I really do want to have lunch with 
 you," he declared. " You called it a business trans- 
 action last week yourself."
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 1G5 
 
 " It's a stretching of the bond," she said slowly. 
 " Are you sure you quite understand how I feel ? ' 
 
 " Positive. You think I'm improving rapidly," 
 Laurence said impudently. " I behave as prettily 
 as — as a tailor's dummy. And you picture me in 
 future going back to steady work and writing you 
 once a week, thanking you for putting me on the 
 right path, and giving you interesting sketchy letters 
 about a northern fishing port. Isn't that so ? 
 
 It was so exact a description of her own thoughts 
 that she flushed in spite of her laughter. 
 
 " You — -you really are queer," she said. " Yes. 
 You may come with me to lunch to-day, if only as a 
 reward for your cuteness. D'you know— I — I don't 
 believe you're half as big a silly as you look." 
 
 Laurence shouted like a schoolboy, but soon fell 
 silent. His time was coming — the time when the 
 brown eyes behind their long lashes should look into 
 his own with something better than curiosity or 
 laughter in them. Nearly a week now of fairly 
 constant intercourse to his credit, he reflected, and, 
 so far, no shadow across the joyous days of sun- 
 light. 
 
 His conversation and the new consciousness that 
 he was a trusted friend broke up the defensive reserve 
 in which the lonely Englishwoman must perforce 
 travel, and for once her bi-weekly ride to town 
 became a blithe holiday jaunt. The}. 7 got out at 
 Charing Cross, and he was allowed to accompany her 
 along the busy Strand as far as Fleet Street. They 
 dawdled, making a long half-hour of the promenade 
 by looking into shop windows and watching the 
 traffic, and Laurence tentatively suggested a theatre 
 for the evening ; but finding her demur a little, 
 postponed the visit fer another more favourable
 
 166 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 occasion. Promising to meet him at Rupert Street 
 at one, she nodded an adieu and went about her 
 business. 
 
 Laurence called upon Dwyer, but on being informed 
 he was out, retraced his steps. At the corner of 
 Bedford Street he decided to have a drink, and went 
 to the Bodega for that purpose. The place, as usual, 
 was blue with tobacco smoke and crowded with the 
 stranded flotsam and jetsam of the boards, and he 
 took his glass with a copy of the Telegraph to a corner 
 for quietness. He glanced over the news, but the 
 first moment his eyes rose above the top of the paper 
 they fell on Constance Armitage. She was talking 
 listlessly to a gorgeous member of the provincial 
 manager tribe, but had evidently seen him before 
 he saw her, for their eyes met and she came over to 
 him, her hand extended. 
 
 " My dear Lucifer," she greeted him. " Fancy 
 finding you here, of all places in the world ! ' 
 
 Laurence stammered something about having 
 come in for a quiet drink, and she drew a chair 
 towards his table and sat down. 
 
 " So you've returned from your journey? " she 
 smiled. 
 
 " Haven't been on any journey," Laurence averred. 
 
 " No ? Then where on earth have you been keep- 
 ing yourself ? " 
 
 " I haven't been out of London." 
 
 " Then I think you're very horrid not to have come 
 to see me all this long week. Do you know, I actually 
 wont to call on you last Monday." 
 
 "Yes? I— I've left New Cavendish Street," 
 Laurence said lamely. 
 
 "So I found. Where are you staying ? " 
 
 " In the suburbs."
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 167 
 
 " Oh ! Of course, if you don't want me to know 
 
 where " She paused. Laurence preserved a 
 
 stony silence. 
 
 ' You're a very mysterious person of late," she 
 ventured, as a re-opening. " Fancy not letting Mr. 
 Dwyer know your address, even." 
 
 " You called there, didn't you ? " 
 
 ' Yes. Have you seen him ? He told me you 
 had an appointment with him yesterday. Has he 
 succeeded in buying all those shares you want ? " 
 
 "What shares? " demanded Laurence, aghast. 
 
 " Why, the Iceland — Development — something — 
 aren't they called ? ' She trickled out her little 
 knowledge in a series of hesitating pauses, and seeing 
 the lively anxiety in his eyes, flashed a knowing smile 
 at him and drove the bolt home. ' You know, where 
 the malachite comes from." 
 
 Laurence slowly and methodically folded his copy 
 of the Telegraph in four, folded it again and yet again, 
 until it was a concise billet and he could fold it no 
 longer. Then he pressed it flat upon the little table 
 and looked up. 
 
 " What on earth are you talking about ? " he 
 demanded. 
 
 " Malachite — isn't it some coppery sulphur stuff ? 
 You know. That little stone you showed Mr. Farrant 
 and myself. And the shares Pat Dwyer got from 
 Messrs. Somebody & Reingold and bought from that 
 old draper in the City. I forget his name," she 
 added naively. 
 
 ' When did you see Dwyer last ? " 
 
 " Yesterday." 
 
 " What time ? " 
 
 " Really, how you cross-question anybody ! " 
 She drew a bow at a venture. " About this time
 
 168 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 yesterday morning, I should think." For once she 
 missed the mark. Laurence had been at Dwyer's 
 office himself half an hour later, and Pat had men- 
 tioned her only as calling the Monday before, so he 
 began to feel himself on safer ground. 
 
 She mistook his silence for consternation and 
 reached out a gloved hand to pat him on the wrist. 
 " You're like all big, strong, masterful men, Lucifer," 
 she said. ' You think we women are such silly, 
 thoughtless things that you can do anything with us 
 — and you can, too — your type, I know." Her look 
 frankly showed he had found favour in her eyes, and 
 he fidgeted uncomfortably. " But we're not alto- 
 gether fools, for all that. We keep our eyes open, 
 and even think sometimes. Now, see. You didn't 
 know what that stuff was till you came to my rooms, 
 did you ? — When young Farrant told you, I mean. 
 You said you valued it more than turquoises — but 
 that was because it had a sentimental value, wasn't 
 it ? Then he told you it had a market value as well, 
 and you went off in a big hurry to find out what it 
 was worth, or perhaps to buy some from somebody 
 who didn't know. A shareholder in the Iceland 
 Company, eh ? And — and you've never been near 
 me since," she concluded reproachfully. 
 
 Whilst she trusted to her infallible woman's 
 instinct she hulled him through and through at 
 every shot ; but the moment she started guessing 
 he knew it, and her relapse into sentiment gave him 
 breathing space. He made no answer, only pushing 
 his hands deeply into his pockets and regarding her 
 under lowering brows. 
 
 Again she stretched out a hand towards him, and 
 there was something wistful in her glance and the 
 relaxing corners of her mouth,
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 160 
 
 "Aren't you ever corning to see me any more ? ,: 
 she asked. 
 
 After all, she was a woman, he reflected, and his 
 new love for another of her sex made his manner 
 gentler than his wont. 
 
 " No, little lady," he said, kindly enough. " Not 
 any more. I'll send you something in place of the 
 pair of shoes I spoilt last week, and then we won't 
 see any more of each other." 
 
 He could not know that words and manner alike 
 were cruelly familiar to her, and her flash into quick 
 anger startled him. 
 
 " Curse the shoes ! " she said shamelessly. :< Do 
 
 you think I care for the shoes ? You could have 
 
 had the shoes and the woman who stood in them for 
 the bare asking, if you liked. Cowardly beasts you 
 men are. You play with me for a month, and just 
 when I care more about you than anything else in 
 the world, off you go- — with another woman, as 
 likely as not." She read the truth in his eyes. 
 " It is another woman, then ! But I'll be even with 
 you. I know more than you think about that Iceland 
 business, and I'll spoil your game. You shan't make 
 money out of that to spend on another woman." 
 In a towering rage she struck the table with her 
 clenched hand and rose to her feet. ' I hate you ! ' 
 she exclaimed. " Oh, how I hate you — you devil ! ' 
 and before Laurence could make any answer she was 
 gone, leaving him whistling softly through his teeth 
 in half-angry, half-pitying preoccupation. 
 
 " Tss— tss," he said to himself. " Poor little 
 beast of a woman. I wonder how much she knows. 
 This means trouble. I must hurry Pat up." 
 
 Constance, in a whirl of tempestuous fury, was 
 half-way to Mortimer's office before she remembered
 
 170 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 that visits there were forbidden. Recalling the pro- 
 hibition, she sought the nearest post-office and sent 
 him an express letter. " News," she wrote. " Averil's 
 Iceland Co. Come and see me at once. — C." Driving 
 straight home, she raged and relented, and raged 
 again until Mortimer arrived, hot and hurried, a 
 couple of hours later. 
 
 " What's up ? " he demanded. 
 
 " What have you done about that Iceland com- 
 pany ? " she returned. 
 
 " Found out the fool the sham was aimed at. But 
 he's dead nearly two years ago. He died after the 
 inquiry." 
 
 " Who's got the shares now ? " 
 
 " His daughter. But we shall have 'em in a week." 
 
 " Don't you be too sure of that. What are they 
 worth ? ' 
 
 " Lord knows. There's ten thousand in deben- 
 tures and a few hundreds ordinary stock. We're 
 going to offer her forty quid for the lot. That ought 
 to buy 'em." 
 
 " Forty pounds won't. Oh, you fools ! — you fools ! 
 Don't you sec what the game is ? " 
 
 " No, I'm dashed if I do," said Mortimer. " What's 
 up, Connie ? What bee have you got in your bonnet 
 now ? " 
 
 " Bee ! Good heavens above ! Half a minute. 
 What do I get out of this ? " 
 
 " What do you get ? Ain't you a bit ahead of the 
 game ? We don't know there's anything in it yet." 
 
 " I do. I know just what's in it, too, for a bet. 
 Look here. If my information's right, do I get half 
 profits ? " 
 
 " Not by a jugful, you don't. Keep quiet, now. 
 You've shown me you think there's something in it,
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 171 
 
 and I shall buy, anyway, now. If I'm had — well, 
 you'll hear of it, that's all. If you like to tell me all 
 you know, I'll give you ten per cent, on what we make 
 out of it if you put us on to a cert. That's a hundred 
 quid out of every thousand we clear — and thundering 
 good commission, too. You aren't putting any 
 money in it, and you run no risk." 
 
 " Make it two hundred in every thousand." 
 
 " Not a penny more than I've said. Now then, 
 out with it — and hurry up, for I'm busy." 
 
 Constance hesitated— and then yielded. 
 
 ' Very well, then. Here you are. There's mala- 
 chite in that ground. I don't know how much or 
 where it is, but young Averil knows — I taxed him 
 with it only this morning. . . . Don't be a fool, 
 Harry. I met him in the Bodega, the beast. And 
 Dwyer's buying those shares for him." 
 
 " Did he tell you so ? " 
 
 " Do you take him for a fool ? He's a — never 
 mind what he is. I hate him like poison, if you want 
 to know. But he's no fool, and if he's after those 
 shares they're worth having, and you'd better hurry 
 up if you're going to get your hands on them." 
 
 Mortimer was at the door by this time. " Re- 
 member, a hundred out of every thousand you make," 
 she reminded him. 
 
 He went down over the stairs almost as fast as 
 Laurence had gone on a similar occasion the week 
 before, and before the sound of his flying feet had 
 died away, poor Constance, fille de joie and daughter 
 of sorrow, was lying across the table, her head on her 
 arms, in a very torrent of tears. 
 
 Meanwhile, Laurence, seated at table and looking 
 into brown eyes, was rapidly recovering from the
 
 172 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 consternation into which Constance Armitage's 
 threats and apparent knowledge had thrown him. 
 The memory of the lie he had detected her in came 
 as balm to his soul. Had her knowledge been of any 
 real value she would never have made that slip. It 
 was certainty disturbing that she should have known 
 of the tossing-for-shares incident ; but, after all, the 
 matter was no secret, and on grimly considering the 
 extent and variety of her acquaintance, there seemed 
 nothing improbable in her hearing the tale told as a 
 joke. As to the malachite — well, she must have 
 been listening to Farrant's explanations with more 
 attention than he had given her credit for — and the 
 rest was guess-work. At the worst, Pat had the start, 
 and had as good as promised him the shares by 
 Monday. No good worrying, anyhow, he decided, 
 and so set about enjoying the present hour to the 
 utmost. 
 
 The lunch went merrily, and with its every minute 
 of time Laurence abased himself in spirit more and 
 more deeply. Oh for the days to come, when divinity 
 should preside at his board always, and this happiness 
 together should be for more than the fleeting hour ! 
 He rejoiced in her wit — for witty she was ; rejoiced 
 in her lx:auty — and she was delicately lovely ; but 
 most of all rejoiced in that he had never known 
 before in womankind, her brave companionship, 
 whether grave or gay. And to this she came swiftly 
 with him, for his sincerity — perhaps even his first 
 brutality— had shorn the veil" of reserve that parts 
 man and maid in their earlier days together. The 
 keen, sharp pleasure of the moment planted memory 
 ( :lear, and through the mists of later years often 
 brought back this hour to him— every turn of her 
 graceful head, every flutter of her hands, the light
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 178 
 
 and pleasant room framing her bright eyes and happy 
 face. Fresh from the sloven atmosphere of the 
 morning's interlude and from the unbidden favour 
 and shallow rage of another woman, she seemed to 
 him sexless and dainty as a flower. 
 
 As they parted on the pavement outside he put 
 his hand on her shoulder and vainly tried to put his 
 feelings into the heavy harness of words. ' This 
 has been a happy hour for me," he said. ' I shall 
 never forget this meal. And— and— you won't make 
 the mistake of thinking that I— that I'm the tailor's 
 dummy we spoke of this morning, will you ? ' 
 
 She looked into his eyes for the briefest moment. 
 " N-no," she said. " But, Mr. Avery, please don't 
 go on making sure— of what will only disappoint you 
 in the end." 
 
 Her mispronunciation of his name recalled to him, 
 more than anything else could have done, the danger 
 of being premature. He took his hand from her. 
 " No," he said gaily. " I'm not asking for dis- 
 appointments. I shall see you this evening ? Yes ? 
 Good-bye, then, for the present." 
 
 After another visit to Dwyer's office, where in 
 default of seeing his friend, he left a brief note of 
 warning, he sought the river for silent communion 
 with moving waters. A golden evening in Her com- 
 pany—the landlady, a merciful soul and born match- 
 maker after her kind, pleading a headache— fol- 
 lowed upon an afternoon during which Laurence trod 
 rolling clouds, backwards and forwards, along the 
 Embankment ; and sitting by her side in the crowded 
 Exhibition grounds, he would have been ready to 
 swear that the painted canvas glories of Earl's Court 
 excelled in matchless beauty the dawns and sunsets 
 of all wild nature at her best.
 
 174 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 A MESS AGE arrived with Laurence's breakfast 
 on the following morning. " Miss Stewart's 
 compliments," the small hand-maiden repeated, " an' 
 please, sir, will you go out with her this morning ? 
 She'll be ready at ten o'clock." 
 
 Laurence rushed through his dressing, bestowing 
 loving care, nevertheless, upon his shaving and linen, 
 and was in the entry as the clock struck. She came 
 to him down the stairs hatted and gloved and alto- 
 gether adorable, a happy light in her eyes and a 
 colour on her cheeks he had never seen before. She 
 nodded brightly. " You got my message, then ? I 
 want to see you — to ask your advice." 
 
 They walked down North End Road towards its 
 squalid end, and turned to the left. Their way led 
 them past the cemetery, and she suggested that they 
 should enter. " It's quiet there," she said, " and I 
 want a long talk with you." 
 
 Once inside the gates : " Isn't it strange ? " she 
 continued. " Only a week ago you were telling me 
 of your good fortune, and now my luck's turned too. 
 Five hundred pounds — perhaps more. Look at that 
 first." 
 
 She handed him a letter, and the graves and trees 
 and grass spun round and round in a whirling dance 
 of death, and the blue sky and sunlight laughed 
 merrily at his misery. 
 
 For the letter was from Dwyer, and contained his 
 own offer for the shares in the Iceland Development 
 Company ! 
 
 ' .My Cod ! " he said, and the words were wrung
 
 the sat, vino of a derelict 175 
 
 from him in torture. He leant against a grey box- 
 tomb close by. " My God ! And it was you all the 
 time ! " Pressing one foot heavily on the ground, 
 he hammered the turf with the heel of the other, his 
 foot swinging rigidly, like the pendulum of some 
 metronome of pain keeping time with his broken 
 sentences. 
 
 She beheld him in consternation. The man's pain 
 was so intense that she could see his forehead turn 
 shiny damp in the sunlight, and his white lips show 
 the red marks where lie had bitten them to keep from 
 crying out before her face. His utmost being had 
 gone body and soul cheerily to greet the joyous future 
 and hug it to his heart ; and, behold ! Dwyer's letter 
 had whipped all happiness out of his life as a quick 
 breath strips fairy thistledown from its bare stem. 
 
 Wild-eyed and dismayed, he looked up at her. 
 " Are you ill ? " she asked. " Tell me — tell me. 
 What is it? " 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 " Won't you say ? " she pleaded gently, as though 
 she were speaking to an ailing child. " Shall I fetch 
 a doctor or any help ? Oh, what is it ? Mr. Avery, 
 tell me ? " 
 
 " ' Avery,' too ! ' : He began to laugh, a little 
 hysterically. " I'll tell you — in a minute. I'm a bit 
 upset, that's all." 
 
 They watched each other in silence for a while, 
 he rigid as marble, his fingers biting into the stone 
 ledge behind him and his e}*es on hers : she, agitated, 
 fluttering ever so slightly. 
 
 Then, " Sit down," he said. " There's a seat. 
 Sit down and wait for me. I'm going to walk to the 
 end of this path — shan't go out of sight. Only I 
 want to think a minute- alone." She seated herself,
 
 176 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 and without another word he stood erect and started 
 down the central alley of the cemetery, his shoulders 
 held squarely as though bracing against and resisting 
 lashes of a whip. 
 
 A dozen steps he had gone, and then quick memory 
 coupled the moment with that other, not two months 
 since, when in just such black despair he had set out 
 on another walk alone, and as he had then turned 
 back to ask the name of Uthlld rock, so he turned 
 now with another question. 
 
 ' You said five hundred," he said. " This only 
 offers two." 
 
 She held out another letter. He took it from her 
 hand mutely, and set off again, without looking at it 
 or at her. 
 
 Half-way down the alley he took it from its 
 envelope and read it. It was from Mortimer & 
 Reingold— offering her five hundred pounds for the 
 shares of the Iceland Development Company in her 
 possession. He read it again, carefully noting every 
 word, folded it and walked on, mad, hopeless desire- 
 hopeless, hopeless— tearing at his heart at every step. 
 
 In the chaos of agony that beat and bruised him 
 coherent thought refused to rise. Only the memory 
 of that walk across the Iceland wastes that had 
 brought him here — the tombstones turned to lava 
 blocks before his eyes, the sunlight faded under cold 
 icy blasts, the buildings at the end of the alley took 
 the broken shape and dark colour of Uthlld rock, and 
 lie strode on in white-hot pain, in a far, far keener 
 agony than that he had known two months before. 
 The si; aller details of his torture had not yet come — 
 the heated irons to burn the body on the rack — but 
 he knew that happiness was no more, that laughter 
 yva> d<-ad, and tlmf Ins life henceforward must kg
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 177 
 
 grey and cold as the northern wilderness, hard and 
 useless as the infertile lava that covered, them, un- 
 unsettled as the gale-swept seas. All gone ; all hope, 
 all love, all peace — and Marion herself farther than 
 them all. He glanced over his shoulder. She had 
 left the seat he had indicated, and was standing in 
 the pathway, following him with her eyes. 
 
 Not until he reached the end of the central alley 
 did any sequence of thought come to him, and then 
 like a flash he saw his duty, clearly as though a shaft 
 of light had flashed down through the darkness en- 
 gulfing his wild and anguished soul. 
 
 For her sake he must strangle his hopes, shatter 
 all dreams of the happy future, and return to pitiless 
 servitude. He must say good-bye to her here, — 
 " And a nice, appropriate place to do it in," he said 
 aloud, as he looked around at the gravestones, each 
 with its story of life and love ended and forgotten. 
 A fortnight's active work to do on her behalf — a wire 
 to send at its conclusion — and then, a life dragged 
 out to its end in the old misery — now more utterly 
 hopeless than ever. The wire must come through 
 someone else — Pat Dwyer would do. He could not 
 appear himself. She would think he was doing it 
 to curry favour with her, and would pity him — and 
 if she did, he would go raving mad and do murder. 
 He must break with her now. No difficulty about 
 that, when she knew who he was and what his father 
 had done for hers. Farewells once over, as brutally 
 as need be, and then away to Leith again — -and 
 farther — as fast as rail and boat would carry him. 
 And though his heart was breaking and his life for 
 evermore long pain, all must be done cheerily — 
 cheerily. Emerson's words — long forgotten — came 
 to his tortured, mind ; " ' AU must be as gay as tin*
 
 178 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 song of a canary — though it be the building of cities ' 
 — or the sacrifice of a life's happiness," he quoted 
 bitterly, and returned to her with a firm step and 
 smiling eyes. 
 
 ' That's queer," he said. " A touch of sun, I 
 expect. Do you know, just as you were speaking, 
 the cemetery fairly spun round. I hardly knew what 
 I was saying. 
 
 ' Now about these letters. You've asked me for 
 advice, and I'm going to give it to you, and you must 
 abide by it strictly. Do you understand ? Abide by 
 it to the letter. You must. Say you will." 
 
 Marion looked up at him from under level brows. 
 " But this— is this an order ? " 
 
 " An order — yes. You must obey. I know some- 
 thing of — of Iceland, and these two offers convince 
 me there's — there's something going on which had 
 better be looked into. You must not sell yet on any 
 account. I'll go up west to see Mr. Dwyer, of Dwyer 
 & Tyrrell, at once, and you will take him as your 
 adviser in this matter. I — I've got to leave early 
 next week — hadn't a chance to tell you before — 
 only heard from Leith this morning. Dwyer's a 
 good fellow — a sterling good chap. I know him well. 
 We've been friends for years — and if you've any 
 doubts about him you can get references from any 
 reputable firm you please. At present you'll stick 
 fast to the shares, at least for about a fortnight. Then 
 you must abide by Dwyer's instructions. You 
 couldn't be in better hands." 
 
 ' But he's made me an offer himself." 
 
 ' Exactly. But he's outbidden, so his offer don't 
 count. You'll find he'll — I'm pretty well sure he'll 
 withdraw it when he hears that. Now, do you 
 understand exactly what you are to do ? "
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 179 
 
 ' I am not to sell for a fortnight. I am to call on 
 Mr. Dwyer as a client. And I am to take his advice 
 as to the disposal of the shares." She ticked off each 
 item on a finger. " Is that right ? " 
 
 ' Perfectly right. And now I must go. You've 
 had my advice — that's what I came for, wasn't it ? — 
 and now, once more, remember you must do exactly 
 as I've told you. Promise." 
 
 Carried away by the energy and authority in his 
 voice, " I promise," she said. 
 
 ' Then good-bye." Out went his hand. " You 
 won't think me rude, leaving you like this, will you ? 
 I'm really in an awful hurry, only as you wanted my 
 advice I wouldn't tell you so before. Nice of me, 
 wasn't it ? Good-bye." 
 
 Their hands met — their eyes. " Good-bye," she 
 said. " Shall I see you this evening ? " 
 
 ' No. There's something I ought to tell you. 
 You won't want to see me again when you know it. 
 My name isn't Avery ; it's Averil — and I am the son 
 of the man who ruined your father." He smiled at 
 her as coolly as though he had just informed her that 
 it was a fine day, then resolutely turned his back 
 on happiness and strode back to Baron's Court 
 Road. 
 
 He flung his things into his boxes anyhow, locked 
 them, and was on the station platform within half 
 an hour from the moment he left her. Reaching 
 Chancery Lane before midday, he burst into Dwyer's 
 office sans cercmonic. 
 
 " Hullo ! " Dwyer cried. " Didn't think I was to 
 see you before Monday." 
 
 ' You're luckier than your deserts, then, for here 
 I am. I've come to tell you to withdraw my offer 
 for those shares "
 
 180 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " Lord ! — what next ? " Dwyer exclaimed, with 
 heat. " You're a day behind the fair, my sweet and 
 stead)- client. I made the offer yesterday, and the 
 acceptance is probably posted by this time." 
 
 " No, it isn't. At least— I mean, I don't expect 
 it is. Anyhow, you can wire withdrawing." 
 
 ' Wire skittles ! You're a feeding diet, Laurence 
 Averil. I'll remind you that this is a business office, 
 and I'm a business man, and I don't like these tom- 
 fool tricks. If you really mean withdrawing, I'll 
 give you our client's name and address, and you can 
 go and do your dirty work yourself — and I wash my 
 hands of you and your affairs henceforward. You're 
 the middle and two ends of an infernal nuisance, and 
 I'm about sick of you and your vagaries." 
 
 " Keep your hair on. I'll give you a bit of news, 
 since you seem inclined to foam at the mouth. You 
 needn't bother to withdraw unless you like. You're 
 outbidden. Mortimer & Reingold have offered five 
 hundred in place of our two." 
 
 "Whew! How did you find that out? What 
 the deuce is up ? What are you going to do ? ' 
 
 " Never mind how I found it out ; it's so — and if 
 you want to know what I'm going to do, I'll tell you, 
 Pat, my dear, if you'll swear great oaths to hold your 
 tongue." 
 
 ' You're a client, I suppose. Go on." 
 
 ' I'm going to Iceland to have a look at the ground. 
 There's malachite there. That's what I was after. 
 Miss Stewart — I know her name, you see — will call 
 upon you for advice respecting the sale of her shares 
 in the course of a day or two. Tell her to hang on to 
 'em like grim death until you hear from me. I'll 
 wire you from Leith in the course of a fortnight or 
 thereabouts, and you'll advise her accordingly. And
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 181 
 
 you will take most particular care that my name does 
 not transpire. Savvy ? " 
 
 " What are you doing this f or ? " 
 
 ; ' Spite, old dear. I owe M. & R. a trifle for out- 
 bidding me." 
 
 ' If the deal's so good what's the sense of telling 
 her to do anything but hang on ? " 
 
 ' I don't know how much of the stuff there is. 
 See ? Here's your chance — that's all you've to look 
 at. A client applies to you for advice. Thanks to 
 an unselfish friend of yours, you're going to be in a 
 position to give advice that is of value, whereby shall 
 you be mag-ni-fi-ed greatly. It's nothing to you if 
 I've an axe to grind, is it ? " 
 
 " Will the advice be of value ? " 
 
 " If you follow my definite instructions it will be 
 a very special article indeed. And now just see how 
 much of my hundred's left, and give me a cheque for 
 the balance. I resume rusticating forthwith." 
 
 ' Tyrrell knows all about that. There's nothing 
 but the rent to pay out of it, is there ? " He left the 
 room, to return in a few minutes with a slip of paper 
 in his hand. ' There you are, Laurence. Eighty 
 quid left. You see I'm starting to put faith in you. 
 But how on earth could Reingold have jumped to 
 that price from just seeing those shares in my desk ? 
 Old man, I'm sorry." 
 
 " Don't you worry. You didn't give the show 
 away, Pat. If you want to know, I shrewdly suspect 
 the Fair Constantia has done us. As to those four 
 or six shares you've got — you haven't taken for 'em, 
 by the way, those you did pay for — I'll settle with 
 you for 'em when I get back to Leith, and if the advice 
 I send you is ' Hold on,' they're to be offered to Miss 
 Stewart at par. If it's ' Sell.' chuck 'em in the fire.
 
 182 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 Good-bye, Pat, old man. It's been a rum sort of 
 month, eh ? Good-bye." He fled, leaving Dvvyer, 
 wild with surprise, calling to him to stay and explain 
 — explain everything. 
 
 At Trafalgar Square he bought three postal orders 
 for twenty shillings each and sent them to Mrs. 
 Jardine enclosed in a letter card. " Please take care 
 of my boxes till I send for them," he asked her, then 
 registered and posted the package, and went out into 
 the street, his month's folly definitely closed, finished, 
 and dead. 
 
 The blank afternoon lay before him. There was 
 nothing to do until the departure of the night mail 
 for the north. " What shall it be,? " he asked him- 
 self. " Moon around and visit the scene of past 
 glories ? Lunch at Rupert Street, and get softly 
 sentimental about it ? 'Fraid I'm not up to that 
 yet. Better get drunk. Yes, that's the plan. Get 
 tight enough to wish myself back at sea again — I've 
 got to go there, whether I want to or not. Mustn't 
 get run in, and mustn't forget that my bag's at 
 Charing Cross cloakroom, but short of that — ' Blithe 
 as the song of a canary.' Good old Emerson ! ' 
 
 He drank, now steadily, now intermittently, until 
 evening, but did not fail to remember his bag, and 
 travelling by underground to King's Cross, spent the 
 night at being whirled back to his purgatory at Leith 
 ■ — a purgatory now utterly and irrevocably stripped 
 of any hope of paradise to follow. 
 
 He could not sleep. The whisky he had drunk 
 turned to bright-eyed and preternaturally acute wake- 
 fulness, and the rattling of the train forbade even a 
 moment's relaxation from his pain. As he sat in the 
 carriage new tortures came one by one to burn and 
 scar him. Marion, now rich, would be sought in
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 183 
 
 marriage. Vivid imagination, strung up to concert 
 pitch by alcohol, deprived him of no one single detail. 
 How did the society notices begin ? "We have it 
 on the best authority that a marriage will shortly 
 be solemnised between Miss Marion Stewart, daughter 
 of the late Blank Stewart, Esq., of Somersetshire, 
 
 and " The prospective bridegroom's name 
 
 necessarily was wanting, but the thought maddened 
 him none the less on that account. Then would 
 follow smug journalistic comments on Miss Stewart's 
 romantic story. All the wretched tale of his father's 
 downfall must inevitably be dragged up again. His 
 part too, would probably leak out— the son chosen 
 by fate to replace the goods the father stole. No 
 newspaper could resist such a temptation as that. 
 He wondered where he would be when he read it or 
 heard of it, if ever he heard of it at all, and even such 
 a detail as the picture of a bundle of papers being 
 thrown from the weekly steamer into his dinghv 
 came vividly prophetic. Ah ! but he wouldn't be 
 at sea. He'd promised to go to the office now. But 
 that was impossible. " It must be the sea again. God 
 send him a speedy drowning. If only he hadn't to 
 go to Iceland he could drop it all now. It was only 
 to open the door, make one step into the flying dark- 
 ness, and be at rest. Work first, though. Once let 
 him get that wire despatched, and then there were 
 a hundred ways of leaving it all behind. 
 
 From time to time a station flashed by with a 
 roar and rattle and blur of lights, breaking the 
 thread of his sullen musings, but always they began 
 again at the same starting-point— Marion 'herself. 
 Again and again his mind would wander into the 
 unknown, devising her future— always to be spent 
 with another man ; and each repetition gave him
 
 184 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 new and more and more maddening details — twisted 
 fresh thongs of thought with which to lash his break- 
 ing heart. She need no longer wear winter dresses 
 at midsummer now. Her means would allow her to 
 dress as he would have wished her to. Being beyond 
 all things fair, and rich as well, she would have many 
 suitors, no one of them such a hard brute as himself, 
 no one of them worshipping her so, but men who 
 still retained the breeding and education he had lost 
 — soft-handed liars, he thought to himself. And 
 then, her marriage, and a happy life afterwards. 
 He pictured her, loved and loving, a serene-eyed 
 mother of children at five-and-thirty — in the prime 
 of her married life. And then, just as he had com- 
 pletely forgotten all his surroundings, just as he felt 
 he must dash his tightly gripped fist through the 
 window, cutting and tearing his hands with the 
 broken glass to relieve this other unbearable agony, 
 flash would go another station by. At the start he 
 would pull himself together with a gasp, breathe 
 heavily once or twice, and begin turning the slow 
 wheel of thought again, impotently raging, until the 
 lights and noise of another station broke for a moment 
 the unending succession of tortures. 
 
 He reached Leith about seven on Sunday morning, 
 unshaven, wild-eyed, and haggard. Leaving his bag 
 at Anstruther's, he went to Harper's house without 
 making any attempt at a toilet, and entered its door 
 for the first time since he had removed to the lower 
 part of the town.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 185 
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 CLEMENT HARPER was not yet up, a sleepy 
 maid informed him, but she would announce 
 his arrival. Meanwhile, would Mr. Averil wait in 
 the dining-room ? He sat before the grate containing 
 the ashes of the previous night's fire, feeling cold, 
 lonely, and miserable. Whisky and a used tumbler 
 stood upon the table beside a full ash-tray, and he 
 threw some of the spirit into the dirty glass and drank 
 it neat with a view to freshening his wits. When 
 Harper came down — his dressing-gown was testimony 
 to the urgency of the occasion — he smelt it directly 
 and looked at Laurence coldly and keenly. 
 
 ' It's ower early for drinkin'," he said sourly, as 
 Laurence rose. ' Ye're back sooner than I expected 
 ye." Then, on sighting Laurence's haggard face, 
 " Mercy on us a' ! What's wrang wi' ye, mon ? ' 
 
 'Is it my beard ? " Laurence asked stupidly, 
 passing his hand over his blue chin. 
 
 " That ? No. I see ye've taken it off — an' ye 
 want a shave, too — but that's not it. Ye're a wreck, 
 man alive. What ha' ye been doing ? " 
 
 ' I expect I do look cheap. I was drunk last 
 night, and I couldn't sleep in the train, " 
 
 Harper made a gesture of anger. 
 
 " An' ye're nipping now, first thing in the 
 morning ! Ye fool ! Ye weary me. What do ye 
 want ? " 
 
 ' I want to borrow a trawler, Mr. Harper," Laur- 
 ence began, humbly enough. 
 
 " For why ? " 
 
 ' I want to go to Iceland and back as quickly as
 
 186 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 ever I can. I want to get there before the Wednes- 
 day boat." 
 
 ' Why don't ye ask to borrow the whole fleet ? 
 Ye've enough cursed impudence." 
 
 " It's not impudence — I don't mean it to be, at 
 least. It's very important. I'll pay for crew and 
 coal and the use of the boat." 
 
 ' I'll see ye do — if I let ye have her. But, first of 
 all, I want to know the meaning of this wild-goose 
 chase." 
 
 " I can't tell you, Mr. Harper," Laurence said. 
 He felt disheartened and unhappy. Full of the im- 
 portance of his mission, and set upon its fulfilment 
 as he was, he had never anticipated any opposition 
 here. Yet now Harper seemed none too ready to 
 oblige him, and without his aid he would be reduced 
 to going by the passenger boat. That meant three 
 days' delay, and, stupefied by drink and sleeplessness 
 as he was, a fear that Mortimer & Reingold might 
 send a representative by the same boat seemed little 
 less than certainty. 
 
 ' I can't tell you," he repeated. " It's not my 
 business, Mr. Harper. I must have the boat." 
 
 ' If it's none of your business, I'll not aid you in 
 meddling with other people's," Harper said. " Ye '11 
 get no boat from me. Ye're daft, man. Comin' 
 here at this hour o' the morning to rout me out of 
 my bed to borrow a trawler as cool as if ye were 
 askin' for a light for your pipe ! And then ye can't 
 tell me why ye want it. Ye're drunk now, ye 
 wastrel fool ! I'm weary o' ye, Laurence Averil. 
 I've done my best for ye. I've found ye a living 
 for two years and offered ye a better. I gave ye a 
 month to think over coming into the office, and 
 ftfter five weeks ye come back drunk — drunk, on a,
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 187 
 
 Sabbath morning— and ask to borrow a trawler 
 What next'll ye do ? " 
 
 " I'm not drunk," Laurence said steadily. " I've 
 only had one drink— your whisky— since last night. 
 I want to borrow a trawler for this one cruise. I 
 shall be back in a fortnight— and that'll be within 
 the seven weeks I asked you for— and then I'm 
 ready to come to the office, if you're still inclined to 
 have me there." 
 
 ' I'm none so sure I am. Ye look as if ye'd been 
 drunk for a week, and unless ye drop the habits o' 
 the fleet I've little use for ye. Now,, about this 
 trawler. Tell me why ye want it, and if there's any 
 reason I choose to approve, ye shall have it. Ye '11 
 pay crew and coal, as ye said, and ye'U pay me 
 fifteen pounds over an' above for the use of the 
 boat. If ye won't tell me why ye want her ye 
 won't have her— that's all." 
 
 " All right," Laurence said. " Then I must tell 
 you. But promise to hold your tongue." 
 
 'I'll promise that; but, mind ye, I make no 
 promise of letting ye have the boat. Go on." 
 
 ' Do you remember selling those farms at Laneholt 
 to my father?" 
 " I do. Well ? " 
 
 " You remember when Clitheroe was killed on the 
 Westray ? I went ashore to bury him, as you know 
 and whilst I was waiting there I went out to UthHd 
 rock. I had the horrors on me that day, I think. 
 I'd been drinking, and the boy's death upset me. 
 
 " Anyhow, I sat down under the rock and had a 
 smoke, and— and whilst I was there I thought the 
 stone lying around the rock looked to be queer stuff 
 and I kicked off a bit to bring home " 
 " Lava ? "
 
 188 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " No — nor anything like lava. There's the piece 
 I kicked off." He handed it to Harper. ' Is that 
 lava ? — -you ought to know." 
 
 " It's no lava, certainly. It's • ? " 
 
 ' Malachite. That's what it is, if you want to 
 know. I've been in London trying to buy the shares 
 of the company. But the tale's leaked out somehow, 
 and the price has got beyond me. It's not high now, 
 but I can't pay it. And I want to go and see how 
 big a deposit it is before doing anything further. As 
 the story has got out of my hands I want to get 
 away before anyone can go on the weekly passenger 
 boat. See ? " ' 
 
 " I see. Are you sure the stuff is malachite ? ' 
 
 " Certain. You can take that piece to an expert 
 if you like." 
 
 " Who is the present owner of the shares ? " 
 
 " A woman. She's — her father was the old chap 
 my father cheated." 
 
 " And ye want to cheat the daughter ? Father 
 and son. Ye'll have no boat o' mine." 
 
 " Oh, hell ! " Laurence raged. " Must I tell you 
 every cursed thing I'm trying to forget ? Man alive, 
 she's the world to me. I'd lie down and put her 
 little foot on my throat. I was courting her all I 
 knew when I found this business out — that she was 
 the owner of the land. But she had another offer for 
 the shares by the same post as mine — twice as much, 
 too. And now I'm off to see what the find is worth. 
 If it's all right, I shall tell her to hold on ; if it's 
 wrong, she can sell. Now, do you see, curse you ? ' 
 
 " I see. I'm sorry, Laurie, lad. Ye shall have the 
 Columba. She's the fastest boat I have in harbour, 
 and she was for sea to-morrow, so ye'll find her ready, 
 coaled an'- an' all. Get away as soon as ye please."
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 189 
 
 " I want the gear out of her," Laurence said. 
 
 " As ye like. I wouldn't, if I were you. She's 
 nigh as fast loaded as she is light — and if ye take out 
 her gear ye'll need ballast." 
 
 " More coal'll do that." 
 
 " Ah ! Ye mean shoving her along ? Dinnae 
 start a boiler tube. ' Mair haste, less speed,' ye 
 know. The men'll not work to-day. Ye'll start at 
 midnight getting the stuff out." 
 
 " I start within an hour from now," Laurence said. 
 ' The crew'll work if I tell 'em. If they won't, 
 there'll be a few men down there that'll take their 
 places for me. Give me a note to the skipper, Mr. 
 Harper, and I'll go about my business. I want 
 another drink to buck me up, and then I'm off." 
 
 Whilst Clement Harper wrote he drank again, for 
 wretchedness and want of sleep were taking hold on 
 him once more, and within the hour he was back at 
 Ahstruther's. 
 
 A knot of men were standing idling at the bottom 
 of the wynd in which the house stood. He passed 
 the door, and went down to them. Jock Menzies 
 was amongst them, with three or four more he knew, 
 but they all looked at him sullenly, without recogni- 
 tion. 
 
 " Morning," he said shortly. " Where's Guthrie ? " 
 
 Menzies knew his voice, and looked at him 
 with surprise. " It's Averil come back again," he 
 said. 
 
 " It is. Where's Guthrie— d'ye hear ? " 
 ' Which Guthrie dae ye want ? " one of the men 
 asked. 
 
 Laurence referred to the envelope in his hand. 
 
 " ' A. Guthrie,' ' he read aloud. " Skipper of the 
 Columba," he added.
 
 190 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 " Alec. He'll be at home, like enow. What brings 
 ye back, Averil ? " 
 
 " Work. Where does Guthrie live ? " 
 
 They gave him long and contradictory directions, 
 Laurence listening, muddled and bemused. Unable 
 to grasp the gist of what they said, he turned to 
 Menzies. " Take this note to him, Big Jock," he 
 commanded. " Bring back the answer to me at 
 Anstruther's within half an hour. I'm going to 
 change my clothes." 
 
 Menzies looked up sulkily. " I'm no' your servant, 
 Laurence Averil," he said. 
 
 Laurence flew at him with an oath and struck him 
 on the chest. 
 
 " I've been away too long, have I ? " he roared. 
 :< Not my servant, eh ? — you dog. Do as I tell you, 
 or, by Heaven ! I'll break your jaw first and drag 
 you there by the beard afterwards." 
 
 .Menzies departed on his mission without a word, 
 and Laurence addressed the little group of men. 
 
 " Any of you on the Columba ? " he asked. 
 
 One of them happened to be a member of the crew, 
 and on him Laurence straightly laid commands. 
 
 " The trawl and gear's to come out o' her' before 
 night," he said. " Get a move on you and beat up 
 the crew, and send 'em down to the wharfside to 
 start. I can't spare time to kick all of j-ou to your 
 duty, so if any man refuses, take the next that offers. 
 I'll give a sovereign to the man that takes his place. 
 We sail to-night, and there's a matter of ten ton of 
 extra coal to be put on board when the fishing gear 
 comes out. Get the key of the coal shed from the 
 storekeeper — tell him I said it was Mr. Harper's 
 orders. Tell the fireman to get steam up. I'll be 
 ashore most of the day. I've work to do. If I find
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 191 
 
 that the coal isn't aboard and the trawl and gear on 
 the wharf when I come down in the afternoon, some 
 of you'll curse the day ye first saw your mothers. 
 Now, get about it. If I'm wanted ye'll find me at 
 Anstruther's, or they'll know where I'm gone." 
 
 Menzies was back within the half-hour, and was 
 sent to the bedroom in which Laurence was flinging 
 off his clothes, replacing them with those he was 
 accustomed to wear at sea. 
 
 " Guthrie says he'll no' worrk on the Sabbath," 
 he announced. " An' the Columba won't sail before 
 the morrn." 
 
 ' You go back to him and tell him to go to the 
 deuce," Laurence said cheerfully. " The Columba 
 sails to-night, and if he hasn't turned up she'll go 
 without him. I'll be skipper, and his ' blessed 
 Sawbath ' '11 have lost him a fortnight's work." 
 
 All through the day Laurence laboured strenuously, 
 persuading here, pleading or ordering there, by 
 promises or oaths getting stores sent down to the 
 wharf, or receiving and answering messages sent up 
 from the boat. The town was shuttered in the for- 
 bidding silence of a Scottish Sunday. All things 
 seemed to conspire to delay him, and in the encounter- 
 ing and overcoming of obstacles he almost forgot the 
 pain at his heart. At four o'clock in the afternoon 
 he drove on to the wharfside with his bag and a small 
 but heavy case, and shouted to one of the crew to 
 come and aid him in getting it aboard the boat. 
 " Handle that tenderly," he ordered. "It's dyna- 
 mite, and if you drop it you'll go where the devil 
 waits you quicker than you want to. Is steam 
 
 up 
 
 ? 
 
 It was, and by five o'clock the Columba' s bows 
 were swinging outwards towards the waters of the
 
 192 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 Firth, her churning screw, now ahead, now astern, 
 thrashing farewell to the land. 
 
 At the last moment the men broke into open 
 mutiny. ' We've nae food aboord," they cried, and 
 one of the bolder spirits jumped upon the bulwarks 
 with a view to springing towards the slowly receding 
 wharf. Laurence swung him on to the deck before 
 he had time to leap. ' Then you'll starve," he said 
 grimly. " The more reason to make her move. 
 We're for Iceland, and if ye shove her along you'll 
 get a bellyful of dried fish inside of four days." He 
 said nothing about the packages of stores he had sent 
 on board, which the men, ignorant of their nature, 
 had placed in his cabin. They were amply sufficient 
 for all hands, but all his harder nature was revived 
 by his return to the old vile surroundings, and the 
 dull miser}' in which his soul was steeped called aloud 
 for the relief of open strife. 
 
 The scuffle that ensued was as brutal a rough-and- 
 tumble as he could have desired. Two of the hands, 
 with the fear of a voyage on short commons before 
 them, rushed at him together. " He's daft," they 
 cried. " Avail's daft ! " and, crying to the fireman 
 to aid them, they attacked him savagely. For the 
 next five minutes Laurence's mental torture stood 
 off from him under the stimulus of combat ; at the 
 end of that time one man lay under the bulwarks 
 groaning ; another, with a twisted ankle, was crawl- 
 ing forward on hands and knees ; and the third, un- 
 injured, had seized an iron belaying pin and was 
 standing on the defensive. Laurence's mouth Mas a 
 smudge of blood, one of his eyes was closing rapidly, 
 and a blow on his left wrist had rendered the hand 
 nearly useless ; but he smiled sweetly, for all his dis- 
 figured face, and cursed the men with great good will.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 103 
 
 " Baft, am I ? " he demanded. " An' I've for- 
 gotten how to scrap, too— eh ? You get about your 
 work, you swine. You— at the wheel— keep her a 
 point more east. 
 
 ' I've brought grub aboard, and you'll get your 
 share— though you don't deserve it. And if any of 
 you want another turn with me, you know, how to 
 get it. I'll teach you Laurence Averil's come back to 
 the fleet no prettier than he left it." 
 
 The fireman grinned, replacing the belaying pin 
 in its rack. ' I've heerd o' you before," he said. 
 ' Nae wonder Jock Menzies is sae pretty mannered 
 these last months," and he went below about his 
 work. Laurence laughed back. In truth, he was 
 himself surprised to find how easily the old life came 
 to him again. In the old days he had known no 
 greater wretchedness, but compared to this new hell 
 of hopeless desire its roughness seemed light, its 
 brutality a kindly counter-irritant to a far greater 
 pain. He walked the deck, now getting more and 
 more lively as they reached open water, with some 
 dim feeling of gratitude in his heart at the relief. 
 The hurry of departure left much to be done, and he 
 busied himself setting the men at one task after 
 another until Fifeness was abeam, when, laying a 
 course that should clear Buchan Ness, he went into 
 the engine room, told the engineer to spare no coal, 
 and retired to his berth to seek the sleep he so sorely 
 needed.
 
 194 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE next day dawned fine and warm, and the 
 men, finding Laurence's stores far better in 
 quality than they would themselves have bought, 
 were in high goodwill. Moreover, the trawl -gear 
 having been left ashore, there was nothing in the 
 way of work to be done beyond the ordinary ship's 
 duties ; and though pay, it was true, seemed prob- 
 lematical, there being no catch to share, Laurence's 
 answer to their inquiries tended to allay their anxiety 
 on that score. 
 
 ' You'll get four pounds apiece for the cruise," he 
 told them, when asked. " If we do it under four 
 days each way I'll make it a pound a head more. 
 If we take longer — well, you'll hear of it, I promise 
 you." So, telling off a deck hand to aid the fireman 
 ;it the raging furnaces, all hands made up their minds 
 to what they — fresh from the endless labour of the 
 fishing voyages — were ready enough to regard as a 
 i sure trip. 
 They drove her furiously. Once — on the second 
 day out — the engineer reported a leaky standard- 
 junction forward of the fire-box, and Laurence, 
 refusing to allow the speed to be reduced by a single 
 revolution, crammed himself down into the stifling 
 space next the bulkhead with a line under his arm- 
 pits, and plastered the glowing eye of light with 
 some filthy composition recommended by the 
 engineer. He was more dead than alive when he 
 was hauled on deck, but the consciousness that the 
 flaw had been rectified without delaying the voyage 
 did more to aid his recovery than the fresh air itself,
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 195 
 
 though a great girth of sailcloth with which he had 
 stuffed the front of his clothes was brown and crisp 
 with the heat, and the toes of his boots were posi- 
 tively charred. The weather continued fine, as fine 
 as it had been for the last two months, and the early 
 dawn of Thursday morning brought a hammering at 
 the companion door leading to his cabin. 
 
 We've earrnt oor extra pund," a voice cried. 
 " Portland's ahead on the starboard bow." • 
 
 ' How far ? ' Laurence demanded, wide awake 
 at the word. 
 
 " Aboot nine miles." 
 Then change her course a couple o' points east. 
 I'll be on deck in a minute." 
 
 He dressed hastily and ascended the stair, and the 
 first object his eye fell on past the bulwarks was the 
 dim form of the promontory he remembered so 
 well, lying like a low cloud upon the northern 
 horizon. 
 
 But delays awaited him. On nearing the shore 
 a white line of surf on the beach, the thunder of 
 which came up against the wind only as a dim 
 murmur, showed that the favouring southerly breeze 
 that had aided them the past two days had raised a 
 sea which rendered landing a matter of difficulty, if 
 not danger. The native boats were hauled up out 
 of its reach, and there was no sign of life about the 
 cottages. Probably the inhabitants were engaged 
 on inland pursuits until a calm allowed them again 
 to launch their boats. 
 
 He ordered the dingy overside, nevertheless, and 
 anchoring the trawler a mile off shore, vent with 
 two men to inspect the state of things. The fellows 
 at the oars waxed fearful and uttered dire warnings, 
 but, having given explicit directions, Laurence drove
 
 196 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 the boat headlong on shore. As she touched all three 
 men leapt out, grasping the gunwales, and though 
 the next roller swept them off their feet they were 
 able, sprawling and tumbling, to run the boat 
 out of reach of the crested smother of water that 
 followed it, and sat on the shingle wet through and 
 gasping. 
 
 They were about to begin more complaints, but 
 catching Laurence's eye, refrained. " How abou< 
 the dynamite ? " one asked. ' Ye'll never get the 
 stuff ashore that way— if ye want it ashore. The 
 first bump we'll all go sky high together." 
 
 Laurence saw reason in the remark, and despaired 
 again, until the memory of the river near by, the 
 Kirthafljot, came to him. Leaving the men by the 
 boat to dry their clothes in the sun as best they 
 were able, he walked the intervening mile across 
 the beach to its mouth. It ran over the shingle in 
 a rapid muddy waterslide about two feet deep, 
 pushing back the surf with its force. Over its lower 
 end the hungry waves advanced roaring again and 
 again, only to be beaten back in confused whirlpools 
 as the glacier- fed flood, now in summer spate, 
 r< sumed its resistless rush. A worse landing-place 
 could scarcely be conceived, but noting that if 
 capsizing could be avoided it was not impossible for 
 a moment to steady a boat in the current, Laurence 
 resolved to make the attempt. 
 
 He returned to the men. At his orders they 
 ] 'laced their wet clothes in the boat, and, nearly 
 naked, tried to run her out again through the surf. 
 Three times they were swept back, each time narrowly 
 iping breaking the dinghy to matchwood, and* 
 when they did finally get past the hammering 
 breakers the boat was full of water, and all three
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 197 
 
 men were nearly exhausted. Laurence alone was 
 happy — happier than he had been since the start of 
 the voyage. The monotony of the last three days, 
 broken only by the episode of the firebox, had nearly 
 sent him to drink again. Perhaps nothing but the 
 necessity of keeping a clear head had saved him ; 
 and this wild wet toil came as a distraction from the 
 endless round of unhappy meditation that bade fair 
 to break him on the slow wheel of thought. He 
 baled the boat as the men rowed back to the trawler ; 
 and then, taking the dynamite, parcelled in cloth and 
 tied with four long dangling rope ends, into the rocking 
 dinghy, they rowed, aided by a third hand, back 
 towards the river's mouth. 
 
 Waiting for a wave longer than the rest, Laurence 
 rapped out a quick order, and the boat, propelled 
 by one last mighty pull at the oars, shot over its 
 crest and ran perhaps twice its length up the shallow 
 stream, ploughing into the furious rush of water 
 with a run that sent the fresh ice-cold spray over 
 them in sheets. All four men leaped out, lifting 
 the parcel of dynamite by the rope ends and allow- 
 ing the boat to slide back into the surf. The force 
 of the stream, well over their knees, nearly swept 
 them off their feet ; the dinghy, caught in the roar 
 of a following wave, was smashed to fragments close 
 behind them ; but at Laurence's shout they turned 
 and staggered to the bank with their precious burden, 
 depositing it safely on the beach and shouting like 
 boys at their success. 
 
 " But t' boat's gone, Averil," said one of them at 
 length. " How will we get off again ? " 
 
 ' Time enough to bother about that," he told 
 them. " Here's work to do ashore first. When 
 we've done we'll swim — or steal an Icelander's
 
 198 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 boat," he added, for the reckless joy of successful 
 struggle was in his veins. 
 
 They unpacked the dynamite, repacking it in two 
 parcels, each slung from shoulder ropes ; and in an 
 hour Laurence was leading them carefully across the 
 bare wilderness, now warm with summertime, that 
 he had traversed in those cold and weary hours two 
 months before. 
 
 It took the little party with their dangerous load 
 two hours to reach Uthlld rock. The heat, to thickly 
 clad, heavily loaded men, was overpowering, and the 
 abundance of flies surprised Laurence greatly. The 
 road was rough, too. Once past the silent and 
 deserted settlement it was necessary to scramble 
 up and down over a constant succession of slippery 
 lava hummocks, their faces and edges hard and 
 sharp as polished steel ; and the route that Laur- 
 ence, stupefied with drink and misery, had traversed 
 without notice in the chill of early spring, proved a 
 difficult matter for a body of men loaded with 
 dangerous explosives to negotiate in the scorching 
 midday of the brief northern summer. They were 
 done up and exhausted, their nerves unstrung by 
 occasional slips of booted feet on the bare lava, the 
 surface of which gave but insecure foothold, long 
 before they reached the rock. When they were 
 within half a mile of it, Laurence ordered one of the 
 packages to be left, and the four men together carried 
 the other to the foot of the great boulder. There 
 was no need for excavation, even had tools for the 
 purpose been at hand. The poor mould that lay 
 between the broken masses of malachite was easily 
 removed by hand. He distributed the heavy cart- 
 ridges lie had brought between three of the cavities, 
 mid n nt the men back to the other package whilst
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 199 
 
 he affixed the fuses. Then with one last glance up- 
 wards at the great wall of hard tufa that centuries 
 had barely smoothed, he set light to them and ran 
 for dear life. 
 
 They were arranged to burn for ten minutes — and 
 Laurence never lived a longer ten minutes in his life. 
 The ground was hard and rough ; his sea-boots of a 
 sudden seemed to have become as heavy as lead ; 
 and he scrambled and ran, jumping from boulder to 
 boulder like a man in a nightmare. Once he slipped, 
 and imagining a twisted ankle, even before he touched 
 ground, his blood ran cold with fear. But he was up 
 again next minute, and threw himself down by the 
 waiting men, sweating and gasping for breath, a full 
 minute before the charge exploded. 
 
 Then ! — a roar that seemed to shake the very 
 ground, and that echoed from hill to hill, progressing 
 faint and ever fainter towards the great glacier- 
 topped uplands of the interior. A mighty and beauti- 
 ful plume of white smoke jetted high into the sun- 
 light, and wafted inland before the breeze in the 
 direction of Asaa. As it cleared they looked anxiously 
 at the rock, expecting to see no more of it ; but as 
 the white cloud around it was dispersed by the 
 southerly wind, a stump full half its original height 
 slowly emerged, still standing. 
 
 Without waiting a moment, Laurence set off 
 towards the scene of his labours, telling the men to 
 remain where they were. On reaching the spot he 
 found the hollow had entirely vanished, its lava walls 
 having been blown completely away. The turf and 
 mould that had formed its carpet had also gone, 
 leaving a pit with sides and bottom of dark grey 
 shale. Over the spot where the malachite had been 
 an enormous wedge-shaped slab of tufa, detached
 
 200 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 from the summit of the rock, had slid down when the 
 base of the rock had been destroyed, and all traces 
 of the malachite were hidden completely. 
 
 He went back to within shouting distance of the 
 men, and called to them to bring up the remainder 
 of the dynamite, sending up a fervent prayer that 
 the quantity he had brought would be sufficient for 
 his purpose. When they arrived he crawled beneath 
 the great wedge and found a vacant space under a 
 portion of the rock base that had escaped destruction. 
 In this he placed his cartridges, reflecting that he 
 would have to take care to crawl out without delay, 
 and again sending the men to the rear, $ie fitted and 
 lighted the last of the fuses. 
 
 Crawling out from that crack was the most awful 
 ordeal that Laurence Averil had ever undergone. 
 His movements were perforce deliberate ; any hurry, 
 any change from the exact direction in which he had 
 entered, and he might stick fast, for the crack 
 between the rocks was narrow in the extreme. In 
 places he had to crawl sideways, his weight on the 
 hand beneath him, and there was not room to bend 
 his knees more than a handsbreadth from the straight. 
 In thought he suffered death a hundred times, as, 
 with teeth set and slow and careful motions, he edged 
 himself towards outer air, the fuses fizzing merrily 
 behind him. Once in the open he ran like a deer, 
 reaching safety just as the second explosion occurred ; 
 and not until the smoke had blown completely away 
 did he rise to a sitting position, his breath drawn 
 in sobs between his teeth, to look at its work. 
 
 This time no trace of the rock remained. With 
 the piled-up lava that had buttressed it behind, it 
 was strewn in shattered fragments over a circle a 
 quarter of a mile across. He stood at the edge of the
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 201 
 
 great pit the explosions had made and looked over 
 its naked surface intently. Then he rubbed his eyes 
 ami looked again, and then descended into the hollow 
 to carefully scrutinise every portion of its interior. 
 
 But careful scrutiny told him again the truth 
 he had learnt in that first glance. An unbroken face 
 of shale met his view on every side of the pit, except 
 where a cavity had become filled with once molten 
 lava, and of malachite there was not a trace ! and all 
 his dreams, first for himself and then for Marion, had 
 vanished into thin air— had drifted away into nothing- 
 ness with the smoke of the two explosions ! 
 
 The men, advancing stood upon the brink above 
 him, regarding the destruction with astonishment. 
 He scrambled up to them to search among the debris 
 of rock for a fragment of malachite. Two or threa 
 small pieces lay upon the lava, and he picked one up 
 and showed it to them. 
 
 " See that green stuff ? " he said. " That's what 
 I'm looking for. Never mind any bits lying about 
 here. Get into the pit and see if you can find any 
 left stuck in the sides. There's a sovereign for the 
 man who sees it first." 
 
 They searched for a couple of hours, Laurence 
 going carefulfy over the ground after them, but 
 not a trace of malachite was visible, and the stratified 
 lines of the shale ran in unbroken regularity all 
 round the excavation. At the end of that time he 
 rose erect, straightening his back. " All right," he 
 said. " That'll do. We need waste no longer time 
 here. Now to find a boat," and the four men set off 
 on their return to Langholt. 
 
 The inhabitants, alarmed at the explosions, had 
 returned to their house, and two of the men met them 
 when half-way to the shore, Laurence told them to
 
 202 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 return, saying that he wanted a boat. When they 
 understood his Danish they shook their heads, saying 
 that the surf was too high for one to be launched, bfre 
 the} 7 walked back to the beach in company with the 
 party. Once there, the first of the boats was taken 
 by force and thrown into the breakers, no permission 
 being asked of the owners, and Laurence, taking no 
 notice of the Icelanders' cries, grasped one man by 
 the collar and flung him in after it. The boat, being 
 heavier than the smashed dinghy, rode off at the first 
 attempt, the men hauling the weeping native on 
 board as they shipped the oars. At the trawler's side 
 Laurence gave him a sovereign, leaving him to beach 
 the ungainly looking pram as best he -might ; and 
 once aboard he gave orders to get under way at once, 
 only going below to change his clothes when the 
 anchor was up and the screw had begun to revolve. 
 
 When he came on deck an hour later Iceland was 
 fading away to the northward, and long before the 
 clear grey light of midnight had briefly replaced the 
 summer sun it was gone from sight— as utterly gone 
 as his golden dreams of but two short weeks before. 
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 MARION STEWART stood as Laurence had 
 left her, dumb with surprise. In the course 
 of a single forenoon she had received an offer that 
 raised her to what she considered unheard-of affluence, 
 and had asked Laurence for advice — more as an 
 excuse to tell him of her good fortune, it is true, than 
 because she desired any advice at all. He had told 
 her to refuse — refuse ! — this most providential of 
 offers ; had informed her he was the son of the man
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 208 
 
 who had ruined and killed her own father, and then 
 had walked off, his manner as serenely matter-of- 
 course as though such revelations were to him but 
 daily events. 
 
 As he had anticipated, her surprise gave way to 
 slow anger. That he, the son of that miscreant, that 
 villain, Herman Averil, had ever dared even to speak 
 to her ! And he had kissed her ! — against her will, 
 it was true, but still, kissed her he certainly had. 
 The offence had rankled less in her mind this last 
 week — some queer feeling that was not at all antipathy 
 had blended with it — but now this bouleversement of 
 everything brought back her first impression of his 
 hatefully masterful bearing, and she rubbed her 
 mouth, half unconsciously, with the back of her little 
 glove. 
 
 How dared he even to speak to her ? But perhaps 
 he had only known when he saw her letters that Fate 
 had so linked their parents together. Whether he 
 knew or not, he was bad — bad all through — of bad 
 stock. No wonder he had gone away as he had. He 
 dared not stay, the coward ! Oh that she could tell 
 him bitterly what she felt towards him and his father ! 
 Her two past years of strife and some of her early dis- 
 couragements — the strife and discouragements that 
 lie about the lonely and pretty woman's path — came 
 to her mind, and she paled with anger. Well for him 
 he had fled. " Coward, coward," she said — and, in 
 her heart, she knew she was lying. Well, brute, then. 
 Detestable, hateful, and vile he had been, even — even 
 if he wasn't afraid of things. She sat down and 
 thought it all over. Could he have known anything 
 of the circumstances of the father's case? She 
 thought not, but reconsidering the fact of his friend- 
 ship with Dwyer, left that question for the time
 
 204 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 unanswered. In any case, Dwyer's offer was out- 
 bidden. Laurence had said so himself. And she 
 was to go to him for advice. She decided to do so 
 on Monday. Meanwhile she would get a map of 
 Iceland and some books and try to learn something 
 of the place. She remembered it was sulphur her 
 father had anticipated finding there, but, short of 
 that, she remembered little of the catastrophe that 
 had ended his days and turned her adrift to shift for 
 herself. 
 
 She walked home slowly, to find Laurence had 
 gone, and after the excitement of the morning the 
 day dragged wearily and uneventfully. She went to 
 the Exhibition in the evening, but returned early. 
 Hating him as she was sure she did, she would not 
 admit even to herself that his absence spoilt her 
 pleasure ; but although her good fortune was vividly 
 present to her when she went to bed, some unformed 
 feeling within her dulled its brightness. Was it 
 regret that he had gone ? she asked herself. No— 
 a thousand times no. How could she possibly regret 
 having seen the last of him ? She fell asleep trying 
 to find justly opprobrious terms in which to describe 
 his effrontery and wickedness. 
 
 On Monday she went to Dwyer & Tyrcll, to be 
 received with the respect due to a client with thou- 
 sands of broad acres beneath her sway. As an 
 obsequious clerk ushered her into Dwyer's private 
 room, she compared her reception with that which 
 she had encountered only a few days before when 
 she had called for Webster's address, and the altera- 
 tion gave her warm delight. She entered with her 
 little chin up, doing her best to seem oblivious of 
 the fact that she still wore her array of spring-time, 
 and her haughty demeanour made Pat Dwyer
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 205 
 
 chuckle inwardly. Laurence's bare admission that 
 he knew her name, coupled with his instructions 
 before departure, had excited his curiosity. Re- 
 membering Constance Armitage's visit and anxious 
 demand for his address, he had believed her to be 
 the source of his knowledge of Mortimer & Rein- 
 gold's offer, and of the name of the holder of the 
 shares ; but at sight of Marion's delicate, cameo- 
 like face and slender figure, he began to understand 
 more clearly how things stood. ' Quixotic ass," 
 he said to himself, and turned his attention to this 
 new client. 
 
 " Miss Stewart ? " he interrogated, consulting the 
 
 card she had sent in. 
 
 She bowed. 
 
 " You have called about our offer for your holding 
 in the Iceland Development Company ? ' 
 
 " Not altogether. I've received a higher offer 
 from a firm of stockbrokers— Messrs. Mortimer & 
 Reingold— and I have come to you for advice re- 
 specting it. Can you tell me anything about the 
 firm ? Your own offer, being outbidden, I presume 
 falls to the ground. A — an acquaintance of mine, a 
 Mr. Averil, told me to come to you." 
 
 "Yes?" All Pat's professional manner was 
 needed to conceal his surprise. Laurence had sent 
 her there himself ! " Laurence Averil, eh ? A good 
 — well, he is a good chap at bottom. We were at 
 Oxford together. Do you know him well ? ' 
 
 "He is an acquaintance," she repeated coldly. 
 " As I never even knew he had been at college at all, 
 you can sec I know very little of him. May I ask 
 your advice respecting these shares ? ' 
 
 " Oh, you won't sell at present, of course. I 
 think I am at liberty to tell you that— er— some
 
 206 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 valuable minerals have been discovered on the 
 ground. The fact has leaked out, somehow, and 
 consequently thefe is every probability of the price 
 of your shares rising higher, so that your proper 
 course is to keep them in your own hands at present." 
 
 ' Leaked out ? How- — who made the discovery ? ' 
 But she had no need to ask. She knew. 
 
 " That I am not at liberty to say." 
 
 ' ' And — has Mr. Averil instructed you to withdraw 
 his first offer for the shares ? " she hazarded. 
 
 Pat looked at her keenly. Laurence, after telling 
 him his name was not to transpire, had bolted with- 
 out explanations and left him groping in the dark. 
 
 " What offer ? " he said innocently. 
 
 " This." She tapped Dwyer's own letter with an 
 accusing finger. " I — I saw Mr. Averil on Saturday, 
 and — and I understood the offer came from him." 
 
 " Oh, if he told you so " said Pat, trapped. 
 
 She jesuitically congratulated herself on keeping 
 within the limits of strict truth. " Did he instruct 
 you to withdraw ? " 
 
 " Yes. It wasn't important that he should do so, 
 of course. The other offer settled that. I rather 
 fancy he thought it would clear the way for us — our 
 advising you, you know." 
 
 " He's returned to Leith, I believe ? " 
 
 Pat nodded. 
 
 ' Thank you. That's all now, I think." She rose 
 to go. ' I am to keep the shares until you instruct 
 me to sell. Is that right ? " 
 
 ' Quite right." He rose and opened the door for 
 her. " Good-morning." 
 
 She went down the stairs in a greater rage with 
 Laurence than ever. So he had found this stuff — 
 whatever it was — and had come to London with
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 207 
 
 the deliberate intention of cheating her out of her 
 shares. No wonder he had been so upset when she 
 told him his offer was insufficient — the cheat ! And 
 when his wicked plans had been frustrated, he had 
 run away. He was a coward, too, after all. With 
 a woman's reasoning, she pushed aside the few facts 
 that interfered with her theory. True, he had reeled 
 and shown all the signs of agitation before she had 
 shown him the second letter, but her first words had 
 informed him the offer was five hundred pounds, and 
 that must have told him his own efforts were fruit- 
 less. The mean, cowardly cheat ! How she hated 
 hj m t— Yes, she really did hate him now. On reflec- 
 tion, only one doubt came to assail her. If he had 
 told her to wait a few days, he could have made a 
 larger offer than five hundred pounds for the shares, 
 and, acting on his advice she would probably 
 have accepted it. Why hadn't he done that ? 
 she wondered. She must beware. Perhaps he in- 
 tended doing it even now. Could it be that Dwycr 
 was in collusion with him ? She shook her head 
 sagely, suspecting all men, and reserved to herself 
 the right to accept or decline Dwyer's advice when it 
 was forthcoming. 
 
 Tuesday morning brought another letter from yet 
 another stockbroker. It was incited by Clement 
 Harper's London agent, if she had but known it. 
 Clement had decided that no harm could come and 
 much good might possibly accrue from a judicious 
 agitation respecting the Iceland shares, and the 
 barely worded inquiry as to the terms on which 
 she would part with ordinary stock was the direct 
 result of his action. She went straight to the office 
 from which the inquiry was dated, and was able to 
 discover that it came from Leith. As a natural
 
 208 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 result, she attributed it to the evil machinations of 
 the unspeakable Laurence — who at that moment 
 was grilling on a firebox, like a later incarnation of 
 his own patron saint, in her service — and her refusal 
 to state terms was as shortly worded as politeness 
 would allow. She told Dwyer of the letter, however, 
 and Pat saw that the inquiry was discreetly adver- 
 tised in the proper channels. When it came to 
 Reingold's ears he fell into a profuse state of per- 
 spiration. 
 
 " There'th thomething in that tale of your'th, 
 Harry," he told Mortimer. " There'th more of 'em 
 after thothe cuthed thareth of Averil'th. Where'th 
 that girl'th letter ? " He glanced over it and wrote 
 again to Marion, asking her to state her own price for 
 ordinary shares. 
 
 She took the letter to Dwyer. 
 
 " I hardly know what to advise you," he said, 
 perplexed. " Definite offers below par of course you 
 should refuse, but this is different. Will you allow 
 me to answer it ? " 
 
 " What shall you say ? " she asked. 
 
 " I'll ask double the price of the shares," he told 
 her. " They'll refuse that, but it'll show them we're 
 not ignorant of their value. Will that do ? ' 
 
 " I am in your hands," she said, and Pat wrote 
 accordingly. 
 
 Reingold tore his hair when the letter arrived. 
 " Look at it ! " he cried to his partner. ' There'th 
 that blathted Dwyer at it again now. Harry, my 
 boy, we're out of thith. We've been done by that 
 pup. To think we wath directorth of the company 
 a fortnight ago ! " 
 
 Mortimer looked at the letter stolidly. 
 
 " We'll buy," he said, mindful of Constance's
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 209 
 
 advice. " We'll buy the ruddy lot. Sixteen hundred 
 quid ! and we could have got 'em for the asking. It's 
 heart-breaking— but six per cent, on ten thou, de- 
 bentures is only six hundred a year, and if the tale 
 I've heard is right there should be a thundering 
 sight more than that in it. We'll become good little 
 industrial investors with money to spend for once, 
 Reiny. Anyhow, we shall have the control of the 
 biz if we've all the ordinaries," And Dwyer's sur- 
 prise and disgust when the acceptance reached him 
 next morning nearly deprived him of speech. 
 
 " I'm sorry, Miss Stewart," he told Marion, who, 
 summoned by wire, sat in the office, radiant. ' I 
 never imagined they would look at it — and yet here's 
 
 their cheque. What on earth Laurence will say " 
 
 He stopped short. 
 
 " What's Mr. Averil got to do with it ? " Marion 
 demanded sharply. 
 
 " He— he— well, he told me I should advise you 
 to hold on. Perhaps these shares would have gone 
 higher, you know." 
 
 " Perhaps he would have had time to make an 
 offer through another agent ? " Marion suggested 
 scornfully. 
 
 " Laurence ! What do you mean ? " Dwyer was 
 wide-eyed with surprise and indignation. " Do you 
 imagine Laurence would— would try and get them 
 behind your back in that way ? Besides, he can't — 
 he hasn't the money." 
 
 " I thought he was rich ? " 
 
 " He isn't, then. He's a poor man If you re- 
 member, that offer of two hundred was to be paid in 
 two instalments He only had a hundred pounds to 
 his name " 
 
 " And I've made sixteen hundred— one thousand
 
 210 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 six hundred pounds — off less than a tenth of what he 
 offered me two hundred for. Do you call that 
 honourable ? " 
 
 " He — he didn't know you were the holder of the 
 shares " 
 
 " What has that got to do with it ? " 
 
 " I don't know — perhaps it hasn't anything. But 
 you must remember nobody thought the shares of 
 any value then." 
 
 " Nobody except himself, and he knew. And now 
 I can get twice their face value for them." 
 
 " For ordinaries — yes. But they're only a gamble, 
 you see. Under no circumstances can you expect to 
 get much more than face value for your debentures. 
 You must remember that. If all goes well, you 
 might — might, I say, mind you — you might get a 
 hundred and five or a hundred and ten for each 
 debenture. Not more." 
 
 " Why can't I get as much for them as the other 
 shares ? " she asked ; and Pat, in a long explanation 
 as to the respective qualities of debentures and 
 ordinary stock, was able to lead the conversation 
 away from Laurence and his criminal tendencies. 
 
 For the next week Marion enjoyed herself hugely. 
 For the first time in her life she had money to spend 
 without having to count every penny, and she dis- 
 played a taste in clothing and amusements that made 
 her landlady and very real friend, Mrs. Jardinc, 
 quake with apprehension. She dragged that long- 
 suffering body from the theatre to the milliner's, and 
 from concert-hall to show-room, at a rate that barely 
 .- llowed her time to throw up her hands and say, 
 " Well ! well ! " in a faint crescendo, at each new 
 departure. She spent nearly a hundred pounds of 
 her new capital in ten days, and, in satisfying her
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 211 
 
 womanly yearning for pleasures and pretty things, 
 was able to congratulate herself on having had her 
 money's worth. Then came a letter from Dwyer, 
 and she attended the office again, fashionably 
 dressed, bright with anticipation, and altogether a 
 very different being from the meek little workwoman 
 that had first come there seeking an address. 
 
 She sank into a chair with a luxurious rustle. 
 
 "And what is it now, Mr.Dwyer ?"she asked merrily. 
 " More fortunes for me?" 
 
 " 'Fraid not." Dwyer looked serious. " Fact is, 
 I think you won't make much more out of the shares. 
 You've got to begin to try and sell your debentures 
 now." 
 
 " Why ? " 
 
 " The deposit has proved to be only a surface one," 
 he told her. " We — we've had a representative 
 there, aud his report is discouraging — fatal, in fact." 
 
 " When did you hear ? " 
 
 " We had a wire last night, followed by a letter 
 this morning. I — I hope you won't be disappointed, 
 but the fact is, I'm afraid you'll have some difficulty 
 in getting those debentures off your hands. You see, 
 they're cither worthless paper, or they're such good 
 securities that people would be surprised at your 
 trying to get rid of them, and they'll naturally be 
 suspicious of them." 
 
 " What representative have you sent there ? " 
 
 " That I am afraid I cannot tell you." 
 
 " You needn't. I know. It's Mr. Averil. I don't 
 believe a word of it. He's trying to let down the 
 price of shares, so that he can buy." 
 
 Annoyed as Dwyer was, he yet could scarcely keep 
 from laughing in her face. " The idea ! " he said. 
 " But it's no use keeping in the fact, Miss Stewart,
 
 212 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 The advice does come from Laurence, and if you're 
 wise, you'll get rid of your debentures as soon as 
 possible — and be grateful to him. If it weren't 
 for him, you wouldn't have got a penny— and 
 even at the worst, you've made sixteen hundred 
 pounds." 
 
 " Yes — for which he offered me two hundred," she 
 said angrily. " He's tried to cheat me all along. I 
 know. I shall not sell." 
 
 " Very well. Not that it matters much, I'm afraid. 
 You'll find it difficult to get rid of debentures in any 
 case, as I've told you already. And now, good 
 morning." 
 
 But Marion sat still. " Won't— won't you show 
 me his letter ? " she asked. 
 
 Pat considered. 
 
 " I don't know that there's any reason why I 
 shouldn't," he said, and handed her a sheet of note- 
 paper and a telegram. The latter was dated from 
 Leith the evening before, and was short. ' Sell 
 letter follows," it said, and she turned to the letter. 
 
 " Dear Pat,"— it ran,—" Here I am again, bad- 
 penny-like. I've been to Langholt as fast as a 
 trawler could take me, and beaten anybody M. & R. 
 could possibly have sent by a week at least." 
 
 " What does this mean? " she asked, reading the 
 passage aloud. 
 
 " I don't know— can't imagine. He might have 
 had some idea Mortimer & Reingold would send an 
 agent to inquire." 
 
 " When their man gets there, he'll find I've done 
 him a good turn. The ground is nicely laid open for 
 his inspection. I stuck half a dozen dynamite
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 213 
 
 cartridges under Uthlid rock, and blew that interest- 
 ing relic of the ages to Glory, and there's scarcely 
 enough of it left for him to write his name on. As 
 to the malachite !— well, it's gone to Glory, with the 
 rest. The explosion blew a hole in the ground as big 
 as the pit of a small theatre, and it's nicely lined 
 with shale— shale— shale and lava everywhere. Not 
 a speck of anything else— so that game's up. We 
 made speedy tracks, bagged a native boat— there 
 was a bit of sea running, and our own was smashed 
 to splinters in landing— chucked an unwilling native 
 into it, and got off to the trawler. Then I recompensed 
 the simple islander with gold, up anchor, and home 
 again, and here I am. Leith to Langholt, a day 
 ashore, and Langholt to Leith, all in eight days, is 
 middling smart moving. Net results : a strained 
 boiler tube or two, a pair of burnt sea-boots and a 
 guernsey to my account, and a smashed dinghy, and 
 no malachite. Now go to Miss Stewart and tell her 
 to sell. M. & R. will probably stand to their offer of 
 five hundred pounds, and she must consider herself 
 lucky if she gets that. My shares you can chuck in 
 the fire." 
 
 " What shares ? " she demanded, looking up from 
 the letter at Dwyer. 
 
 " Eh ? " He looked over her shoulders. " Oh, 
 these." He took them from his desk, and showed 
 her. " I bought these four for him." 
 
 " What were you going to do with them if the 
 discovery had proved a good one ? " 
 
 " Laurence left word that they were to be offered 
 to you at par — their face value." 
 
 " Did he ? " Her face showed her wonderment. 
 " But why ? " 
 
 " That I must leave you to guess. He gave me
 
 214 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 no reason," Dwyer said. He was still nettled at her 
 suspicions. 
 
 She looked at him blankly, then turned to the 
 letter again. 
 
 " Have you seen anything of her, Pat ? If so, you 
 might drop me a line and tell me how she's looking, 
 and whether she's chanced to mention my name. 
 You may remember our first meeting. She came to 
 your office in a cab with me, seeking the address of 
 Tyrrell's pal, Webster. I saw more of her after that, 
 and if you'll believe me, she asked mj' advice as to 
 whether she was to accept my offer for those shares. 
 I never knew she was the holder till then, of course. 
 Do you remember once when you were going to tell 
 me her name, and I said I didn't want to know it ? 
 ' Easier to rob an abstract nonentity than an in- 
 dividual woman,' I said. And 'she's not the only 
 single woman in the world.' But she is, worse luck. 
 Heigh-ho I I'm not suited for the role of love-lorn 
 swain, I fear me. 
 
 " " Enough of this. Tell her to sell those shares — 
 get a good price for her, old man, and when you've 
 time send me a line to tell me how you've got on and 
 what price they fetched. — Thine, as of yore, 
 
 " Laurence. 
 
 " P.S. — Don't forget to tell me how she looks. I 
 rely on you not to let her get hold of my name." 
 
 She sat silently, turning the letter over and over 
 in her hands. " Why did he want his name kept 
 quiet ? " she asked at length, her eyes on the floor. 
 
 " That, again, I must leave to you to guess. 
 Perhaps he has some idea of buying the shares," he 
 reminded her maliciously. 
 
 " The — the expenses of the trip I must make good
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 215 
 
 to you," she said, disregarding the taunt behind his 
 
 last words. 
 
 " They're no expenses of mine. Laurence did the 
 
 thing off his own bat." 
 
 " But I thought you said he had no money ? ' 
 
 " I suppose a hundred pounds is enough to take 
 him to Iceland and back, twice over. If he's been 
 chartering trawlers, overheating boiler tubes, and 
 smashing dinghys, he'll find he's made a hole in his 
 capital, though." 
 
 ■' Why— why should he " she began. But she 
 
 knew the truth before her sentence was framed, and 
 sat quietly— very quietly— never speaking. 
 
 Dwyer rose and went to the window, stifling an 
 obtrusively artificial yawn, and she blessed him for 
 it as she fumbled for a pocket handkerchief that 
 seemed terribly hard to come at. 
 
 She was on her feet winking suspiciously when he 
 turned to the room again, but the handkerchief had 
 returned to the mysterious recess in which woman- 
 kind stores such belongings. 
 
 She held out her hand. " Goo— good-bye, Mr. 
 Dwyer," she said, with her best attempt at com- 
 posure. " I'm very much obliged for all you've done 
 for me," and glided away silently. 
 
 Pat rubbed his nose in deep thought. " I've done 
 my best for you, Laurie, my friend," he said at length, 
 and returned to his correspondence. The tune he 
 whistled softly would have provoked an open rupture 
 if Laurence had been there. It was a dismal render- 
 ing of the Wedding March.
 
 216 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 MARION went back to West Kensington as one 
 in a trance, wide-eyed, seeing nothing. The 
 roar of traffic in her ears sunk to the sound of breakers 
 on a beach — such breakers as beat boats into floating 
 pieces of wreckage — and the thunder of the train as 
 it plunged into the underground ways was the 
 thunder rending dynamite echoing in unknown vast 
 solitudes. All the time Laurence's face was before 
 her. Their first meeting — how she had hated him 
 then ! At the memory of his kiss the shamed blood 
 ran warmly in her veins and her face flushed — but 
 not as it had flushed before. How strong he was — 
 how masterful. How firmly he had held her — how he 
 had laughed, wickedly and recklessly, when she 
 struck him on the mouth. She remembered his grip 
 of her body, and how she, weakened by the brief 
 struggle, had been drawn to his breast. It was with 
 an entirely new feeling — a feeling she refused to 
 analyse — that her memory came to her now. 
 
 And he had left, not to escape her wrath — oh, 
 fool ! to think that he could ever fear her puny rage 
 — but to do her service. And she had deemed him 
 afraid ! — What fools women were ! She remembered 
 the hatred with which he had spoken of his former 
 life — and now he had gone back to it of his own free 
 will, for her sake. Between the lines of his letter she 
 had read what Dwyer could not read — the weary toil, 
 the accidents of wind and sea, all borne for her. 
 
 On arriving home she went straight to her room 
 and laid herself down, her face on the pillow, in silent 
 self-reproach at the injustice she had done him. For
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 217 
 
 an hour she lay there, never stirring, hiding her face 
 from the day, but never hiding from herself for a 
 moment the happy, shameful truth that she loved 
 him— loved him— loved him. And, thank God ! he 
 was poor— and she need not go to him with empty 
 hands. 
 
 Wondering at her absence, Mrs. Jardine sought 
 her, and at her knock Marion sat bolt upright upon 
 her' bed. Her eyes were bright and wet for all the 
 new-found happiness in them, and her pillow was 
 stained with tears. The old woman came in and 
 stood before her. 
 
 " Ye've been crying," she said accusingly. 
 " I haven't," Marion declared stoutly. ' But— 
 but I'm going to," and she broke down again in real 
 good earnest, sobbing joyously against the older 
 woman's shoulder. 
 
 " Dearie— dear," Mrs. Jardine said, smoothing her 
 hair lightly. " What is it, child ? What is it ? ' 
 
 " I c-can't tell you," Marion answered, choking. 
 " It's too long to tell. Let me cry." 
 
 The old woman held her gently until her passion 
 of tears was over and she had sniffed herself back 
 to composure, dabbing at her eyes with a wet and 
 crumpled handkerchief the while. 
 
 " Now I'm all right," she announced, with a 
 watery smile. " It's no good your asking me any- 
 thing, you dear old thing, because I shan't tell you. 
 I've been a fool— and now I'm a wise woman. And 
 very soon I— I'm going to be a happy one, I do 
 believe. And that's all." And the landlady, know- 
 ing, as a woman, that tears were not incompatible 
 with happiness, asked no more. Also because she 
 was a woman she announced her immediate intention 
 of having tea brought up for the pair of them, But
 
 218 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 as she went to the door she could not restrain one 
 question. 
 
 "Is it a marriage, dearie ? " she asked softly. 
 But Marion, with an April face, rushed at her, drove 
 her from the room, and shut the door ungratefully 
 behind her. 
 
 "I'm going away to-morrow," she announced, 
 when the tea was produced. 
 
 " And where, dearie ? " 
 
 " To Leith." 
 
 " I knew. I knew." The old woman laughed 
 triumphantly. " It's Mr. Averil. Now, isn't it ? " 
 
 Marion fished out a tea-leaf from her cup and 
 placed it upon the back of one hand, smacking it 
 with the other, after the approved method of divina- 
 tion, until it stuck to her pink palm. 
 
 "Yes— No. Yes— No. Yes— No. Yes— No," 
 she said. " There, it's No. Silly thing." She 
 flicked the tea-leaf at the landlady disrespectfully. 
 " Yes — No — and you can choose which answer you 
 like best. Now get me a time-table, and let me see 
 what time I must start." 
 
 So intent was she on the packing of the raiment 
 that should reduce Laurence to a due state of sub- 
 jugation that it was two o'clock before she got to 
 bed, by which time every article of dress in her 
 boxes had been inspected, approved, packed, un- 
 packed again, rejected, and again packed, at least 
 twice over. In her excitement she slept but little, 
 but by ten o'clock next morning was seated in the 
 train, very silently and soberly watching the racing 
 succession of northern suburbs through the carriage 
 window. The eight hours' lonely voyaging reduced 
 her to pitiful nervousness. What should she say to 
 Laurence when she met him ? What would he think
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 219 
 
 of her ? Unmaidenly ? Her little chin set reso- 
 lutely at the thought. Whatever he thought she 
 was not going to let convention spoil two lives ; and 
 the reflection that her own was one of them — a 
 reflection that would have unnerved most women — 
 only made her the firmer in her determination. 
 
 She slept in Edinburgh that night, continuing her 
 journey to Leith on the following morning, and on 
 arrival went straight to Harper's and demanded to 
 see Mr. Averil. He was not in, and the clerk was 
 unable to tell her where he had gone. Would she 
 sit down whilst he asked Mr. Harper ? 
 
 A sudden repugnance against speaking, even 
 casually, of her affairs to a clerk came over her. She 
 would see Mr. Harper herself, she said, and sending 
 in her card, was ushered into his private office. 
 
 " Please, I want to see Mr. Averil," she demanded, 
 refusing the seat he rose to offer her. If she hesitated 
 now, she was lost. 
 
 " He's out, Miss — Miss Stewart," Clement in- 
 formed her, consulting the card he held in his hand. 
 
 " Can you tell me where he is ? " 
 
 " He'll be on the quayside, I've nae doubt. He'll 
 be here again in about an hour. Will ye not 
 wait ? " 
 
 " No, thank you," Marion said, moistening her dry 
 lips. " It's — it's very important." 
 
 Clement glanced at her keenly, and a sudden light 
 came to him. 
 
 " Ye — ye '11 be the young lady that owns the Ice- 
 land shares ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Then I'll take the liberty o' asking what ye want 
 wi' one o' my employes ? " he demanded, his eyes 
 twinkling.
 
 220 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 Marion blushed to the roots of her hair, and, 
 " Lucky lad," said Clement Harper to himself. 
 
 " It's — it's private," said unhappy Marion, hot 
 and miserable. 
 
 " Nae doubt. Sit ye down a minute, young lady. 
 I've something t' say t' ye — an' then, if ye wish, I'll 
 take ye to the quayside myself." 
 
 Marion sat obediently, and Harper walked up and 
 down the room in front of her. At last he came to 
 rest before her chair and stood still, looking at her 
 gravely. 
 
 " Have ye known him long ? " he asked. " Forgie 
 me askin' — I'm old enough be to your father." 
 
 " About a month," Marion answered, her eyes 
 downcast, the long lashes lying on her flushed cheeks. 
 
 " And of that month he's been a fortnight away 
 from ye. D'ye know where he's been ? " 
 
 " To — to Iceland, hasn't he ? " 
 
 " Who told ye ? " 
 
 " His friend, Mr. Dwyer." 
 
 "Ah!" He became preternaturally grave. "D'ye 
 know, I feel it's my duty to tell ye that Laurence 
 Averil is one of the roughest men in my employ ? ' 
 
 The little chin came out obstinately as she looked 
 slowly up at him, and her eyes settled on his 
 face. 
 
 " He's a wild, foul-mouthed, drunken ne'er-do- 
 weel. Never a man in the fleet but's afraid o' him — 
 the drivin', man-killin' sweater. He's a " 
 
 But Marion was on her feet, quivering with anger. 
 " He's a man," she said. " And that's more than 
 can be said of you, saying such vile things behind 
 his back. I hate you — and what's more, if — if 
 Laurence Averil had horns and a tail I'd marry 
 him. There ! " She stamped her foot and swung
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 221 
 
 round to the door. She had her hand on the handle 
 before Harper's shout of laughter made her pause. 
 
 " Eh, eh ! " he cried, his fat sides shaking. " For- 
 gie's, Miss Stewart. We old folks must have our 
 joke. But oh ! if that's the way ye mean to treat 
 dour Laurence, yours'll be a peaceful household, I'm 
 thinkin'. Where's my hat ? " Before Marion had 
 recovered from her surprise, they were descending 
 the narrow ways to the Fish Quay together. 
 
 On the road he told her of his early connection 
 with her own story — of the sale by him of the lands 
 to Laurence's father. " And have ye sold all yon 
 shares ? " he asked. 
 
 " Some of them." 
 
 " Which ? " 
 
 " The ordinary shares. I've still got the deben- 
 tures." 
 
 " They'll come nicely to paper a room wi'," he 
 told her. "Yc've seen your last profit from that 
 company. Well, ye got rid o' th' ordinaries. That's 
 one service Laurie's done ye. And here's another." 
 — He told her of the episode of the firebox on his 
 last trip, and her breath came quick with pride and 
 love at the thought of his daring and suffering in 
 her cause. " And now here's the Fish Quay, and 
 yonder's Laurence. I've work to attend to else- 
 where, and ye can go and announce yourself." 
 
 Laurence stood with his back to her amid a busy 
 knot of men and women. Great piles of newly 
 caught fish lay around their feet, and a man standing 
 by his side was selling them by auction. She watched 
 him for some time. Occasionally, as he turned to 
 nod to the salesman, she caught a view of his profile. 
 It seemed stern and forbidding, but at length, taking
 
 222 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 
 
 her courage in both hands, she picked her way be- 
 tween the heaps of fish, and touched him on the 
 arm. 
 
 He turned over his shoulder to see who was behind 
 him. She saw him catch his lip in his teeth at 
 recognition, and he backed an order to two men, 
 carrying a great basket between them, with an oath 
 that made them jump. 
 
 Then, over his shoulder, " Do you want me ? " he 
 asked curtly. 
 
 " Yes," she told him. He turned and walked 
 back with her to the edge of the clamorous circle, 
 and stood there, his eyes still upon the men who 
 were bringing up and emptying the harvest of the 
 seas upon the stones. 
 
 " Yes ? " he said, and waited for her to begin. He 
 never looked at her. 
 
 ' I — I've sold the ordinary shares," she announced 
 timidly. 
 
 " Only the ordinaries. Why didn't you sell the 
 debentures ? " 
 
 " I haven't tried. I'm afraid it's too late now." 
 
 " Tchk, tchk." He clicked his tongue with annoy- 
 ance. " What did you get for the others ? " 
 
 " Sixteen hundred pounds." 
 
 " Good ! " He nodded approval, but still he 
 looked away, and they were both silent for a while. 
 
 She broke the silence. " I've spent a hundred of 
 it already." she said. 
 
 "Yes? " 
 
 ' Yes. In — in a trousseau. I — I'm going to get 
 married." 
 
 He made no answer. She saw his shoulders heave 
 with the deep breath he took as his back came round 
 towards her.
 
 THE SALVING OF A DERELICT 223 
 
 All he had ever heard of women's cruelty raced 
 into his brain. Olden legends of gladiatorial fights 
 in the arena, watched by the languid ladies of old 
 Rome — tales of the Spanish bull-ring of the present 
 day, where there were more mantillas than sombreros 
 in the circle of seats around the filthy butchery. 
 Oh, cruel, cruel beast of a woman ! This was worse 
 than he had ever conceived. However ill he had 
 behaved, nothing could justify this deliberate torture 
 as punishment. Could women know the pain they 
 gave ? Was it true that they bore suffering better 
 than men, because they were themselves incapable 
 of keen feeling ? 
 
 Again her hand touched his arm, and her shaking 
 voice broke in upon his thoughts. 
 
 " Don't — don't you want to know who it is ? " she 
 asked. 
 
 " No." His voice was harsh and hoarse. 
 
 " O-oh." The touch upon his arm became a 
 timorous squeeze, and he turned towards her in 
 consternation. Was she ill ? he wondered. 
 
 But her lips were smiling, though her eyes were 
 full of tears. Beneath their wet and fluttering lashes 
 they looked bravely into his own. And — " And must 
 I ask you myself, then, Laurence Averil ? " she said.
 
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