Page:Arthur Stringer - Gun Runner.djvu/213

 with that autocratic functionary for so long, whether the time was being spent in bribe-passing or in imbibing aguardiente flavoured with Jamaica rum and dried mint-leaves. Her fear fell away from her, however, when she saw Ganley come out of the stateroom door again. His face was dark and troubled, and to the guardedly watching woman, his tread seemed heavy and spiritless. She explained the episode to McKinnon, an hour later, when he casually strolled below and slipped unobserved into her cabin, as they had arranged.

"I don't think even Ganley could placate a beast like Yandel," explained the operator. "It would be like trying to wheedle yourself into the good graces of a grizzly. And he's been drinking—drinking abominably. It would be worse than trying to pet a boa-constrictor. He knows how to navigate a ship, and that is all."

"But if Ganley should put the whole case before him, and make the bribe a sufficiently big one? Suppose he waits until the last, and then simply buys him over?"

McKinnon shook his head.

"He's not the buyable kind, or he would have been bought before. And then he's against