Page:Cornelia Meigs--The Pool of Stars.djvu/125

 So the ivory box was bought for Miranda after all. As Humphrey prepared to go, a picturesque person came into the shop, a fat, black man, very richly dressed with the silk scarfs, satin cloak and gold embroidered garments of a high court official. The young American glanced at him curiously as he squeezed by in the semi-darkness of the narrow place and was conscious of the penetrating stare of two hard black eyes that he could almost feel boring into his back as he went out. Before he had gone far, he thought that he heard a queer, smothered cry of terror in the shop. But the street was so full of noises that, though he paused to listen, he could not be certain and so went on again. In the busy days on board ship that followed, the Chinaman and his treasure presently passed completely from his mind.

Reports of the West Wind's quick passage had been going about, all this time, through the Mediterranean Fleet.

"But that was only a trial," Humphrey kept saying, "when we were learning how to handle her. On the voyage home we'll show you even more plainly what she can do."

That voyage was now soon to be, for the vessel had been selected to carry back the Commodore's dispatches and reports to Washington. On the day before she was to sail, a message came from the