Page:The Great Secret.djvu/201

Rh "Damnation!" said Dr Fernandez to his comrades.

"He knows a great deal too much about medicines for me to take what I require while he is awake, yet he has got what is needed in that chest, so we must get his keys when he is asleep some time."

There was no hurry yet, for they did not intend seizing the ship until they had passed the equator, then they could run her into one of the foreign states and get her repainted and refitted. Better a wooden schooner than nothing at all to ship their stuff about.

The two ladies, acting on their instructions, made themselves interesting and sweet to all on board, from the apprentice boy to the first mate. These Americans were puritanical and modest men, therefore these experienced coquettes found their task easy if a little wearisome, for to look pleasant and gracious and to keep in hand a dozen simple men with sentimental and platonic blandishments was child's play to those old stagers in the trade of love.

Each man thought himself the favourite of the syren he himself inclined towards; it was only her amiability that made her so gracious to the others. Hadn't they found opportunities to cast into each of those easily deluded eyes, with a shy tenderness and modest candour, shafts that rankled in the susceptible hearts. Oh, the truthful candour, the modesty, the shy tenderness of the expert, who has long ago forgotten what these sensations mean. They can beat Nature hollow. Innocence betrays itself sometimes, calculating vice, never.

They had weeks of rough and stormy seas, of which these soft witches made capital with the softer-hearted but robust men, when it seemed but manly and right to place an arm round the delicate waist to prevent