Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/123

Rh well, we know him, fortunately; and what can he learn unless he learns it from you or me? There's not another soul aboard knows anything. You will tell the skipper that we cross to America for a pleasure trip; you will help me to keep so close an eye on Master Francis Paolo, second mate, that if he lose a hair of his head we shall know it. In that way it may turn out that we shall get from him the link which is lost in the chain; and when he would draw us, we shall pump him as dry as a sand-pit. At least, that's my way of thinking, and I don't think it's such a poor notion, after all."

"It's not poor at all—it never came to me like that. Of course, you're right; let's take the man aboard, but I wish we could have left Mary behind—don't you?"

That I did, but what could I tell him? It was bad enough to be hugging all those fears and thoughts of danger to my own heart, without setting him all a-ferment with apprehension and unrest; so I laughed off his question, and after a six hours' sleep I went aft to the quarter-deck, to take stock of the yacht and get some better acquaintance with her.

She was a finely-built ship of some seven hundred tons, and was schooner-rigged, so that she could either sail or steam. Her engines were unusually large for so small a vessel, being triple-compound; while the main saloon, aft, and the