Page:The Iron Pirate 1905.djvu/131

Rh a flare which he had with him on the bridge, and answered the signal, our own light showing far out, and lighting the great moving sea on which we rode so that one could count every crest about it.

The action completely staggered me. Without a thought I rushed up the ladder to the hurricane deck and stood beside him. He started as he saw me, and I could see him biting his lips, while an ugly look came into his eyes. But I charged him at once.

"Good-evening, Mister Mate," I said; "will you kindly tell me why you burnt that blue light?"

His excuse came readily.

"I burnt it to answer the signal yonder."

"But that was no affair of ours!"

He shrugged his shoulders, and muttered something about custom and something else, which he meant to be impudent. Yet in another moment he made effort to recall himself, and met me with an open, smiling face which covered anger. I began to upbraid myself for the folly of it, bursting out thus when there was no call for show; and I turned the talk to other things, searching to learn about him and his past; yet it was without reward, for he fenced in speech with all the point of a close Scotsman. But we came down the bridge together when the new watch was set; and he took a glass of wine with me in the saloon.

It was all well acted, a fine pretence of common