Page:Under three flags; a story of mystery (IA underthreeflagss00tayliala).pdf/215

 the crew of three already aboard and his sailor friend preparing to cast off. He ruefully surveys the small craft and thinks of the 120-mile trip, but there is no alternative and he clambers aboard.

As the sails are hoisted Barker is amazed by the rate at which the little craft speeds out of the harbor. There is always a breeze on the keys, the captain of the Cayo tells him.

Soon the sea begins to growl a bit and Barker does not like it. As the breeze freshens, the commotion beneath his vest increases.

"Just the kind of a breeze for a run across, eh?" remarks the man at the tiller, with a voice that sounds to Barker like the rasp of a new saw.

"I dunno," replies the detective, whose face is rapidly becoming "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought."

But the little vessel continues to spin over the waters, as darkness settles upon the sea.

The stars are paling in the heavens and the gray dawn is creeping athwart the sloop, when Barker awakens from a troubled nap and struggles into a sitting posture. He sees only the bare horizon, the ocean lying black and leaden and wrinkled like an old man's face. There is no boat in sight, he thinks; they are not yet half-way to the Cuban shore.

But there is a boat in sight. Hull down to the east, imperceptible to his untrained eye, a delicate pearl shaft hangs like a pendant just on the horizon. For a time it seems dim and visionary; then even Barker, did he possess sufficient ambition to lift his head again, could see a duplicate of the sloop lazily crawling toward her, and, within half an hour, come alongside the Cayo Hueso.

At once certain mysterious boxes and casks, chiefly the latter, are transferred from one boat to the other. Then Barker laboriously and disconsolately steps from the Cayo Hueso to the strange boat, while his weather-beaten friend communes with the captain of the latter. His destination is a matter of supremest indifference to the detective. He manfully strives to hold up his head while