“Yes, it's the most beautiful and perfect night I ever saw, Mr. McGaw.” There was triumph in the captain's buoyant tones. “Must be allowed to be what they call a starry night for a ramble,” admitted the mate, trying to find speech to fit the occasion. “I will take the rest of this watch and the middle watch, Mr. McGaw,” offered the captain. “I want to stay up to-night. I can't go to sleep.” The offer meant that Captain Mayo proposed to stay on duty until four o'clock in the morning. Mate McGaw fiddled a gnarled finger under his nose and tried to find some words of protest. But Captain Mayo added a crisp command. “Go below, Mr. McGaw, and take it easy. You can make it up to me some time when there is no moon!” He laughed. When all the cabin lights were out and he realized that she must be asleep, he walked the bridge, exulting because her safety was in his hands, but supremely exultant because she loved him and had told him so. Obedience had been in the line of his training. She had commanded him to live and love in the present, allowing the future to take care of itself, and it afforded him a sense of sweet companionship to obey her slightest wish when he was apart from her. Therefore, he put aside all thoughts of Julius Marston and his millions--Julius Marston, his master, owner of the yacht which swept on under the moon--that frigid, silent man with the narrow strip of frosty beard pointing his chin. Mayo walked the bridge and lived and loved. II ~ THEN CAPTAIN MAYO SEES SHOALS There's naught upon the stern, there's naught upon the lee, Blow high, blow low, and so sailed we. But there's a lofty ship to windward, And she's sailing fast and free, Sailing down along the coast of the high Barbaree. --Ancient Shanty. The skipper of the _Olenia_ found himself dabbling in guesses and wonderment more than is good for a man who is expected to obey without asking the reason why. That cruise seemed to be a series of spasmodic alternations between leisurely loafing and hustling haste. There were days when he was ordered to amble along at half speed offshore. Then for hours together Julius Marston and his two especial and close companions, men of affairs, plainly, men of his kind, bunched themselves close together in their hammock chairs under the poop awning and talked interminably. Alma Marston and her young friends, chaperoned by an amiable aunt--so Captain Mayo understood her status in the party--remained considerately away from the earnest group of three. Arthur Beveridge attached himself to the young folks. From the bridge the captain caught glimpses of all this shipboard routine. The yacht's saunterings offshore seemed a part of the summer vacation. But the occasional hurryings into harbors, the conferences below with men who came and went with more or less attempt at secrecy, did not fit with the vacation side of the cruise.