But why were they sending the girl from the city? He frowned over this perplexedly. The matter had a meaning he could not see. Then, as he pondered, there came from the back of his mind several things which arranged themselves oddly, and yet confidently, before him. "What now?" said Anthony, looking at them, and frowning more than ever. "What now?" The first of the things dealt with was his pause overnight at the Brig Tavern, off the New Castle road. The girl and her father had been there; and they had been associated with persons concerned in fostering piracy, to be carried on under French letters of marque. "No doubt of that," acknowledged Anthony, and eyed the fact grudgingly; "they stood very intimately with them, indeed." The second of the things was equally positive, and had been fathered by Christopher Dent on that very night. Many people had visited the Lafargues at their lodgings, French and American; Citizen Genêt, whose words and acts in behalf of legalized piracy had lately filled the public ear and eye, had been one of them. "Yes," said Anthony, endeavoring to stare the fact out of countenance, "all that is true. But what has it to do with mademoiselle being on board this ship without her father?" And just as the two things seemed to be wavering, and not at all certain of their purpose, a third fact advanced smartly to their help, and at once set itself to lighting lamps in Anthony's mind. And so, where he had groped before, he now saw clearly. "The daughter is young," he said. "The father is old. The girl is strong of will; the old man is shaken and infirm. She is his right hand, his prop, the active half of his mind. If she were taken away, he'd be helpless; if she were not constantly at his side to guide his judgments he might be imposed upon. The father is a friend of the French agent, Genêt; and it is Genêt who commissions American-built and American-manned ships to sail against the English." The three facts merged victoriously into one shining result, and Anthony studied it. The girl's fears had been played upon; she was being sent away, and the old man was being held in the city that he might be turned to the crafty uses of Tarrant and his friends. Anthony smiled and ceased to plague his throbbing head. This was the kernel of the thing! And so he put all thought from him, composed himself to sleep, and slept soundly. XXIV When Anthony awoke he lay still for a space and listened. The river-water washed under the schooner's foot; he could hear the creak of the blocks and that flapping of sail that tells of little wind. A dim gray picked its way through the darkness, for the dawn had entered at the companionway.