The consciously belated senator had begun with rhetorical regrets for the captain's and the commodore's illness and with paternal enthusiasm for those on whom it had brought such grave new cares. His own sympathetic share in their anxieties, he had hurried on to say, had robbed him of sleep and driven him up here solely for this interview. On the way he had chanced upon the general in the---- "Sssame ffframe of mind," the general had said, while the senator pressed as straight on as the _Votaress_. As far as the interests involved were private to this boat, he said, her officers and owners were entitled to keep them so and to be let alone in the management of them. But when that management became by its nature a vital part of an acute public problem--a national political issue--he felt bound, both as the Courteneys' private well-wisher and as a public servant, to urge such treatment of the matter as its national importance demanded. A spark, he said, might burn a city! A question of private ownership not worth a garnishee might set a whole nation afire! The arrival of Gilmore at the bell threw him into a sudden heat: "My God! Mr. Courteney--Mr. clerk--_I_ shan't offer to lay hands on _any_ man; not I. All _I_ ask is that you take yours off--of three. My dear sirs, equally as your true friend and as a lover of our troubled country I _beg_ you to liberate those citizens of the sovereign State of Arkansas whom you hold in unlawful duress, and to hear before witnesses the plea they regard as righteous and of national concern." The sight of Ned joining Gilmore heated him again: "Gentlemen, if you will do that, now, at once, you will save the fortunes of this superb boat, her honored owners, and their fleet. If you don't you wreck them forever before this day dawns. And you may--great heavens, gentlemen, you _may_ see the first bloodshed of sectional strife." "K-'tional ssstrife!" growled the general. The clerk smiled. "Why, senator, those men don't go beyond Helena. They leave us there, before sun-up." "Precisely, sir! And if they're not set free before you enter Helena Reach, or even pass Friar's Point, you may as well not free them at all." Hugh glanced at the clerk as if to speak. The clerk nodded and in the pilot-house they saw Hugh begin: "Mr. Senator, suppose we do that?" "You would do me honor, sir, and yourselves more." "Of course the watchmen of this boat watch." As Hugh said this the cub pilot came from the captain's room with some word to Gilmore, who, though yearning to stay, left him and Ned and hastened back to the texas. Meantime the senator: "I should hope so, sir. I hope every one on watch watches, sir." "They do. And so we know that you and the general know, perfectly, that the same men who want those three released want Mr. Gilmore put ashore. Is that your wish, too?" "It is, sssir," put in the general while the senator did some rapid thinking. Now he too replied: