Ramsey's soft laugh interrupted. "He didn't. He never said that, my lady. He wouldn't know how. You said it." "Well, he did say that under it all there's nothing lost of the Ramsey we began with." "The slanderer!" They laughed together. The calls of the lead were passing unnoticed. "Mark above water, twain; mark, twain; quarter less, twain; half, twain; nine and a half; by the mark, nine; nine feet." "The slanderer! Why, that's actionable! I'll have the law on him!" The speaker's mirth was overdone. As the leadsman sang another cry and Hugh sedately spoke it she tinkled as of old and said: "Don't get excited, captain. Keep cool." Mrs. Gilmore sobered. "You may laugh, but I believe he's talked with your father conclusively and will to you to-night, if you'll allow it." "Humph! you don't know that he'll come near me. Aboard his own boat, on her trial trip, he's got other fish to fry. But even if he should, don't you see how absolute the deadlock is? Oh, you must have seen it these eight years and more!--in spite of everybody's silence." "We didn't. We don't see it even now, Gilmore and I. We don't believe Captain Hugh sees any deadlock whatever. He merely knows you think you do. You think to accept him would condemn him to death?" "Mrs. Gilmore, I know it would. My brothers--may have broken promises but they--keep--their--threats. You know that's the fashion of all this country, from Cairo down." "Ma-a-ark, twai-ai-ain," chanted the leadsman for his final call, and not only Hugh but an echo from the land repeated it. To many an ear, poetic ear, that echo is there yet, in all that country, from Cairo down. But that is aside. Watson and his partner threw the wheel over and the _Enchantress_ swept round for the chute. In the bright moonlight Hugh and the boat's builder turned back toward the solitary chair, placidly conversing. Gilmore talked on with "California." His wife and Ramsey drew back into the corner behind them. "Your brothers," murmured Mrs. Gilmore, "threatened Hugh's life just the same before you came into the issue at all." "Yes," said Ramsey, "and they're watching their chance yet. Julian told me so this summer and Lucian berated him for 'showing his hand.' Oh, that isn't the deadlock, by itself. The deadlock is that as long as Hugh Courteney holds off the feud will keep, but when he doesn't I come in and it won't; everything's precipitated. And so, you see?... "Hmm! Hugh Courteney won't put himself, or me, or mom-a, where, in a fight for his life, no matter who's killed the killing would be in the family, and the killed would be ours, mom-a's--and--and mine. The twins see that. Jule says it, and, what's worse, Luce says nothing. That's why _they_ are entirely satisfied with the deadlock.... Look." The boat's contractor was leaving the deck. Hugh had started toward the pilot-house. But when Mrs. Gilmore looked she looked beyond him in meditation.