"Isn't it hot this morning, Lav? Where are you going?" Lav answered shortly that he was going out to the _Arabella_. Sidney noticed a book in his pocket, but said nothing. She ventured other remarks concerning the activities in the bay to which Lavender answered in monosyllables, if at all. "Oh, look, the _Puritan's_ in, Lav!" And even to this Lavender only grunted: "It's been in two days!" By the time they reached the _Arabella_ Sidney's remorse was yielding to a spark of indignation. Lav needn't be _quite_ so mad for, after all, it had been his own precious Mr. Dugald who had thrown her and Pola so constantly together! And if Lav had not hidden himself away he most certainly would have been included in all the plans. It was not fair in Lav to act so cross. "I know you came out to read, Lav, and I've some thinking to do, so I'm going up in the bow and leave you quite to yourself," Sidney said as they boarded the _Arabella_, and if in her tone there was something of Mart's tartness, it may be forgiven for Sidney had been punished enough. "I don't care if you hang 'round," Lav conceded. "It's too hot to read, anyways. I thought maybe there'd be a breeze out here. What's that?" For he had suddenly spied an object lying on the deck close to the rail as though it had dropped there from someone's pocket. At almost the same moment Sidney spied it, too. Both darted for it. Lavender reached it first and picked it up and examined it with frowning eyes. "It's a knife!" cried Sidney, at his elbow. "Sure it's a knife. Anybody can see that. What I want to know--" "Let me look at it. Isn't it Mr. Dugald's?" "No, it isn't Mr. Dugald's. He hasn't been out here for a week. And that knife wasn't here yesterday for I'd a' seen it." "Let me look at it, Lav," pleaded Sidney, for Lav, a curious expression on his face, had covered the knife with his hand. "It's funny, that's all I got to say. I mean--how it come here." "Lavender Green, show me that knife this minute! You act so mysterious and I have a right to know why." Slowly Lavender placed the knife in Sidney's eager hands. It was an ordinary case knife such as the fishermen carried, but Lavender pointed to two initials that had been carved on the case. "J.S." "J.S." repeated Sidney; then she cried: "Why--J.S.! That's Jed Starrow!" "Sure it's Jed Starrow!" "But how did it get on the _Arabella_?" "That's what I'd like to know." "He's _been_ on the _Arabella_, Lav!" "Or someone of his gang." "Isn't that _funny_? What would he come here for?" Lavender was silent. And Sidney, staring at him as though to read from his face some explanation, suddenly fell silent, too. The secret that Cap'n Davies had laid upon her weighed heavily. She _wished_ she could tell. "Sid, I haven't played square," Lavender suddenly blurted out, flushing. "We promised to tell one another if any one of us found out anything and _I did_--and I didn't tell!"