"Would, eh?" The captain eyed him with leering malevolence. "You'll mind your eye then while you're on this craft, and you'll obey orders, without a word, or--down you go among those demons for punishment. Go to my room and bring up my small glass--the double one. Stay--while you're there make up the berth and tidy things up a bit. Lively now!" Ralph went below burning with a sense of futile rage. It was useless to rebel, however, for on a ship a boy is the most helpless of creatures. As he moodily arranged things in the captain's stateroom, wondering for the hundreth time why Gary should appear to wish to persecute him after having been so courteous at Savannah, Ralph's eye fell on an open letter lying on the floor before the half open door of a small iron safe. Evidently Gary, in his haste or excitement over the approach of the warship, had left the safe in this condition. The letter had probably fallen there unnoticed. Ralph picked it up, intending to lay it on the table, when a certain familiarity in the handwriting struck him as peculiar and he started to read the contents. "My dear Cousin:--" it began; but after getting thus far the boy threw the sheet down upon the table. "Why should I be reading the captain's letters?" thought he, and a flush of shame crept momentarily to his forehead. "And yet--it doesn't seem to be the one I gave him." He remembered that Shard had mentioned an intention to write Gary by mail. As Ralph hesitated, a desire strengthened within him to read further, despite the monitions of conscience. A vague idea that the strange and contradictory behavior of Gary might be explained was perhaps at the bottom of the lad's mental persistence. He hesitated until his fingers burned, then made a sudden grasp at the letter. CHAPTER XXI. At Close Quarters. Without giving himself time to think, Ralph now read as follows: My Dear Cousin: If he does not get lost on his way you will be apt to see an awkward country boy in Savannah in a day or two, who is quite anxious to go to sea. I have recommended him to apply to you, and you will do me a great favor, not only to take him, but to see that he never comes back. Mind you--no violence. I know your devilish temper. But you can either wear him out with hard work, or leave him in Africa, or get rid of him in some way which may gratify the hatred which I and mine have felt for his whole generation for years, and yet avoid difficulty with the law. We have enough to contend with as it is, in our Cuban venture. Frankly now, if you wish any more cash advances from me, you must see to this lad, and contrive to make something out of this cargo of live stock. Shipping wild niggers is growing riskier every year, especially as Cuba and Brazil (our only markets left) threaten to free their slaves. Look sharp, dodge all warships, and attend to that brat of a boy. I have soft soaped him by giving him a letter to you which you will interpret by this.