"I think I must have been pent a long time," Charter said in his trouble. "Perhaps, I'm a little afraid of myself and was rehearsing a warning for the strength of my own bridle-arm--since we're swinging down into these Isles of Seduction." "You'll find a more comfortable coolness with the years, I think, and cease to abhor your bounding physical vitality. Remember, 'Jesus came eating and drinking----'" Charter started under the touch of the old iron. "But 'wisdom is justified of all her children,'" he responded quickly. They were at the door of Bellingham's cabin, which was forward on the promenade. The doctor laughed harshly as he turned the key. "I see you have your Scriptures, too," he said. "We must talk again." "How far do you go with the _Panther_?" Charter asked, drawing away. His eyes had filled for a second, as the door swung open, with the photograph of a strangely charming young woman within the cabin. "I have not decided--possibly on to South America." Charter felt as he walked alone that he had shown his youth, even a pertness of youth. He recalled that he had done almost all the talking; that he had felt the combativeness of a boy who scents a rival from another school--quite ridiculous. Moreover, he was weary, as if one of his furious seasons of work had just ended--that rare and excellent kind of work which gathers about itself an elemental force to drive the mind as with fire until the course is run.... He did not encounter Bellingham during the rest of the voyage. Long before dawn the _Panther_ gained the harbor before Saint Pierre, and Charter awoke to the consciousness of a disorder in the air. Alone on deck, while the night was being driven back over the rising land, he was delighted to pick out the writhing letters of gold, "_Saragossa_," through the smoky gray, a few furlongs to the south. Peter Stock, an acquaintance from a former call at Saint Pierre, had become a solid and fruitful memory.... Father Fontanel was found early, where the suffering was greatest in the city. The old eyes lit with gladness as he caught Charter with both hands, and murmured something as his gaze sank into the eyes of the younger man--something which Charter did not exactly understand, about wolves being slain. "What have you been doing with Old Man Pelée, Father? We heard him groaning in the night, and the town is fetid with his sickness." "Ah, my son, I am afraid!" Had all the seismologists of civilization gathered in Saint Pierre, and uttered a verdict that the volcano was an imminent menace, Charter would not have turned a more serious look at Pelée than he did that moment.... At the _Palms_, he found Peter Stock and a joyous welcome. They arranged for luncheon together, and the Capitalist hurried down into the city.... That proved a memorable luncheon, since Peter Stock at the last moment persuaded Miss Wyndam to join them.