Peter Stock had cabled to New York for officers and men to make up a ship's company. The _Saragossa_ was overhauled, meanwhile, in the harbor of Fort de France, and the owner expressed his intention of finishing his healing at sea. On the same ship, which brought his seamen from New York, arrived in Fort de France a corps of newspaper correspondents, who were not slow to discover that in the bandaged capitalist lay one of the great stones of the eruption from the American point of view. This literally unseated Peter Stock from his chair on the veranda of the hotel at the Capital. With his guests, he put to sea within thirty-six hours after the arrival of the steamer from New York; indeed, before the _Saragossa's_ paint was dry. His vitality was not abated, but the great figures of Pelée and Fontanel, enriched by M. Mondet as a sort of clown-attendant, had strangely softened and strengthened this rarely-flavored personality. As for his two guests, that month of voyaging in the Caribbean and below, is particularly their own. The three were on deck as the _Saragossa_ plied past Saint Pierre, five or six miles deep in the roadstead, a last time. The brute, Pelée, lay asleep in the sun before the gate of the whited sepulchre. "Did I ever tell you about my last interview with M. Mondet?" Peter Stock inquired. Charter had witnessed it, on his way to the craters that morning, but he did not say so, and was regaled with the story. "Bear witness," Peter Stock finished, pointing toward the city, "that I forgive M. Mondet. Doubtless he was writing a paragraph on the staunchness of Pelée--when his desk was closed for him." * * * * * They reached New York the first week in July. No sooner had Peter Stock berthed the _Saragossa_ and breathed the big city, than he discovered how dearly he loved Pittsburg.... Paula went alone to the little apartment Top-side o' Park, where Madame Nestor absolved her strong young queen; alone also first to _The States_, though there was a table set for four over in Staten Island the following day....