“You wanted them to throw you overboard, Timothy.” “The divil I did—and phwat for, if not to lighten the ship in the storm? ’Tis a Jonah I would be, and three days in the belly of the whale. Man, ’twould make a taytotaler of Bacchus himself.” He lighted a cigar of prodigious length, and fell for a while to practical observations upon the sea and sky and the ship which were of interest to none but himself. By-and-bye they would appear in the columns of the _Daily Shuffler_. I begged of him to be less Dantesque and more practical, and presently, becoming quite serious, he spoke of the Diamond Ship. “Phwat the blazes does it all mean, Ean me bhoy? A ship in such a hurry that she fires a shot at ye for looking at her. Larry has told me the story, and, by me sowl, ’tis astonishing. When I return to London next month——” “You are contemplating a return then, Timothy?” “Faith, would ye have so much ganius buried in the Doldrums?” “We shall have to pick up a liner and put you aboard,” said I. He set his cup down with a bang and looked at me as though I had done him an injury. “’Tis to the British Isles ye are bound. Would ye deny it?” “I do deny it, Timothy. We are bound to the Island of Santa Maria in the Azores.” “For phwat the divil——” But this masterly sentence he never finished. I could see that he was thinking deeply. Presently he settled himself in his chair and began to talk almost as one communing with himself. “He takes me from London, me that is an orphan and has buried three wives. He puts me on the sea and shows me a wild man’s country. Ach, ’tis a wonderful man, me friend Fabos, and none like unto him. As a lamb to the shearing do I thread in his footsteps.” “Rather an old sheep, Timothy, is it not?” He brushed the objection aside, and apostrophising the stars in that grandiose style he had learned from ancient melodrama, he exclaimed: “Woman eternal, the crimes that are committed in your name.” “Do you mean to say——” “I mean to say that ye are going to the Azores to see her.” “Joan Fordibras?” “No other. Joan Fordibras. The little divil of a shepherdess in the red dress. Ye are going to see her. Deny it not. Ye are risking much to see her—your duty which bought ye this ship, the knowledge ye have learned out of Africa, the story ye would tell to the British Government. Ye are losing these because of the shepherdess. I’ll deny it, Ean Fabos, when ye tell me it is not true.” “Then deny it now, Timothy. I am going to the Azores because I believe that a house there can finish the story which the sea has begun. That is the whole truth of it. There are men afloat in a ship, Timothy, who hide some of the world’s greatest criminals and their plunder from the police of all cities. That is what I had supposed, and this voyage has gratified my supposition. I am going to the Azores to meet some of these men face to face——” “And Joan Fordibras?” “I hope from my heart that I shall never see her again.”