Luke stood with beating heart, his eyes fixed on the trim rakish-looking little gunboat lying at anchor immediately off the Mole. He was suddenly breathless. His light oil-skins oppressed him. There was a vague feeling within him that he had only begun to live within the last two weeks--all before that had been merely existence. And now he was living too quickly, without time to define his feelings. But the sensations were real enough. It does not take long to acquire a feeling. After all he was not glad. His attention was required for a few moments to carry out an order, and he returned to his thought. He did not, however, think it out. He only knew that if Agatha had not been on board the Croonah he would have been breathlessly impatient to see his brother. Therefore he did not want Agatha and Fitz to meet. And yet Fitz was quite different from other men. There was no harm in Fitz, and surely he could be trusted to see Agatha for a few hours without falling in love with her, without making Agatha love him. Yet--Fitz had always succeeded where he, Luke, had failed. Fitz had always the good things of life. It was all luck. It had been luck from the very beginning. Another order required the second officer's full mind and attention. There were a thousand matters to be attended to, for the Croonah was enormous, unwieldy. In the execution of his duties Luke began presently to forget himself. He did not attempt to define his thoughts. He did not even reflect that he knew so little of his brother that this meeting could not possibly cause him this sudden uneasiness, this foreboding care, from THAT side of the question. He did not fear for Fitz to meet Agatha, he really dreaded Agatha seeing Fitz. The Croonah moved into her anchorage with that gentle strength which in a large steamer seems to indicate that she is thinking about it and doing it all herself. For in these days there is no shouting, no call of boatswain's whistle; and the ordinary observer hardly notices the quiet deus ex machina, the man on the bridge. Hardly had the anchor splashed home with a rattle of cable that vibrated through the ship, when a small white boat shot out from behind the smart Kittiwake, impelled by the short and regular beat of ten oars. There was a man seated in the stern enveloped in a large black boat cloak--for Gibraltar harbour is choppy when the westerly breezes blow--a man who looked the Croonah up and down with a curious searching eye. The boat shot alongside the vast steamer--the bowman neatly catching a rope that was thrown to him--and the officer clambered up the swaying gangway.