As Herve told his story, he realized that the woman whom Saxon had turned back to warn, according to Rodman's sketching, was the woman sitting before him on the deck of the _Orinoco_. CHAPTER XV Captain Harris had been, like Rodman, one of the men who make up the world's flotsam and jetsam. He, too, had meddled in the affairs of that unstable belt which lies just above and below the "line." South and Central American politics and methods were familiar to him. He had not attained the command of the tramp freighter _Albatross_ without learning one decisive lesson, that of eliminating curiosity from his plan of living. He argued that his passenger was an _insurrecto_, and, once seized in Puerto Frio, could hardly hope to shield himself behind American citizenship. There had been many men in Puerto Frio when the captain sailed who would have paid well for passage to any port beyond the frontier, but to have taken them might have brought complications. He had been able at some risk to slip two men at most to his vessel under the curtain of night, and to clear without interference. He had chosen the man who was his friend, Dr. Cornish, and the man who was his countryman and helpless. Of course, all the premises upon which both Rodman and this sea-going man acted were false premises. Had he been left, Saxon would have been in no danger. He had none the less been shanghaied for a voyage of great length, and he had been shanghaied out of sincere kindness. It had not occurred to either the captain or the physician that the situation could outlast the voyage. The man had a fractured skull, and he might die, or he might recover; but one or the other he must do, and that presumably before the completion of the trip across the Atlantic. That he should remain in a comatose state for days proved mildly surprising and interesting to the physician, but that at the end of this time he should suffer a long attack of brain fever was an unexpected development. Saxon knew nothing of his journeying, and his only conversation was that of delirium. He owed his life to the skill and vigilance of the doctor, who had seen and treated human ills under many crude conditions, and who devoted himself with absorption to the case. Neither the physician nor the captain knew that the man had once been called Robert Saxon. There was nothing to identify him. He had come aboard in the riding clothes borrowed from the lockers of the _Phyllis_, and his pockets held only a rusty key, some American gold and a little South American silver. Without name or consciousness or baggage, he was slowly crossing the Atlantic. Other clothing was provided, and into the newer pockets Captain Harris and Dr. Cornish scrupulously transferred these articles. That Carter, if he recovered, could reimburse the skipper was never questioned. If he died, the care given him would be charged to the account of humanity, together with other services this rough man had rendered in his diversified career.