"Has Neddie Benson been talking about the fortuneteller again?" I asked. "He's had a lot to say about her. He says the lady said to him--" "But what started him off?" "He says things is bound to come to a bad end." "What things?" As I have said before, I had a normal boy's curiosity about all that was going on around us. Perhaps, I have come to think, I had more than the ordinary boy's sense for important information. Roger Hamlin's warning had put me on my guard, and I intended to learn all I could and to keep my mouth shut where certain people were concerned. "It's queer they don't say nothing to you about what's going on," Bill remarked. For my own part I understood very well why they should say nothing of any underhanded trickery to one who ashore was so intimately acquainted with Captain Whidden and Roger Hamlin. But I kept my thoughts to myself and persisted in my questions. "What is going on?" "Oh, I don't just make out what." Bill's stupidity was exasperating at times. "It's something about Mr. Falk. Kipping, he--" "Yes?" said that eternally mild voice. "Mr. Falk? And Kipping? What else please?" Both Bill and I were startled to find Kipping at our elbows. But before either of us could answer, some one called down the hatch:-- "Lathrop is wanted aft." Relieved at escaping from an embarrassing situation, I jumped up so promptly that my knife fell with a clatter, and hastened on deck, calling "Ay, ay," to the man who had summoned me. I knew very well why I was wanted aft. Mr. Falk, who was on duty on the quarter-deck, completely ignored me as I passed him and went down the companionway. "At least," I thought, "he can't come below now." The steward, when I appeared, raised his eyebrows and almost dropped his tray; then he paused in the door, inconspicuously, as if to linger. But Captain Whidden glanced round and dismissed him by a sharp nod, and I found myself alone in the cabin with the captain, Mr. Thomas, and Roger Hamlin. "I understand there's news forward, Lathrop," said Captain Whidden. Roger looked at me with that humorous, exasperating twinkle of his eyes,--I thought of my sister and of how she had looked when she learned that he was to sail for Canton,--and Mr. Thomas folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. "Yes, sir," I replied, "although it seems pretty unimportant to be worth much as news." "Tell us about it." To all that I had gathered from Bill Hayden I added what I had learned by my own observations, and it seemed to interest them, although for my own part I doubted whether it was of much account. "Has any one approached you directly about these things?" Captain Whidden asked when I was through. "No, sir." "Have you heard any one say just what this little group is trying to accomplish, or just when it is going to act?" "No, sir." "Do you, Lathrop, know anything about the cargo of the Island Princess? Or anything about the terms under which it is carried?"