"She shows a clean pair of heels," remarked Villiers, watching the vessel's wake. "I should imagine we're doing a good eight knots." "Yes," agreed Harborough. "But we won't stand here gazing aft. It's a little antipathy of mine. Why, I don't know. You read in books of people standing aft and watching the phosphorescent swirl of the propellers and all that sort of thing. Sentimental! I prefer to look for'ard and see what's ahead. There's precious little fun in taking life retrospectively. It's anticipation--call it hope if you like--that is the lodestone of life!" "I wonder if you'll be of the same mind when you near the end of your journey," remarked Villiers. "That I can't say," replied Harborough. "But, candidly speaking, would you care to go through the last five years again?" "I had some good times," said Jack reflectively. "Perhaps I was lucky." "Supposing you'd been a Tommy in the trenches?" prompted Harborough. "Ah, that's a proposition," rejoined Villiers gravely. "I don't think I'd care for the idea. In fact, I feel certain I wouldn't. And I know dozens of fellows who've been and come back, and they are all of the same opinion--that it was a physical and mental hell. But if they had to start all over again, they'd do it." "As a matter of patriotic duty," added Harborough. "We're a weird nation--slow to adapt ourselves to changing conditions, blunderers in war and blunderers in peace, and yet, somehow, we come out on top in the end. The Old Country's in a pretty rotten state just now, I admit, but in another twelvemonth or so things will begin to shape themselves. Eh! what's that?" O'Loghlin, lightly clad, perspiring freely and reeking with oil, had come up from the motor-room and stood before his chief. "We've a stowaway, sir," he reported. Harborough knitted his heavy brows. "Bring him along," he ordered. The stowaway came quietly. He followed O'Loghlin like a lamb--a tall, powerfully-built negro, on whose ebony features was a smile of beatific contentment, in conjunction with a wide-open mouth that displayed a double row of glistening ivories extending almost from ear to ear. Harborough looked straight at him and said nothing. O'Loghlin, standing behind the black, afterwards maintained that the skipper was looking through the nigger. In less than fifteen seconds the smile had vanished and the stowaway was on the verge of tears. "What are you doing here?" demanded the skipper of the _Titania_. "I jus' come aboard, sah." "For what reason?" "Me tink dis packet is bound for 'Merica. I jus' want to go dere," and again a broad smile stole over the nigger's face. "Me British born," he continued proudly. "From Hole Town, Barbadoes, which am in British West Indies; but I specks you know dat bit, sah." "And so you thrust your unwelcome carcass on board this yacht," rejoined Harborough. "Do you know where we are bound for?" The nigger shook his head. "Don't much, sah," he replied. "Me work berry hard to please you."