I did some quick thinking. If there was a woman pirate it was her ship that Deverell commanded, I was sure. If I accepted his invitation I might go the way of other men whom, if the reports I had heard were to be trusted, she had picked up, and who never returned. Whether she was a “Devil” or whether it was her ship from which the invitation came I could not ask without showing some apprehension that would be impolite. Besides, I had previously been requested by Deverell to ask him no questions about himself or his ship and I inferred that this inhibition was still in force; if he had wanted me to know more than he had indicated he would have volunteered the information. It was an uncanny proceeding, yet the very mystery of it attracted me as a magnet does steel. Furthermore, here was a brand new adventure, right within my grasp, and if it was to end my career then it was because my time had come, and that was all there was to it. With my thoughts running in that channel a decision was quickly reached and I told Deverell I would be glad to go with him. I packed my bag and turned it over to a man whom Deverell summoned from the street. Ah Fen was instructed to watch for the “Surprise,” rejoin the “Leckwith,” and report to Norton what he had told me, and tell him to have me picked up at Hong Kong in a month or six weeks. Late in the evening we went to the Bund where a boat that was waiting at an out-of-the-way landing up near the native quarter took us out to the ship, which was lying fully six miles offshore, well beyond the usual anchorage. It was the same ship I had seen several times before but her rig had been so altered, by taking the rake out of her stack and shortening her spars, and by changing her upper works, that I could not have recognized her if I had seen her under any other conditions. Her sides were discolored and dirty, due to the skilful use of paint, and she looked like an old tramp. But on board of her were all the comforts and conveniences of a yacht, with the discipline of a warship. She was about the size of the “Leckwith,” registering probably five hundred tons net, and with the removal of her dummy superstructure which concealed six carronades, her deck was clear, except for the wheelhouse and the captain’s room behind it. The gun deck below was devoted entirely to living quarters arranged with an eye to comfort. Those for the crew ran back to amidships, for she carried all of a hundred men. Abaft of them were the officers’ quarters and in the stern, cut off from the rest of the ship, were the rooms of the real commander, which were large and sumptuously furnished.