"Oh, I'm so happy!" cried Meriel, trembling. "Oh, I'm so happy!" The deck shivered and reeled. From every side rose a shrilling of voices. The great ship reared herself on end, and plunged headlong into the deep. So the barrier fell! CHAPTER EIGHT. THE MAN WHO WISHED FOR DANGER. Val Lessing's thirtieth birthday found him strong, handsome, prosperous, and--discontented. This is unfortunately a common combination, but Val acknowledged to himself that if other men in like position had small cause to grumble, he himself had less, for while they ungraciously demanded of fate still more than they had received, his one annoyance was that he had enjoyed so much. He had never desired to find himself at thirty a director of a prosperous City firm; the thing had come about through a succession of unforeseen events. The death of his father had made it necessary that he should take up business immediately after leaving Oxford; that was blow number one, for he had been promised a tour round the world before settling down to work, and in its place found himself obliged to look forward to yearly fortnights lengthening, as a reward of merit, to a possible three weeks. Val hated the work, but he set himself to it with characteristic dash and energy. He possessed a bull-dog inability to let go of any scheme once undertaken, which marked him out sharply from the ordinary more or less mechanical employees, and endeared him to the principals of the firm. The "Chief" singled him out for special service. His salary rose steadily year by year, and on the date on which this history begins, he had been formally presented with a proportion of shares, and advanced to the dignity of a Director in the Company. "And now," said the Chief in congratulation, "your foot is safely planted on the ladder of fortune. You can count on at least fifteen hundred a year." Walking towards his home that night Val grudgingly considered those words. As a sane, sensible man, he must of course rejoice that his work had brought him so good a reward, yet there was something in the wording of that sentence which chafed an old sore. _Safe_! That was the sting. A man of thirty years, and--_safe_! Secured from anxiety, lapped round with comforts--nothing to do now but keep steadily along the beaten rut. Eight-fifty Tube in the morning; six o'clock Tube at night; two-thirty Tube on Saturday afternoons, always the same black-coated, tall-hatted figure growing, with the passage of years, a thought heavier, a thought wider, but always sleek, always composed--always _safe_! Val Lessing reviewed the prospect, and once again, more wildly than ever, his vagrant heart cried out in protest. Oh! it had been a different life to which he had looked forward in the days that were gone--the mad, glad, foolhardy days when all he had asked of fate was a passage through that highway of adventure, where a thrill lay behind every bush, and a danger at every turn.