'The loudest-ticking clocks tell the worst time,' said the captain; and then added, with a twinkle of the eye, 'Do you suppose that if I were what you take me to be I should be so soft as to stow away goods where a parcel of green fools would look for them?' The officer bit his lip. 'Come away, my hearties,' he ordered. 'My child! Where is my child?' pleaded the frantic mother, whose attention had not for a moment been distracted from her own loss. She clung to the officer as he was leaving. 'My good creature, I know nothing about her.' 'But you have seen her. You have seized her to get some information out of her.' 'No such thing. We have not cast eyes on her.' 'Then you may see her. Send her back. She may be dead. If you find her――――' 'Pshaw! A girl is not to be accounted dead till all other probabilities are exhausted. Look for her yourself. We have other things to attend to.' 'Sorry you have been detained so long for nothing,' sneered Captain Rattenbury, bowing. Then he shut the door on the baffled visitors, and at once his expression underwent a change. He did not replace the bolt. He stood for a moment observing the restless woman, who paced the room with her hands to her brow; her hair had not been tidied and bound up when she left her bed, and now it floated over her shoulders. 'Captain, where can she be?' she asked, suddenly facing Rattenbury. 'I will tell you, mistress,' he answered, and his lips were set hard and his face was menacing. 'These sharks may have denied having swallowed her, but _they_ know. She ran into their mouths.' 'What do you mean?' She stood breathless before him, with her hands down, her arms rigid. 'What do I mean? Why this. The job of to-night finds its explanation in her absence. We have been betrayed. Some one who has known our secret has told it. That is the sense of all this disturbance. And there was no one else who could or would turn cat-in-the-pan. I sent her with a letter to Beer; and, like a fool, David, to whom I sent it, let her have a peep into it, and learn what was intended for his eye alone. Why is she away? Because she stole out as soon as it was dark to sell me and my mates to those devils at the station. Go there――you will find her there. Olver was right; I was a fool to have pity and house you. Who expects gratitude of a woman, or that she can keep a secret, is as one who expects a cat to keep from milk. However――they have not got what they reckoned on. They have not caught me sitting on my eggs, and from what they say, the rest have stolen away. None else knew about the plan save your girl. No one else could have blown upon it.' 'It is false. She knew nothing. She has done nothing.' 'Where then is she now? Know she did――that David admitted to me. She did not tell you, lest you should spoil her little game. This is how I am repaid for what I have done.'