THE TYPHOON'S SECRET
 
 " Out of the red flame that covered all the sea and sky astern of 
 the Lurline, the burning steamer rushed on into the darkness that 
 loomed ahead "
 
 The 
 Typhoon's Secret 
 
 BY 
 
 SOL. N. SHERIDAN 
 
 FRONTISPIECE BY 
 RALPH FALLEN COLEMAN 
 
 GARDEN CITY NEW YORK 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 1920
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY 
 
 DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF 
 
 TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES 
 
 INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
 
 PS 
 
 ' I ? 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTBB PAGE 
 
 I. A Great Smash and a Six-Cylinder 
 
 Green Flyer 3 
 
 II. A Friend Out of the Dark .... 14 
 
 III. The Face of the World 23 
 
 IV. There Are Bad People in This World . 30 
 V. And Likewise There Are Good People . 42 
 
 VI. A New Way of Life 49 
 
 VII. A Red Rose and the Old Life Ends . 60 
 
 VIII. The Wreck of the Halcyon .... 71 
 
 IX. The Man Who Was Saved .... 85 
 
 X. The Englishman 97 
 
 XI. Being a Letter from Mr. Frederick Dent 
 Upson to Mr. John Wentworth, Writ 
 ten to the City of Manila . . . 110 
 XII. At the End of the World . . . . 116 
 Xin. The Man and the Hour . . . . . 121 
 XIV. A Friend and His Conscience . . . 131 
 
 XV. The Green Yacht 144 
 
 XVI. Followed to Sea 153 
 
 XVII. The Way of a Man and the Way of a 
 
 Maid 157 
 
 XVHI. "Let Her Follow Her Way" ... 162 
 
 8138171
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XIX. Alone upon a Storm-tossed Sea . . 168 
 
 XX. A Lurid Light upon the Sea . . . 176 
 
 XXI. The Steamer on Fire 181 
 
 XXII! Into the Darkness 188 
 
 XXIII. The Menace ,of the Sea and Safety . 193 
 
 XXIV. An Artist in Cocktails 204 
 
 XXV. On Board the Green Yacht ... 210 
 
 XXVI. "The Naval Supports Are Coming Up" 216 
 
 XXVII. It is the Neried 222 
 
 XXVIII. The Battle with the Formosans . . 226 
 
 XXIX. "His Name Is Norman Ainsworth " . 231 
 
 XXX. A Spy and a Game Chicken ... 238 
 
 XXXI. Shadow and Sunshine 243 
 
 XXXII. The Wicked Cease from Troubling . 246
 
 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET
 
 The Typhoon's Secret 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A GREAT SMASH AND A SIX-CYLINDER GREEN FLYER 
 
 IF A man can get through college, and the world, 
 in a six-cylinder Green Flyer," said Wentworth, 
 "I will manage." 
 
 "There is nothing left, then?" queried Allison. 
 
 "There is a rather complete wardrobe besides the 
 Green Flyer. And I have a couple of hundred dollars 
 in my pocket at this moment. I do not know of 
 anything else." 
 
 He laughed a little, because well, because a man 
 must laugh when he has come to the jumping-off 
 place. Then he blew a cloud of smoke from his 
 cigarette out into the moonlight. 
 
 "Anyway, it is up to me to go and see," he went 
 on. "I never knew much about the Dad's affairs. 
 There was always plenty. But the Green Flyer 
 will take me as far as San Francisco, and with any 
 thing like luck I should make the run in something 
 under twenty hours. That will land me there before 
 sunset to-morrow." 
 
 "You mean to go to-night?" exclaimed Allison. 
 
 s
 
 4 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "Surest thing you know, my boy! I must find 
 out for myself. And the place for my father's son 
 is there. The Los Angeles papers will be here to 
 morrow, full of the thing. It isn't my job to face 
 a few gossiping gazabos in a tourist hotel when there 
 is the whole world to stand against." 
 
 He waved one hand, as he spoke, toward the 
 whirling crowd of beautifully gowned women and 
 black-garbed men one-stepping under the electric 
 lights of the wide office and wider dining room of the 
 Foothills Hotel, thrown into one for the evening. It 
 was the night of the annual tennis hop and the 
 tennis hoppers were hopping briskly to sobbing music 
 played on a violin, a bandurria, and two guitars, 
 with drums to beat out the time. 
 
 There was a minor wail in the music which it is 
 likely the dancers missed. The art of one-stepping 
 is altogether muscular, very heating when followed 
 with enthusiasm, and so may well be lacking the 
 element of the spirituelle. But the wail came plainly 
 to the heart of John Wentworth. He was conscious 
 of the nameless despair of it when he called Frank 
 Allison to the porch. 
 
 Wentworth held in his hand a telegram, just 
 brought to the hotel by a special messenger, and he 
 showed it to Allison at once. It was short enough, 
 but it brought John Wentworth's world about him 
 crashing in ruins. The Bank of the Pacific had 
 closed its doors. The President, Elliot Wentworth, 
 had swum out into the sea from a bathing place at
 
 A GREAT SMASH 5 
 
 North Beach and had not come back. That was 
 all. 
 
 As Wentworth had said that they would be, the 
 Los Angeles papers next day were full of it. Allison 
 read the whole story; and faced the little world of the 
 hotel for his friend as a fraternity brother should. 
 
 That night in the moonlight the young men, 
 seated in big rocking chairs under the shadow of 
 the roses that flung a golden glory over the wide 
 front porch of the Foothills, had between themselves 
 alone the knowledge carried in the curt telegram from 
 Elliot Wentworth's lawyer. And being young, the 
 impulse of both was to go out and meet and fight 
 the trouble. 
 
 The sobbing Spanish music floated over them from 
 the room where the dancers were and out into the 
 April moonlight that covered all the Ojai Valley with 
 a radiance of silver. As they sat on the porch, with 
 only the plaint of the music to steal across the sym 
 pathetic silence that had fallen between them for the 
 moment, they could look down into the wide reaches 
 of the valley, where the sturdy live oaks broke up 
 the moonlight to dapple with its shining paint the 
 young grain in the fields, dark purple where the 
 shadows were. Right at hand, as it seemed, the 
 bare double swales of the golf links ran down to the 
 trees and, still closer, the feathery bloom of the 
 Colorado camisa lay like a light fall of snow on the 
 branches of the mountain redwoods. 
 
 Only there could be no snow in that warm valley
 
 6 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 although the moon showed a dazzling bank of it, 
 drift on drift, high on the far-away summit of the 
 Sisar Mountain, as Went worth rose, at last, followed 
 by Allison, threw away his cigarette, and stepped 
 down from the porch to the driveway in front of the 
 hotel. They were both in evening dress, and were 
 fine, upstanding lads as the moon shone down on 
 them. 
 
 "Come on," said Wentworth. "I suppose you 
 will see the last of me, Frank. I must get out of these 
 togs, and make the Green Flyer ready. We can 
 get around to my room the back way." 
 
 He started around the corner of the house, Allison 
 beside him. 
 
 "You are really going to-night, John?" the latter 
 asked. 
 
 "To-night no less." 
 
 "And and Miss Graeme?" 
 
 "This was our dance; I had forgotten." 
 
 He stopped, his hand on the knob of the door lead 
 ing to the back corridor and billiard room. 
 
 "But you need not bother to make my excuses, 
 Frank. They will not be needed to-morrow." 
 
 He opened the door and passed through, traversing 
 rapidly the length of the short hallway. Wentworth 
 had a front room; the door was unlocked, and he 
 entered and snapped on the light. It showed the 
 usual interior of a man's hotel room, an open steamer 
 trunk in one corner and two suitcases lying half 
 under the bed.
 
 A GREAT SMASH 7 
 
 Allison, following him, naturally had more thought 
 for his friend than the friend himself had. More 
 over, there was a strange look on his face which the 
 other was too preoccupied to notice, perhaps. 
 
 "You will not go without seeing her, John?** he 
 asked. 
 
 "Margaret Graeme?" rejoined Wentworth. "My 
 dear boy, the son of a banker might follow an heiress 
 from Coronado to this place. The son of my father 
 -is of a different world." 
 
 He spoke bitterly enough and yet with a kind 
 of gentleness, too. And upon that gentleness, Allison 
 took a friend's liberty. 
 
 "But about her feelings, John?" 
 
 "She she is the heiress, my boy.'* 
 
 Allison, closer to him than any man that lived, 
 left the matter there. 
 
 "And college?" he queried. 
 
 "Goes with the rest." 
 
 "You have only one semester to get your degree. 
 Man, think of it!" 
 
 "And what good will the degree do me? I cannot 
 live upon it. If I had been a poor man from the 
 first, and specialized ! But what is the use, now? " 
 
 "I have enough money, my friend,'* ventured 
 Allison. 
 
 Wentworth had been throwing off his dress suit 
 as they talked and, half undressed, he reached out 
 and grasped Allison's hand. 
 
 "Pack my things, like a good fellow,'* he said,
 
 8 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "while I get into my motor togs and go out and wake 
 up the Green Flyer." 
 
 Man fashion, Allison began to gather up his 
 friend's belongings and throw them into the suit 
 cases and the steamer trunk, saying nothing more. 
 Wentworth got into heavy boots and khaki trousers 
 and leathern coat and cap. Then he went out, leav 
 ing Allison still packing, and presently there was 
 heard a soft chug-chugging as the Green Flyer drew 
 up beside the stoop at the back door. 
 
 Wentworth came back into the room a moment 
 afterward, touched the bell for a porter, and lighted 
 a cigarette. Allison had the trunk packed and 
 strapped by that time, and the suitcases closed. 
 
 "Sorry to have troubled you, old man,'* Went 
 worth said, "but I did not want to call Brooks. I 
 imagine my day for valets and all vanities is at an 
 end, now. Want him yourself? You are most sel 
 fishly unprovided." 
 
 "Brooks?" queried Allison, in reply. 
 
 "The same. You must not judge him from the 
 disorder of my room. He dressed after I did 
 having an affair of his own on hand, perhaps. He is 
 really a good creature, in the main orderly, when 
 sober and he can wear your shirts quite as well as 
 mine." 
 
 Allison laughed, and Wentworth went on : 
 
 "Anyway, I leave you to pay and dismiss him. 
 I don't owe him anything, really, but he will probably 
 want his wages."
 
 A GREAT SMASH 9 
 
 The hotel porter came and carried out the steamer 
 trunk, which he lashed to the trunk rack behind the 
 tonneau of the Green Flyer making a second trip 
 to bring out and throw in the suitcases. Then he 
 went away, with an order to bring the manager. 
 That personage, all bows and smiles, had little time 
 to express surprise at the sudden departure of his 
 guest. But he was conventionally courteous. 
 
 "Your bill is not made out, Mr. Wentworth," he 
 said, in reply to John's question, "and the book 
 keeper has gone to bed, leaving the books locked up. 
 Shall I send it after you?" 
 
 "Give it to my friend, Mr. Allison," replied Went 
 worth, after a moment's thought. "You will see 
 to that for me also, Frank?" 
 
 "Of course," and then, following down from the 
 stoop as Wentworth stepped into the car, "I think 
 you might let me do more, John." 
 
 "Not another thing, dear boy! But I appreciate 
 your kindness and I will see you in the city. 
 Good-bye!" 
 
 He reached out his hand and withdrew it quickly, 
 looking to his control. Allison stepped back. The 
 manager waved his hand and cried farewell. The 
 Green Flyer, starting smoothly and slowly, glided 
 around the corner of the building, and was gone. 
 
 "Rather a sudden departure, Mr. Allison," said 
 the manager, politely. 
 
 "Yes; a telegram called him to San Francisco 
 to-night."
 
 10 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "He will have a beautiful moonlight ride," said 
 the manager. 
 
 Allison turned and walked back around the house 
 toward the front verandah. The sobbing music 
 of the Spanish Mazourka had followed the Green 
 Flyer down the hill road until it was lost by the driver 
 in the moonlight and had ended. The dancers 
 were coming out into the night, laughing and chatter 
 ing. A little apart, in the shadow, Margaret 
 Graeme's partner, the man who had stepped into 
 her dance when Wentworth failed her, seated her, 
 and was sent for an ice. Allison, as he stepped on 
 the porch, saw her white face peering out into the 
 moonlight as though her eyes searched for someone. 
 
 And then, from far down along the road that led 
 men out into the distant world, came the wild shriek 
 of the horn of the Green Flyer like the voice of a 
 lost human soul calling back to the quick from the 
 dead. Allison saw Margaret's face sink back into 
 the shadow as he stepped forward and took a vacant 
 seat beside her. 
 
 Shadows are very kindly things. He told her, 
 there, of Wentworth's call to duty making the 
 excuses he had been bidden not to make. And she 
 sighed and listened and said very little. There 
 may have been, in his heart, an answering sigh to hers 
 but he repressed it. A man is loyal, in the first trial 
 at least, if he has red blood in him. Her partner 
 came back with the ice in a moment, and she rose, 
 and took his arm.
 
 A GREAT SMASH 11 
 
 Allison had felt a pressure, the merest touch, of 
 one of her hands on his as she went away, thrilling 
 him. And the words seemed breathed to him, so 
 softly that he was hardly sure that he heard them at 
 all : "A woman watches and pursues ! " 
 
 The last word was like an echo, it came so faintly. 
 And then, on her partner's arm, she swept into the 
 lighted room. And she was smiling radiantly. 
 Assuredly, shadows are very kindly things. 
 
 And the Green Flyer swept on down the long hill 
 road, under the live oaks that stand all about in the 
 little town of Nordhoff, and along where the moon 
 light fell in broken showers over the stretches of the 
 mountain stream that marks the line of the Creek 
 Road. The lights blazed from the machine like the 
 gleaming of demon's eyes. It shrieked, as it turned 
 the dark corners under the trees, with a wail that 
 might have been the plaint of a lost soul in the night. 
 
 Wentworth had released the muffler as he raced 
 down the slope, to try his cylinders, and the beating 
 of the powerful engine sent a roar of sound into the 
 silence that frightened the coyotes, crouching under 
 tne live oaks on the distant slope of Sulphur Mountain 
 and gave pause to the California lion slipping down 
 through the shadows to steal a lamb from the flock of 
 the Basque shepherd, corraled in the scrub oak 
 thicket beyond the uplands of the Santa Ana. And 
 the sea air sang in Wentworth's ears, and the Green 
 Flyer answered to each touch of his firm hand on 
 the steering wheel like a sentient thing.
 
 12 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 His thoughts flew as the machine flew. Under 
 the visor of his cap his face was set and hard: the 
 fighting face of a long line of Wentworths, each one 
 of whom had met and conquered the world in his time. 
 All but his own father, he thought. All but his own 
 father! And that man he had deemed so strong. 
 Well, he did not know that any of the old Wentworths 
 had met and conquered disgrace. He did not know 
 that there had ever been a Wentworth called to 
 face his kind with his own honour in ruins about him. 
 But it had been a fighting line and it culminated 
 in him. And he would do battle. 
 
 The Green Flyer crossed the last little bridge under 
 the hill marking the course of the San Antonio Creek, 
 and swept out into a wide and sandy valley between 
 high mountain ranges. It was bad going, but the 
 good machine scarcely paused. It climbed Adobe 
 Hill, now dry and dusty, and ran down fast toward 
 the Wishing Tree that stately sycamore standing 
 beside the Ojai road in whose shadow Indian super 
 stition places a spirit that is malevolent only on 
 moonlight nights. 
 
 Wentworth smiled as he whirled by the tree. The 
 old tale that no man might pass that tree on such 
 a night without mishap went through his mind as 
 quickly as the tree itself came, and was gone. Then 
 the Green Flyer, for an instant, faced the Old Mission 
 Bell that marks the running of the Camino Real of 
 the Padres, and swept around the curve leading to 
 the Casitas Pass bridge across the Ventura River
 
 A GREAT SMASH 13 
 
 and, suddenly, a man seemed to rise up in the middle 
 of the road. He seemed, too, to stagger to get out 
 of the way, but there was a dull crunching sound, 
 he went down, and the front wheels passed over his 
 body. At the same instant, so it seemed, there was a 
 report like the discharge of a pistol; and the heavy 
 car swerved, and wobbled, and all but went over. 
 
 Instinctively, Wentworth had thrown out the 
 clutch. The Green Flyer, checked in its speed, 
 staggered and stopped. In another moment the 
 driver had leaped out, and was dragging the body 
 of a man, unconscious, from between the front and 
 rear wheels of the car. 
 
 "A dead man likely; and a punctured tire!" 
 muttered Wentworth, straightening up. "Bad 
 enough, for a starter! Lucky I got that extra tire in 
 Los Angeles! But what the devil will I do with this 
 fellow?" 
 
 He stood, for a moment, scratching his head, and 
 looking on the body prostrate in the road. Then he 
 knelt down, putting one hand upon the man's breast, 
 ancl holding it there for a long time. He caught, at 
 last, a faint pulsation, growing stronger, and rose to 
 step over to the car and reach into the door pocket 
 for his brandy flask. 
 
 "He lives!" Wentworth said, aloud. "Thank 
 God!"
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 A FRIEND OUT OF THE DARK 
 
 HE WAS back again beside the prostrate 
 man in a moment, just moistening his lips 
 with a little of the liquor. There was the 
 faintest fluttering of the man's eyelids as he did 
 so, as Wentworth could see when he turned his flash 
 light into the other's face. 
 
 "He will come to himself, now," he said. "I 
 wonder if he is badly hurt? And I wonder what evil 
 chance brought him into the road of the Green Flyer 
 just as I came around the curve?" 
 
 He straightened himself once more, standing above 
 the man in the dust. His situation was serious 
 enough, in all conscience. His own affairs called 
 him to San Francisco, and that as speedily as might 
 be. Yet here he was, hardly started on his way, his 
 destination four hundred miles distant held up 
 by an injured man, he did not know how badly in 
 jured, and a punctured tire. The tire, of course, 
 he could take care of. The injured man ! How was 
 he to be sure that he would not have to run down to 
 Ventura, losing several hours, to get the help the man 
 might need? 
 
 "All this," said Wentworth, at last, aloud, waving 
 
 14
 
 A FRIEND OUT OF THE DARK 15 
 
 his hands widely and with a manner of politeness, 
 "comes of that Indian devil who lives in the tree!*' 
 
 And then, just as he spoke, the man stirred a little, 
 sat up, and tried to regain his feet, but was too weak 
 for the moment. Wentworth caught a muttered 
 question as he leaned down to help him rise. 
 
 "Did the did the Indian hit anybody else, mate?" 
 the man asked, putting his whole weight upon Went- 
 worth's shoulder. 
 
 "The Indian?" Wentworth repeated, puzzled 
 for a moment and then smiled. "Oh, yes; he has 
 hit me rather a facer. But you went down too sud 
 denly to notice that." 
 
 The man had gathered himself together now, and 
 stood away from the support of Wentworth's shoul 
 der. He was a big, loose-jointed fellow with a strag 
 gling beard of a week's growth perhaps. His khaki 
 coat and trousers were in tatters. There was about 
 him, whether in the set of his clothes or in his carriage 
 as he stood, a nameless suggestion of the salt sea. 
 And his every line showed strength and muscular 
 activity, as does the loose, shambling build of the 
 panther. It is a kind of tense repression under a 
 misfitting skin. 
 
 The man, as he stood, gathered his wits, slowly. 
 He began to feel his body, tentatively, here and there, 
 as though to try the muscles one after the other- 
 arms first, and then legs and body. Wentworth 
 thought, as he noted these actions, of the athlete 
 in the ring who takes bodily account of himself be-
 
 16 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 fore battle. And he thought that here was a gladi 
 ator who would put up a good man's fight, should 
 occasion come. He realized, also, that he himself 
 had a most vital interest in this self-appraisement 
 of the wayfarer. For Wentworth was in a hurry. 
 His own concerns called him. The Green Flyer 
 needed his immediate attention. It was no light 
 job to put on a new tire without efficient help. And 
 here he might be held up with a badly injured man 
 on his hands. And so it was with even more than 
 the interest of the agent of the injury that he asked, 
 seeing the big fellow feeling all his muscles : 
 
 "Anything seriously amiss? " 
 
 "Why, I think not, sir," replied the other, slowly, 
 and then, with a half -foolish grin : " The Indian jarred 
 me a bit, but nothing to hurt. And there do not 
 seem to be any bones broken." 
 
 "Thank the Lord for that!" said Wentworth, 
 fervently. 
 
 "Amen, sir!" 
 
 "All the same, I suppose you are pretty badly 
 jarred," Wentworth said. 
 
 "That's right, sir," agreed the wayfarer. "I 
 have had worse knocks in my time, but not many. 
 You surely came around that corner with a rush, 
 sir!" 
 
 "I was in something of a hurry," replied Went 
 worth, "and am yet. But I did not see you until 
 the car struck you." 
 
 "And I did not see you until I was struck, sir.
 
 A FRIEND OUT OF THE DARK 17 
 
 But I had heard your horn, two or three times, before 
 that. It seemed a long way off, and I did not pay 
 much attention." 
 
 "Next time you hear a horn at night, you would 
 better keep out of the middle of the road," said Went- 
 worth, smiling a little. 
 
 "Do they all rush through here like bats out of 
 Hades?" asked the wayfarer, grinning in his turn. 
 
 "They are apt to, when they are running at this 
 time in the night. But, as long as you are not badly 
 hurt, I suppose there is not a great deal of harm done. 
 And I am still in a hurry." 
 
 He turned toward the Green Flyer as he spoke, 
 opening the tool chest and taking out his jack and 
 the hand air pump. It was a rear tire that had been 
 punctured. Working like an expert, Wentworth 
 jacked up the axle and in a moment was busily en 
 gaged in taking off the injured tire, the wayfarer 
 standing by, still tentatively feeling of his muscles. 
 
 "I am something of a mechanic, sir," he said, at 
 last. " What is it that has carried away? " 
 
 "Tire punctured!" replied Wentworth, briefly. 
 "Know anything about these machines?" 
 
 "Not a thing, sir. But I am strong and two 
 can do any job quicker than one; where both are 
 willing." 
 
 He stooped beside Wentworth as he spoke, and 
 his greater strength was applied to the loosening of 
 the tire so effectively that it came away very quickly . 
 In another moment the new tire had been taken from
 
 18 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 the rack on the running board of the Green Flyer, 
 adjusted in place, and the pump brought into action. 
 II< n\ once more, the greater strength of the stranger 
 showed itself although Wentworth was hini.-v-lf 
 an athlete. More quickly than the thing had ever 
 IH-CII done before with the Green Flyer, the tire was 
 hard and tested, and Wentworth had gathered his 
 tools and thrown them back into the chest. 
 
 "And now," he said, preparing to crank the Green 
 Flyer, "what is to be done with you?" 
 
 "Haven't you done enough to me?" asked the 
 wayfarer at this, in a kind of whimsical tone. "Want 
 me to stand up in the road and be hit again?" 
 
 Wentworth laughed at this and it did him good. 
 "I did not mean that," he said, at last. "But if 
 you are badly hurt, it would be my duty to take you 
 to the hospital at Ventura and that would mean 
 delay, when I am in a great hurry." 
 
 "You need not bother about me," said the other, 
 earnestly. "I am not hurt at all, only jarred a little. 
 And I will shape my course to the next port, just 
 the same as I would have done if I had not met you 
 and the Indian, sir." 
 
 "Did you expect to find a port here in the moun 
 tains?" asked Wentworth. 
 
 "Why, no, sir; but they told me that this was the 
 
 road to Santa Barbara, and I was making a course 
 
 tlmt, way. Of course I could not make the same way 
 
 that you make in the machine here, and so I was 
 
 rig about for a plare to turn in and get a bit of
 
 A FRIEND OUT OF THE DARK 19 
 
 sleep, when you came along so fast that I could not 
 get out of the way." 
 
 Went worth cranked the machine, and came back 
 to step into the driver's seat. The man puzzled him 
 a little, although it was of course plain enough that 
 he was a seafarer. But there was that about him 
 which led Wentworth to think, somehow, that he was 
 from a position aft the mast not a common sailor. 
 If that impression were well founded, what had 
 turned the man into a tramp? Seafaring men with 
 officers' papers were not found in the ranks of tramps 
 ashore; at least not often. And they seldom showed 
 the hard usage that was evident in the appearance 
 of this stranger. Wentworth turned, his foot on 
 the running board, as he would have stepped into 
 the car. 
 
 "What did you leave your ship for, anyway?" 
 he asked, plumping the question at the other sud 
 denly. 
 
 "My ship?" parried the stranger. It was clear 
 enough that he did not like the question. 
 
 "Sure! Your ship? You are a sailor, plain 
 enough. Why did you turn hobo, then? You will 
 never succeed at that trade." 
 
 "Too many Indians about, eh, sir?" 
 
 "Well, too many Indians, and motor cars. It is 
 sometimes difficult for a man unused to shore roads 
 to keep out of the way." 
 
 " I don't much believe I ever will make a go of this 
 business of tramping ashore," admitted the stranger.
 
 20 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "Of course you won't. But why did you leave 
 your ship?" 
 
 The sailor saw that it was useless to fence any more. 
 "That is rather a long story, sir," he replied. "But 
 she was hell ship, in a perfectly polite way, sir. That 
 is, the Captain in her was a devil a kid-gloved devil 
 expecting the mates to do his dirty work, and seeing 
 that they did it. And I dropped over the side one 
 night, down in Pedro, and swam for it. Then, be 
 cause I must strike away from that port, first I began 
 to tramp it, heading up for Santa Barbara, where I 
 might get a coaster to San Francisco. And here I 
 am. But the land is harder than the sea, sir, at 
 that." 
 
 "This is your first try at tramping it?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Got any money?" 
 
 "No, sir, and no dunnage. Of course I forfeited 
 my pay when I went over the side and left all my 
 clothes aboard." 
 
 "How did you live?" 
 
 "Well, a woman put me to chopping wood for 
 my breakfast this morning, back there in Ventura 
 and I lifted a few carrots out of a field along the road. 
 But it was slim picking, and they keep a lot of big 
 dogs in this country. A fellow isn't safe to walk any 
 where but along the railroad track." 
 
 "I don't suppose you want me to carry you back 
 to Ventura?" asked Wentworth, tentatively. 
 
 "No, sir; that would not gain me anything. I
 
 A FRIEND OUT OF THE DARK 21 
 
 will just cast about here a bit for a barn or shed of 
 some kind, and, if the dog will let me in, will make 
 shift to sleep this watch out." 
 
 Wentworth smiled a little. "What is your name? " 
 he asked. 
 
 "Felix McGreal, sir." 
 
 It was so plainly an honest answer that Wentworth 
 accepted it at once. 
 
 "You say that you want to get to Santa Barbara? " 
 was the next question. 
 
 "I stand a chance to get a coaster out of there for 
 San Francisco," replied McGreal. 
 
 "You would not have done better to stay in San 
 Pedro; would it not be better, even now, for you to 
 head back that way?" 
 
 "They would have hauled me up for a deserter, 
 as long as the ship was there, sir. She is gone, now; 
 and to San Francisco, at that. But she will be out 
 of there before ever I can make a landfall on the Bay. 
 And a man stands a better chance of a ship in the 
 north. Pedro is not much more than a coastwise port, 
 sir, when all is said." 
 
 "Hm!" exclaimed Wentworth. "My present 
 course runs to San Francisco. You are sure you 
 are not badly hurt? " 
 
 "Certain sure, sir." 
 
 Wentworth was seated at the wheel of the Green 
 Flyer and the engine was purring, impatient to be away. 
 "Jump into the tonneau, there," he said. "It is 
 the duty of one poor man to help another, and I owe
 
 22 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 you a good turn, anyway. I will take you with 
 me." 
 
 The sailor walked around to the opposite side of 
 the Green Flyer and stepped into the vacant seat 
 beside the driver. 
 
 "It isn't seemly that I should man the quarter 
 deck when the skipper is forward," he said. 
 
 "Well, the front seat rides easier," said Wentworth, 
 with a smile.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FACE OF THE WORLD 
 
 THE Green Flyer started ahead very smoothly 
 and easily. The next moment she was sweep 
 ing, with wild shrieks, around the sharp curves 
 under the dark shadows of the oaks that line the 
 beautiful Casitas Pass Road. Trees and the over 
 hanging limbs of trees started out of the darkness 
 ahead in the glare of the lights, came up fast, and 
 dropped behind among the shadows. Chuck holes 
 in the roadway yawned in front of the machine like 
 wide chasms, and smoothed themselves into the 
 general level of the dust as the lightly running car 
 skimmed over them. 
 
 The two men in the car passed one or two dark 
 farmhouses, seen dimly under the shelter of the trees, 
 and once a belated farmer pulled his terrified horses 
 in close to a high bank to let them whizz by. Went- 
 worth heard him shout a curse as the Green Flyer 
 flashed along, almost grazing the hind wheels of his 
 spring wagon, and was amused to see the sailor lean 
 far out and send astern of them a stream of the easy- 
 running profanity of the sea. 
 
 And then they had passed the first summit of the 
 Casitas Pass, and the second; and run swiftly down 
 
 23
 
 24 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 the narrow canon of Casitas Creek into the broad 
 and fertile orchard lands of the Carpenteria Valley. 
 Santa Barbara went by in the night, blinking with a 
 thousand electric lights, and the long, steep pass of 
 Gaviota, and the wind-swept reaches that lie beyond 
 Point Concepcion. They saw the sea break white 
 there in the waning moonlight; and the red rim of 
 Santa Rosa Island lying behind them across the 
 channel in the pathway of the dawn. 
 
 They breakfasted, very early, at the hotel of Paso 
 Robles, under the spreading white oaks, and then ran 
 down the long valley of Soledad and the Salinas to 
 come into the low hills that would open to them the 
 Santa Clara Valley and the San Francisco Bay region. 
 Neither slept all through the night, and, as the day 
 strengthened, sending over the mountains a flood 
 of imperial purple sunshine, they fell into desultory 
 talk although for the most part both seemed to have 
 enough of thought to keep them silent. It was in 
 one of these scraps of talk that Wentworth, harping 
 back to how the other had happened to turn tramp, 
 said to the sailor : 
 
 "What was the story of leaving your ship?" 
 
 "She was a hell ship, sir; every way." 
 
 "A hell ship? I have heard of hell ships. The 
 Captain beat you, I suppose, and the food was poor, 
 and all the rest of it?" 
 
 "The food was bad enough, sir. And she was 
 black-birding, and contraband trading, and fifty 
 things against the law. There was none of us in any
 
 THE FACE OF THE WORLD 25 
 
 way particular about small matters so long as we 
 did not have to take the blame for anything but obey 
 ing orders. And the Captain did not beat me. I 
 was the second mate in her, d'ye see, sir! But that 
 Captain was a kid-gloved devil, with the capacity 
 for murder in his soul, and it is my opinion that no 
 man could go officer in that ship who was not willing 
 to take the same burden on himself. I couldn't do 
 all he wanted anyway, sir." 
 
 "So you left him, and turned tramp to get another 
 ship? I suppose you will make it in San Francisco, 
 all right. But you must know by this that a sailor 
 has no place on shore roads." 
 
 "Not with Indian devils and gasolene devils loose 
 in the moonlight, sir." 
 
 Wentworth laughed, giving the wheel a quick turn 
 to miss a boulder. "The Captain wanted you to 
 abuse the sailors, I suppose?" he said. 
 
 "That was part of it although he was a full hand 
 at that himself, sir." 
 
 "What ship was it?" 
 
 "She was a steamer, a tramp out of Glasgow. 
 The Halcyon:' 
 
 "And the master's name?" 
 
 "Captain Robert Graeme, sir." 
 
 " She is not in Pedro now, you say? " 
 
 "No, sir; she sailed for the north a week ago. And 
 that was a start on a cruise of a kind that I want no 
 hand in, sir." 
 
 "What kind?" asked Wentworth.
 
 26 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 " That's the story, sir. It was the old man's affair. 
 He told me a part of it, but it was only because he 
 must keep his own hands clean when it came to the 
 actual devil's doings. He needed help, but he had to 
 get another man for that job, anyhow. I do not 
 mind lifting a carrot out of a field, now and again; 
 and maybe I might go so far as to pick up a chicken, 
 if the roost were handy, and no dogs about. And 
 when it is owner's orders I am not above standing 
 in for a tropic island and taking a load of niggers to 
 the sugar mills, if that comes in the day's work. 
 But the helping away of wholesale robbers with the 
 loot of women and children is not my game, sir." 
 
 A wild thought crossed Wentworth's mind for a 
 second and went the way of most wild thoughts. 
 After that, he did not pursue the matter of the sailor's 
 tale, and silence fell in the car. The Green Flyer 
 swept on. At San Jose they got the San Francisco 
 morning papers, and Went worth took time to glance 
 at the headlines while the car's tank was being filled 
 at a roadside garage. They told him plenty in 
 that one glance to give him a bracer for the battle 
 that opened for him that day the battle whose field 
 he was so swiftly approaching. 
 
 The sailor, McGreal, scanned the papers more 
 closely, holding the sheets before him for many miles 
 after the car was started on its way once more. 
 Wentworth smiled a little grimly, noting this, but 
 he said nothing. McGreal, like all the world, had 
 his interest in the great defaulter. If Wentworth
 
 THE FACE OF THE WORLD 27 
 
 likewise noticed that the sailor ventured no comment 
 on the matter that he read with such interest, it 
 was not for him to open the subject. The Green 
 Flyer was running very swiftly, and the mahout 
 might well be busy with his car. 
 
 At five o'clock in the afternoon, nineteen hours out 
 from the Ojai, the Green Flyer rolled through the 
 doors of that public garage in lower Golden Gate 
 Avenue which Wentworth had theretofore favoured 
 with his casual patronage when he did not want to 
 take the car home. 
 
 "Hullo, Mr. Wentworth!" cried the proprietor, 
 coming forward and rubbing his hands together. 
 That was John Wentworth's very first meeting with 
 this Chinese form of salutation in his own city. 
 Many fair-weather friends would shake their own 
 hands, from that time forward, in place of shaking 
 his. And there was a sting in it the first time. 
 
 Wentworth saw, also, that the two or three dissolute 
 looking loungers about the place started at the men 
 tion of his name, looked at him, and then looked 
 away again quickly. But he did not see that the 
 sailor, McGreal, turned and gave him one swift 
 glance. It all passed in a second. 
 
 "Hullo, Sprocket!" he said, answering the pro 
 prietor very quickly, after his own manner. 
 
 "Shall I put up the Green Flyer, sir?" asked 
 Sprocket. 
 
 "For the present. I won't want the car again 
 this afternoon. And I will send for the things."
 
 28 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "Brooks, sir?" 
 
 "No. The hotel people will come forthem, likely." 
 
 "Had a long drive, sir?" 
 
 "Four hundred miles. From Ventura." 
 
 "And the car never heated, sir. I heard you were 
 in the south." 
 
 "Yes; the town seems to have been pretty well 
 advised as to my movements up to last night." 
 
 Wentworth had stepped out of the car and started 
 for the street as he spoke. McGreal followed him. 
 One of the loungers, as they passed through the big 
 doors, fairly leaped for the telephone booth, and the 
 sailor coming back to get one of the morning papers 
 from the tonneau saw the action. McGreal heard 
 the man in the booth ask for a newspaper office, and 
 went out again at once, overtaking Wentworth at 
 the corner of Polk Street. He touched him on the 
 shoulder as he came close to him. 
 
 "I suppose that we go about, each on his own 
 course, here, sir," he said, as Wentworth turned 
 quickly to face him. 
 
 "Why, yes," agreed Wentworth. He put his hand 
 in his pocket as he spoke, and took out a five-dollar 
 gold piece, which he handed to the sailor. "That 
 will see you to a ship," he said. 
 
 "Yes, sir; thank you!" replied McGreal. 
 
 "And so, good-bye!" Wentworth went on. "I 
 suppose it isn't any use to warn you again against 
 the hobo business. You must know you can never 
 succeed in that trade. As we part courses, I will
 
 THE FACE OF THE WORLD 29 
 
 wish you luck, and hope that you will keep to a trade 
 that you can make a go of." 
 
 "And I wish you luck, sir," the sailor said. "I 
 thank you for everything, sir; and, if you would let 
 me make a suggestion, Mr. Wentworth, take a new 
 lodging. Do not go home to-night." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "I saw one of those seedy chaps in the auto dock 
 jump for a telephone as soon as we left the place and 
 the connection he asked for was a newspaper office, 
 sir." 
 
 It seemed to Wentworth that the sailor looked at 
 him somewhat wistfully as he spoke, as if he would 
 have said something more, and did not exactly know 
 how to go about the saying of it. But the impression 
 it was no more than an impression passed. He 
 shook hands with McGreal, thanked him, and turned 
 away. 
 
 "So! So!" he exclaimed to himself. "They 
 are on my track already! Well, my sailor friend, 
 I did not come here to hide. The sooner the hounds 
 find me, the better I will like it."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THEEE ARE BAD PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD 
 
 WENTWORTH walked rapidly down Golden 
 Gate Avenue, leaped on a car at Market 
 Street, and rode, standing amidst the crowd 
 in the open part, to the corner of Montgomery. 
 He could catch glimpses of the flaring headlines of the 
 evening papers being read by the people in the car 
 headlines telling the story of the bank failure. The 
 men in the crowd about him spoke of it, in discon 
 nected fashion, after the manner of men in crowds. 
 It seemed as if the whole atmosphere of the city 
 were full of it. 
 
 And, indeed, San Francisco had reason to be in 
 terested in the smash of the great bank. The failure 
 had been for millions and there were more than hints 
 of dishonour in it. Elliot Wentworth, a pillar of 
 high finance on the Pacific Coast and in the nation, 
 philanthropist and reputed plutocrat, was gone. 
 The thousand stricken with poverty because of his 
 going had not even the satisfaction of facing him, 
 man to man, to cry their losses. 
 
 It had been his daily habit, after banking hours, 
 to take a dip in the bay, patronizing a certain bath 
 ing establishment at North Beach where he had his 
 
 30
 
 THERE ARE BAD PEOPLE 31 
 
 own locker. That day of the failure, leaving the 
 bank at noon, a full three hours before his usual time, 
 he had gone straight to the beach, put on his bathing 
 suit, dived from the end of the short pier fronting the 
 house, and struck out toward Alcatraz. The tide 
 was then running out like a river, but he was a 
 strong swimmer, and known to be. Nothing was 
 thought of that, therefore. 
 
 The bath house keeper attempted an exchange of 
 pleasantries with the banker as had been the habit 
 between them, rallying Wentworth on his early 
 visit. And the man remembered, afterward, that 
 Wentworth had regarded him after the manner 
 of a man dazed and had replied to him strangely. 
 
 "The sea calls me!" he had cried, looking back 
 over his shoulder as he swam away, borne swiftly 
 the while by the tide running out to sea. "I must 
 find myself out there!" 
 
 Down in the city, after the business men had 
 lunched with their usual fever and hurry, rumour 
 got about. Men asked for Wentworth and none 
 knew where to find him. There were meetings of 
 directorates where he was due and did not appear. 
 At about two, or possibly a little before that hour, 
 the first edition of the Bulletin came out. The keeper 
 of the bath house at North Beach telephoned police 
 headquarters a few minutes later. 
 
 Within an incredibly short time the Bulletin came 
 out with an extra. Ten minutes after that, Bush 
 and Pine streets all below Kearny were blocked by
 
 32 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 shouting, gesticulating crowds of madmen. The 
 Stock Market had closed for the day at noon, but 
 the brokers gathered on the curb, and mining shares 
 went crashing down. Everything was thrown away ! 
 Thousands were ruined. Other thousands saw them 
 selves saved only by the circumstance that the banks 
 closed early. 
 
 There was a run on the Bank of the Pacific, and 
 nothing but the coming of the usual closing hour 
 saved the institution for that day. The directors 
 were summoned hastily. The bank's vaults were 
 found absolutely bare of coin save for the few thou 
 sands used in the daily transactions. Securities 
 that should have counted for millions were gone, none 
 could tell whither. Nothing could be done to pre 
 vent the next day's disaster, and only the efforts 
 of a score of policemen kept back the yelling maniacs 
 who seemed about to tear the massive building stone 
 from stone when the heavy bronze doors were closed 
 for the night in the faces of the crowd. The city 
 went to bed that night in such deep gloom as might 
 have followed another earthquake disaster. Indeed, 
 it was a deeper gloom. There was a certain grim 
 kind of humour in the mood after the earthquake. 
 
 It seemed to John Wentworth, alone in the crowd 
 on that car, that the atmosphere of the failure was 
 pressing upon him, smothering him. It would have 
 been a relief, at the moment, to meet a man he knew, 
 to stand up and make a physical effort against the 
 moral force that was bearing him down. But at
 
 THERE ARE BAD PEOPLE 33 
 
 that hour there would be no one he knew on a car 
 bound toward the ferries. His world was going up 
 town to the Club, pulsing along the lighted streets 
 toward the haunts of the pleasure loving. 
 
 He must begin his fight as soon as he could, facing 
 the world on behalf of that father who was so 
 strangely gone; and he would begin it with his father's 
 lawyer, who was likewise the attorney for the bank 
 and likely to have retained that connection by pref 
 erence. The lawyer, ordinarily at his home on 
 Pacific Heights at that hour of the day, would, in 
 the present stress, be more likely, Wentworth felt, 
 to stay late at his office. 
 
 Leaving the car at the corner of Montgomery, 
 Wentworth strode along that narrow thoroughfare 
 toward the lofty Mills Building. He was in the 
 financial district now. He rubbed shoulders, as he 
 made his way against the set of the crowd, with many 
 men who knew him. Some of these even stopped, 
 for a second or two, to look after him as he plunged 
 along. But he had drawn his cap over his eyes, 
 dressing his soul for battle, and had picked the field 
 on which he would fight. He walked swiftly, with 
 bent head, intent on pushing forward against the keen 
 wind that set along the street from the northwest, 
 bearing ghostly streamers of fog that were only partly 
 distinguishable from the dust clouds whirling before 
 it. And so he saw nobody. 
 
 Once he was hailed. A youngster, aping the real 
 men who swam along the Cocktail Route every even-
 
 34 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 ing, and who had been a teller in the bank, paused 
 on entering the elaborately scrolled screen doors of 
 a saloon to shout his name, and an invitation to drink . 
 But Wentworth only looked backward, waved his 
 hand, and went on. 
 
 As he had surmised, the big suite of offices of 
 Chester, Wiley & Chester, occupying the entire 
 seventh floor of the Mills Building, was alight, alive, 
 and busy. The boy in the anteroom took his card, 
 and came back almost at once to inform him that 
 Mr. Chester the elder, Mr. William Chester, was 
 within and would see him. As he had been there 
 often, and knew the way, Wentworth then passed 
 through the door leading to the corridor from which 
 opened the private offices of the firm. He was going 
 straight to Mr. William Chester's particular den 
 when the old gentleman himself came out quickly 
 and led him into another room, one of the consulta 
 tion rooms of the firm. 
 
 Wentworth was close enough to the door of the 
 old lawyer's private office as that gentleman came 
 out to catch a glimpse of a group of men seated there 
 in some sort of conference. Several of them he knew 
 elderly men who had been his father's financial 
 and social intimates, men whose names were a power 
 in the money world and of weight in the Pacific Union 
 Club. 
 
 Then the door was closed, and in another moment 
 Wentworth found himself alone in an apartment 
 with Mr. Chester. The lawyer was a short, cold,
 
 THERE ARE BAD PEOPLE 35 
 
 gray man he might have been sixty or more clean 
 shaven, perfectly appointed, with a waxy white face 
 that was like a stone mask. You would have said 
 that Father Time must have taken a sharp chisel 
 to grave the lines in it, and at that, the lines were 
 few, and not deeply graven. And yet, despite its 
 lack of lines, the face was not devoid of expression. 
 It was not a kindly face, certainly. Nothing that 
 came from it, no ray from the cold gray eyes nor any 
 trembling geniality in the thin lips or the firm chin, 
 touched any chord of human sympathy. But neither 
 was it coldly repellent. It was the face of a man who 
 bade the world stand and give the countersign. 
 
 It was entirely characteristic of this man that he 
 did not offer to shake hands with his young visitor. 
 He sat down in a revolving chair behind a flat-topped 
 desk standing in the room to which he had led Went- 
 worth, and, being thus entrenched after his custom 
 ary fashion, motioned toward another chair for his 
 caller. 
 
 "I hardly looked for you until to-morrow," he said. 
 
 "I got your wire at the Foothills last night, sir," 
 replied Wentworth, "and came up in my car at once." 
 
 "Ah!" 
 
 Wentworth was young, and not easily chilled. 
 The monosyllable and the stone face might have 
 stopped an older man. He made a desperate effort 
 to get past it. 
 
 "Oh, Mr. Chester!" he cried. "My father! Tell 
 me everything, sir ! "
 
 36 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 It was a pity that, the son of his father, he lacked 
 the countersign. It may have been a pity, too, that 
 his father had not at the last possessed the means 
 of enlisting on the side of the lawyer, or tried to enlist 
 the lawyer on his. The coldest man living has his 
 vanity. 
 
 "You have read the newspapers, I suppose?" 
 said the lawyer, coldly. 
 
 "I have seen them, sir." 
 
 "I would recommend them to your careful perusal. 
 Their accounts of what happened are pretty complete 
 and fairly accurate." 
 
 Went worth felt the repulse. But he would not 
 be dashed not yet. 
 
 "You were my father's lawyer, Mr. Chester," 
 he said, with a touch of manly reproach. "You 
 wired me of this disaster. And I have come to you ! " 
 
 "It is true that your father retained me through 
 many years. But a client who withholds confidence 
 betrays his attorney, sir." 
 
 "That is a serious charge, Mr. Chester. And do 
 you know nothing of my father? " 
 
 Went worth, regarding the lawyer closely, was not 
 quite sure but that a faint smile crossed the stone 
 face at his question. It was no more than a breath 
 crossing a mirror. 
 
 "No more than the dead or the sea!" replied 
 the lawyer. 
 
 It was baffling, still, Wentworth would not give 
 up.
 
 THERE ARE BAD PEOPLE 37 
 
 "If my father is dead," he said, solemnly, "it 
 was the hand of God in this thing. I will never be 
 lieve that he swam out into the sea with no purpose 
 to come back." 
 
 Again across the lawyer's face there flickered that 
 faint suggestion of a smile, the breath upon the mir 
 ror. When he spoke, after that, Wentworth fancied 
 that there was in his tone just a hint of pity. 
 
 "Men incline," said Mr. Chester, "to credit God 
 with many a neat stroke of the devil's handiwork. 
 But I have nothing to do with your beliefs, Mr. 
 Wentworth; and the world will hold to its own. A 
 command may come from the grave, sir! It is 
 usually better to let dead men lie." 
 
 "What do you mean by that?" asked Wentworth, 
 half starting up. 
 
 The lawyer sat for a moment, regarding him 
 keenly. In those crises when it becomes professional 
 to cut the heart out of a man, the operator may well 
 pause at the start to contemplate with some care the 
 making of the first incision. When Mr. Chester 
 spoke again there was a cold precision in his voice 
 that told Wentworth every word was well considered 
 and was believed by the speaker to be irrefutable. 
 
 "Your father," he said, "is gone. I believe 
 and I knew him better than any man living, although 
 of late years I have reason to know that he kept much 
 from me that when he struck out from that pier 
 at the North Beach bathing establishment he did 
 not mean to come back. Ten millions in securities,
 
 38 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 that were supposed to lie safely in the vaults of the 
 Bank of the Pacific, are gone likewise. Where those 
 securities are we know no more than we know where 
 abouts in the dark seas that run about the Heads 
 outside the Bay the beaten body of Elliot Wentworth 
 may be tossing at this moment. 
 
 "The securities that I speak of seem to have been 
 thrown into the financial sea long, long ago. That 
 
 could not have been done without the privity and 
 
 Keep your seat, young man!" For Wentworth had 
 made as if to rise. 
 
 "That could not have been done without the 
 privity, the dishonest privity, of the President of 
 the Bank of the Pacific. You have said that I was 
 your father's lawyer. For many years .1 was. I 
 may have been led to think that I was, up to the 
 last. But I have found that, latterly, he took other 
 advice than mine. Do you think that I would advise 
 a client to forge, sir, and to steal? Your father, it 
 has been found, was in the mining stock market 
 much more heavily and for many more years than 
 anybody supposed. I never advised a man to specu 
 late in stocks in my life, young man. And it was 
 only when a demand was made for a great part of the 
 securities now missing, to finance a big industrial pro 
 ject, that discovery became inevitable and the crash 
 came. I would recommend you to leave it at that." 
 
 After that one start to repel the arraignment of 
 his father, Wentworth bowed his head in his hands 
 and heard the lawyer out in silence. Mr. Chester
 
 THERE ARE BAD PEOPLE 39 
 
 spoke coldly and without any trace of passion. The 
 very manner of his speaking was calculated to carry 
 conviction. The despair of youth, swift as youth's 
 recovery from despair, bowed the younger man down. 
 Yet he made no more effort. 
 
 "But my father had many large interests!" 
 he said. 
 
 "None that would save the situation. Even those 
 that he had are in the formative stage: a new hotel, 
 an electric railway still building, a great power pro 
 ject. These must all be financed, and heavily, to 
 be carried through to any one's profit. Your father 
 began many things and completed few." 
 
 " There is nothing left, then, sir? " 
 
 "Less than nothing. But I may say that I am 
 authorized, as to yourself " 
 
 "I was not thinking of myself," interrupted Went- 
 worth. 
 
 "Nevertheless, it seems to me that that is the most 
 important thing for you to think of, at the moment. 
 Others have given you some thought, sir! Your 
 fortunes were a subject of discussion among the 
 gentlemen in my room even as you came in." 
 
 "The gentlemen in your room, sir? " 
 
 " The Directors of the Bank of the Pacific, yes. It 
 was their idea that you would be permitted to finish at 
 Berkeley, if you liked, and would then be given work 
 in the bank or in some equally eligible situation." 
 
 "The bank?" queried Went worth. He was all 
 at sea.
 
 40 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "The Bank of the Pacific," explained Mr. Chester. 
 "They propose to come forward with the millions 
 necessary to rehabilitate it. The decision is not half 
 an hour old. The bank could not be permitted to go 
 down. That would be a disaster national in scope. 
 This action of the Directors is merely that of men 
 who run to fight a fire. Of course there will be heavy 
 losses by depositors and trust funds or, rather, 
 there will be delay in settlements. But the situation 
 will be saved." 
 
 "The bank will reopen, then?" 
 
 " To-morrow morning. There is no secret about it. 
 The newspapers will have the statements to-night. 
 Your late father's enterprises go into the pot with 
 the rest." 
 
 "I should have supposed that. And the gentle 
 men who do all this would make my fortunes their 
 care, likewise?" 
 
 Wentworth could not have told what it was that 
 prompted the bitterness in his words. But he was 
 beginning to feel something of the recovery of youth. 
 Indeed, he was still over-young to question the mo 
 tives of any man. He may merely have desired, 
 instinctively, to stand alone. 
 
 "They could not well do otherwise," said Mr. 
 Chester. "You must live and make your liv 
 ing. And most of these men liked your father. 
 That liking would prompt them to give you a 
 chance." 
 
 "I think I would rather make my living somewhere
 
 THERE ARE BAD PEOPLE 41 
 
 else than behind the counter of the bank," said 
 Went worth. 
 
 "That is, perhaps, a natural feeling. I dare say 
 there will be other clerkships to be found, after you 
 shall have finished with your schooling." 
 
 "I have finished with my schooling," said Went- 
 worth, rising as he spoke. "And I mean, sir, to 
 take my future into my own hands." 
 
 "It isn't much to take!" murmured the lawyer 
 as if rather to himself. 
 
 "Little or much, it is mine," replied Wentworth. 
 If Mr. Chester, who should have known the fighting 
 blood of the Wentworths, wanted to rouse it to ac 
 tion, he had taken a very sure way. But it may be 
 that he only indulged the lawyer's passion for playing 
 upon a human instrument." 
 
 "You reject the help of your father's friends?" 
 he asked. 
 
 "Oh, my father's friends? Yes, sir." 
 
 "You will at least go in and see these gentlemen?" 
 
 "What is the good of quarrelling with a crowd when 
 I have been sufficiently accommodated by one, sir? 
 Their time is valuable! Why waste it on me? I 
 know what I do not want, at least." 
 
 "I am to assume that you will take your fortunes 
 away from San Francisco?" queried the lawyer. 
 
 Wentworth leaped to his feet, starting to leave 
 the office. "You may assume whatever you like, 
 sir," he said, "but it is my purpose to fight the battle 
 out on this field."
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 AND, LIKEWISE, THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE 
 
 BUT it was not written that Wentworth should 
 fight his battle in San Francisco, firm as his 
 purpose was to do that when he left the 
 lawyer's office. He turned and passed out through 
 the door of the consultation room, and so on across 
 the anteroom into the main hallway of the big build 
 ing. He was not sure, by the time he had tramped 
 down six flights of stairs to the street the elevators 
 having stopped running that matters were alto 
 gether so hopeless as the lawyer had represented. 
 
 But he had no more than the resiliency natural 
 to youth as a basis for this recovery of faith. He had 
 never, really, become well acquainted with his father. 
 Once, several years before, the elder Wentworth had 
 been seriously hurt about the head in an auto ac 
 cident in the Park. He had been carried home un 
 conscious and his son called hastily from his college 
 duties to his bedside. The papers had been full of 
 the accident at the time a financial magnate of the 
 size of the President of the Bank of the Pacific could 
 not be thus stricken without causing something of a 
 flurry. Young Wentworth had sat beside his father's 
 sick bed through that illness, and the elder man had 
 
 42
 
 THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE 43 
 
 presently come back to what had seemed to be com 
 plete recovery. The incident had long ago passed 
 entirely out of young Wentworth's mind. For the 
 rest, there were just the two of them in the big 
 marble palace on Pacific Heights. The elder man 
 was buried in gold, the younger absorbed in the more 
 healthful preoccupations of youth. There had al 
 ways been plenty of everything in the house, espe 
 cially money; but that is not good ground for father 
 and son to meet on if they come together on no 
 other. But Elliot Wentworth had lost his wife when 
 the boy was born, and at that loss had immersed 
 himself the more deeply in financial affairs. Pos 
 sibly the loss had turned him against the child, sub 
 consciously. There are such strange mysteries in 
 human relationships. Young Wentworth, at all 
 events, had grown to manhood almost in his own way 
 and, with manhood, came honour. He could not, 
 having honour himself, believe his father devoid of it. 
 Of course, if there had been dishonour, he could 
 understand how there should also be inevitable death. 
 Little as he had known his father, he had known him 
 to be a proud man, and sensitive. Maybe, if he had 
 been less proud and self-contained, the elder man 
 might have touched his son's life more nearly. But 
 the fact that Wentworth held to his faith in his 
 father's honour, after the first effect of the lawyer's 
 relation wore off, made him reject not the fact 
 of death, for that seemed beyond doubt but the 
 theory of suicide.
 
 44 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 It would be a part of his work in life, therefore, 
 to rehabilitate the good name of his father. This 
 much, at least, had been clear to his mind when he 
 rejected, on his own behalf, the help of the men who 
 had determined to reopen the bank. If he did clear 
 his father's name it must be at somebody's expense. 
 Whatever part they might have had in wrecking the 
 bank if any of them had a part the men who were 
 to open a new bank on the ruins of the old one could 
 have no sympathy with any such purpose as he cher 
 ished. If any of them had had any part in wrecking 
 the bank, Wentworth's purpose would be one which 
 they would stop at nothing to defeat. 
 
 It was a maze as yet, and Wentworth was groping 
 somewhat blindly in it but, if his father had been 
 driven to his ruin, the driver or drivers must have been 
 big in the world of finance. A man of his father's 
 stamp could not be cast into the abyss save to the 
 profit of somebody, and it might well chance that 
 the driver, having seen the father ruined, would be 
 willing or even anxious to help the son to live. It is 
 not the government alone that keeps a conscience fund. 
 
 These thoughts formed themselves vaguely as 
 Wentworth plunged along Montgomery Street now 
 with only the wind and fog for company, and turned 
 into a place he knew in order to get the evening 
 papers and the last details of the calamity in which 
 he was involved. That much of Mr. Chester's talk 
 had been sound, anyhow. He must know all that 
 there was to know of the catastrophe.
 
 THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE 45 
 
 It was a place on the Cocktail Route that he en 
 tered, about the first station; and so, of course, the 
 current setting up town had swept the crowd on an 
 hour before. The one man left on the late watch 
 which might catch a stray sailorman from the front 
 or a belated Oaklander hurrying to the ferry, no 
 more than that knew him and greeted him. 
 
 "How do, Mr. Wentworth?" said the barkeeper, 
 extending his hand across the bar, and smoothing 
 down his white apron. 
 
 It often happens that a barkeeper's hand is the 
 last held out to a falling man and the first to a rising. 
 
 "Hullo, Charlie! Make me a cocktail, will you? 
 And I would like to look at the evening papers." 
 
 There was a row of little stalls along one side of the 
 place that could be shut in by red plush curtains 
 swung from brass rods, and into one of these Went 
 worth went, sinking on the red plush seat beside the 
 mahogany table that took up most of the space. 
 The evening papers lay spread out there, left by the 
 last occupant. On the top of the pile was the 
 Bulletin, a scare headline right away across the top 
 of the first page, and following it a full story of the 
 financial disaster and the tragedy of the fate of Elliot 
 Wentworth. It was a plain tale, plainly set down. 
 The most fervid reporter had no need to draw on his 
 imagination to heighten interest in a story like that. 
 
 Wentworth was sitting with his head upon his 
 hands, reading the tale, when the barkeeper came 
 across softly, and placed the red drink at his elbow.
 
 46 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 The man did not go away again at once. The two 
 were alone in the place, and the barkeeper was stirred 
 by the practical sympathy of the poor. Also, he 
 had been a loser by the failure of the bank. Went- 
 worth, looking up for a moment, saw the kindness 
 in the servitor's eye, and smiled at him. It needed 
 no more than that. 
 
 "This is hell, Mr. Wentworth, ain't it?" said the 
 barkeeper. 
 
 "And then some!" Wentworth replied, and went 
 back to his newspaper. 
 
 He rose, at last, knowing all of the story that the 
 world knew. Crossing to the bar, where the bar 
 keeper was busily polishing glasses, whistling softly 
 as he worked, Wentworth said, "Make me another 
 cocktail, Charlie and one for yourself!" 
 
 The man mixed the drinks at once, and they drank. 
 Then Charlie said, as they set down their glasses, 
 "Have one on the house, sir?" 
 
 "No more, thanks," replied Wentworth. 
 
 "Well," said Charlie, sighing as he put the glasses 
 away, "this is hell, Mr. Wentworth, ain't it? I lose 
 five hundred bones, myself, on the play!" 
 
 "I am sorry for that," replied Wentworth. "I 
 have lost everything." 
 
 "I know!" said the barkeeper. "It is a pretty 
 hard deal and, say, Mr. Wentworth, it ain't much, 
 but if a twenty or so should come anyways handy, 
 I've always got it in the safe, here." 
 
 "Thanks, old man," replied Wentworth. "After
 
 THERE ARE GOOD PEOPLE 47 
 
 all, there are many good people in the world. I 
 will remember. And so, good-night ! " 
 
 "Good-night!" replied the barkeeper. "But this 
 is hell, ain't it?" 
 
 He went back to wiping glasses, whistling softly. 
 Wentworth passed out into the fog of the night, 
 caught a Sutter Street car, and transferred to Polk 
 for Pacific Heights. But he might as well have spared 
 himself that trouble. The marble palace of the 
 Wentworths' was already boarded up, front door and 
 windows, and the caretaker whom he aroused at last 
 in the back premises looked upon him clearly with 
 the gravest suspicion. 
 
 "You may be young Mr. Wentworth," the old 
 woman said, peering out at him from the servants' 
 door she only opened it the least little way "but 
 it's a queer time o' night to be comin' 'round. That's 
 all I says!" 
 
 Then she slammed the door in his face. He heard 
 it bolted on the inside, moreover. He had not 
 thought about the house being closed up so quickly, 
 but, on reflection, saw that it was natural enough 
 that it should be. The house servants would go at 
 the first hint of calamity. Rats do not abide a ship 
 that is about to founder Chinese rats, least of all. 
 And, of course, he could not blame the caretaker for 
 not knowing him. 
 
 If he was to be permitted to look at his father's 
 papers, and allowed to get some things left in his own 
 room, he could procure an order the next day from
 
 48 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 whoever had control of the place. Moreover, it 
 occurred to him, at this moment, that he was faint; 
 that he had eaten nothing since morning. And he 
 must have a place where he could stay the night. 
 
 Old habits being still strong, he caught the next 
 car that passed on the way down town, transferred 
 to Sutter, and took a room at the St. Francis. As 
 he registered, he asked the clerk to have his steamer 
 trunk and suitcases sent for from the garage in 
 Golden Gate Avenue, and then he turned and went 
 downstairs to the grill. 
 
 And he found himself seated at a small table, meant 
 to accommodate two, shaking hands across the white 
 cloth with Fred Upson, a fraternity brother of last 
 year who had taken honours at Hastings Law School 
 and was just beginning to attract some notice at the 
 Bar.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 A NEW WAY OF LIFE 
 
 GOD bless you, John Wentworth!" cried Upson 
 as he gripped the other. "God bless you!" 
 Wentworth smiled, a bit wearily. "He 
 would seem to have been doing rather the other 
 thing," he replied. 
 
 "Nonsense ! Take a brace, man ! " 
 
 And Wentworth did draw himself together. The 
 hearty manner of this friend was a tonic as the friend 
 liness of the barkeeper had been. Indeed, there were 
 good people in the world more good than bad. 
 
 "I think I can fight," he said, with a firmer setting 
 of the lips. 
 
 "Of course you can fight. You have got to 
 fight!" 
 
 Upson knew all that the world knew of the failure 
 of the Bank of the Pacific and the tragedy. He 
 was to get, now, something of a more intimate knowl 
 edge of the affair from W T entworth's relation of the 
 meeting with Mr. Chester. And he made the law 
 yer's natural comment on John's tale of his talk with 
 his father's legal representative. 
 
 "Man," he exclaimed, "there is something behind 
 it!" 
 
 49
 
 50 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 It was the crystallization into clarity of the chaos 
 of Wentworth's own thoughts. 
 
 "There is something behind it," he agreed. 
 "But what?" 
 
 "You knew nothing of your father's affairs?" 
 queried Upson. 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 "Nor of his business associates and associa 
 tions?" 
 
 "Not much more than everyone knew. The big 
 guns of Pine Street used to come to the house oc 
 casionally. He frequented the Pacific Union Club, 
 and I suppose found them all there. If there was one 
 that seemed closer than another, it was old Harran, 
 but I do not know that he was much closer. Chester 
 sometimes seemed to be more intimate. The papers 
 were always full of the doings of the Wentworth 
 crowd on 'Change, or of the Baldwin crowd, or the 
 Harran crowd. My father, I gathered, was more 
 nearly identified with the Harran lot than with any 
 other although I never seriously gave the thing 
 much thought for the Harran crowd and the Went 
 worth seemed frequently to be made by the news 
 paper fellows to mean the same thing. Harran was 
 always a big man at the bank. I saw him, among 
 others, when I caught a glimpse of the lot in Chester's 
 office. But the whole world of money is like a great 
 kaleidoscope to me, turning and shifting." 
 
 "As to the rest of us," agreed Upson. "You 
 merely saw the shining colours as they changed. "
 
 A NEW WAY OF LIFE 51 
 
 "And took joy in them," said Wentworth. 
 
 "Naturally! You could reach out and seize any 
 colour that you fancied. The balance of us must 
 be content to look through the tube and keep hands 
 off." 
 
 "That was about the size of it," said Wentworth. 
 
 "Well," said Upson, after a little silence, "it took 
 some considerable manipulation to keep the colours 
 constantly changing. I suppose you always un 
 derstood that?" 
 
 "I suppose that I did. But I am not conscious 
 of ever having thought much about it." 
 
 "You would not, the whole game being so much 
 a matter of every day," said Upson. " Your father's 
 hand was probably doing most of the manipulating, 
 during all the time after you were old enough to 
 take notice. But there seems to have come a hand, 
 at last, that snatched the tube away from his, and 
 then he was thrown on the screen among the atoms, 
 and winked out." 
 
 Wentworth had steadied, more and more, as they 
 talked. Moreover, the dinner had begun to move 
 across the table in orderly procession, and the sanity 
 of this presentation of food, as much as the strength 
 ening quality of the viands themselves, refreshed 
 him. 
 
 "You mean that it was necessary to eliminate my 
 father in someone's interest?" he asked. 
 
 "Exactly that. He stood in the way of some pre 
 datory plutocrat's accumulation of more millions.
 
 52 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 His wide operations, sooner or later, would lay him 
 open to the squeeze. Your father, my boy, had some 
 thing of the plunger's reputation hi the large, con 
 structive way. The stronger hand closed on him 
 at the chance, and he went out." 
 
 "That may all be true," said Wentworth, mus 
 ingly. 
 
 "It is true," Upson asserted, with conviction. 
 
 "And whose was the stronger hand?" 
 
 "I do not know enough of your father's concerns 
 to justify a conclusion. For choice, if I were to 
 hazard a guess, I would say Harran's." 
 
 "People have told me that I was like my father," 
 said Wentworth. "I did not know him well enough 
 to be certain that that was the fact. But I do not 
 believe that any loss of money would drive me to 
 death." 
 
 "Do you know that your father is dead?" asked 
 Upson. 
 
 "Do you realize what is implied by that ques 
 tion?" flashed Wentworth. 
 
 "Not what you seem to think," replied Upson, 
 as quickly. 
 
 "It is death or dishonour, Fred. God help me, 
 it may be both!" 
 
 The shadow with which Wentworth had been 
 struggling for a day and a night rose, darkly, to 
 confront him. But he fought it away. "I will 
 not believe it!" he cried. "I will not believe it!" 
 
 "And you need not," said Upson. "Look here,
 
 A NEW WAY OF LIFE 53 
 
 John ! Your father was a promoter, therefore a man 
 sanguine by temperament, and imaginative, in other 
 words, a dreamer. Every great promoter is a dreamer* 
 And the man who succeeds at the trade is the man 
 who makes his dreams come true. He builds in 
 the world of high finance, and his building tools are 
 men and money. Your father was carried, say, a 
 thought beyond himself in one of his great construc 
 tive dreams. There may have been some accidental 
 slip, some sudden contingency whose liability to occur 
 was overlooked and not provided for. He may have 
 been tempted. God alone knows! We all are, at 
 times." 
 
 He fell silent for a moment, while the other sat 
 watching him. 
 
 "And then?" asked Wentworth. 
 
 "He may have been tempted. The world, John, 
 is a wild beasts* den. I tell you that, as a lawyer. I 
 have seen the beasts in it with their masks off." 
 
 "I do not believe that all men are bad," protested 
 Wentworth. Even amidst the darkness in which he 
 was groping, he would not go that far.'* 
 
 "Believe what you like but listen! The world 
 is a den of wild beasts; or, if you prefer it that way, 
 the world of money is a den of wild beasts. They 
 are more ravenous in that world than in any other, 
 anyhow. I grant you that, freely. The dreamer 
 was in the den among the beasts, and laid himself in 
 some way open to attack from the most ferocious 
 of them. We cannot tell what weakened joint there
 
 54 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 may have been in the dreamer's armour. You say 
 that your father recovered completely from the effect 
 of his injury in that automobile accident but, did 
 he? You have no more than the word of a doctor 
 and his own apparent recovery to go upon. And 
 we are dealing with that subtlest of all things, the 
 human brain! Did the beasts find the flaw, and 
 pierce the armour? We must manage to learn that, 
 somehow. 
 
 "That your father fought against his foes, and 
 fought manfully, I do not doubt. That he fought 
 to lose, the whole world knows. I believe that, 
 knowing where he was weak, they leaped upon the 
 dreamer to devour him. That he may have been 
 led, in the desperation of his resistance and in his 
 weakness, to do the thing too much, is at least pos 
 sible. And then, awakened, he fell into the dream 
 er's panic. He would fear, as he ran, that every 
 thing was gone; that all that was left for him was 
 to get away, to hide from the world. Later and 
 when he might even deem it too late he would come 
 to see that he could still have stayed and fought; 
 that this or that chance to retrieve himself had been 
 overlooked. But the panic flight would then stand 
 forever between him and his return and rehabilita 
 tion." 
 
 "There could be no coming back," said Wentworth. 
 
 "I do not go that far," protested Upson. "But 
 that thought would be in the dreamer's mind. To 
 drop metaphor, John, it is my opinion that some of
 
 A NEW WAY OF LIFE 55 
 
 the big fellows down there on the Street got your 
 father into a corner, put him into a position from 
 which he could see no way out at the moment, and 
 squeezed him. Whether this was done by some sup 
 pression; whether he was led into signing obligations 
 he could not meet; whether securities that could not 
 at that moment be replaced were swallowed by a 
 swiftly manipulated and disastrous turn in stocks 
 I do not know. But the thing is done every day. 
 It is a mere incident in life with those fellows. And 
 generally each one takes his turn, and they are all 
 going continually up and down like an eternal and 
 infernal seesaw. Your father was a bigger man than 
 usually falls; and the profit was greater to those 
 who ruined him. Also, his fall made more com 
 motion. I believe that the man, or men, responsible 
 knew him, temperamentally, better than you did. 
 They counted upon what would follow on their 
 act. It is possible that they know where he is 
 now, and have a fear that you may come to sus 
 pect them. Why should they offer to care for you, 
 otherwise?" 
 
 Wentworth put the point as to himself aside, for 
 the moment, although Upson's words had strongly 
 borne out his own fleeting notion of a conscience 
 fund. 
 
 "You honestly do not believe that my father is 
 dead?" he asked. 
 
 "I will believe that he is dead when the Bay gives 
 up his body not before."
 
 56 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "I cannot think that he would run away from a 
 mere money loss," said Wentworth, insistently. 
 
 "Nor does it follow that he has. Understand me, 
 John ! I do not imply, knowing you, I do not believe, 
 that your father has run away because of dishonour. 
 But that he may have been led to think that dis 
 honour impended is certainly within the possibilities. 
 We do not know what moments of weakness he may 
 have had; what promises may have been made to 
 him; what his condition may have been as to sanity; 
 what pressure may have been brought to bear; what 
 power of coercion may have been in the hands of his 
 enemies at the psychological moment. But that 
 he was driven to flight, I am most firmly persuaded." 
 
 "And you think that Harran 
 
 "I have named Harran for choice. There may 
 have been, and probably were, others in it as well. 
 The pickings would be large enough to share. How 
 ever his affairs were tangled, your father had mil 
 lions. And the fellows who took his fleece would 
 have more than enough to make all his projects good." 
 
 "Mr. Chester said that there was nothing left that 
 belonged to my father." 
 
 "Ah, the lawyer! Well, at that point come in the 
 ethics of the profession, my son. As your father's 
 representative, to say the least possible of it, Mr. 
 Chester has taken a peculiar position. I would 
 not go any further than that at this time." 
 
 "If all this be true," said Wentworth, and his 
 mental state as he said it was more hopeful than it
 
 A NEW WAY OF LIFE 57 
 
 had been at any time since his arrival in San Fran 
 cisco, "the first thing needful is to find my father!" 
 
 "That is the thing needful but it cannot be done 
 first." 
 
 "What, then?" 
 
 "We must get a line on the operation in the Street 
 that led to the disaster. If your father is alive as I 
 believe, he is somewhere safe, and as well as a man 
 may be who carries his load." 
 
 "It should be my first duty to set him right," 
 protested Went worth. "To get him out of his false 
 position!" 
 
 "Certainly. But it is a point of method. It is 
 very doubtful whether you can do anything at all 
 by commencing an immediate search for him. If 
 there had been a deal, the men who were behind it will 
 make it then* business to watch you, and to thwart 
 any efforts you may make calculated to jeopardize 
 their security. Your talk with Chester may already 
 have put them on guard. You scorned his proposals 
 and he seems deep in their confidence. And, re 
 member, they have money at command and a long 
 reach." 
 
 Upson paused for a moment, to light a cigarette. 
 
 "I incline to think, John," he went on, "that it 
 would have been wiser for you to stay with the 
 University." 
 
 "And feed from the hands of the men who ruined 
 my father?" asked Went worth, so completely had 
 he accepted the theories of Upson.
 
 58 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "It would have thrown them off their guard more 
 completely," the other replied. "And they would 
 not have credited you even with a suspicion." 
 
 "Well, it is done, now," said Wentworth. "I 
 have rejected their help, and with something of scorn. 
 And I am glad that I did," he added, reflectively. 
 
 "Yes; I suppose that I am, too," said Upson. 
 "Nevertheless, the absence of suspicion from the 
 minds of those estimable gentlemen would have been 
 a desirable thing at this moment. That condition 
 being out of the question, the next best thing is for 
 you to get work somewhere, anywhere, at anything, 
 it does not matter what. You should appear to be 
 so completely occupied in making your living as 
 to leave no time at all for other matters. That is to 
 blind your watchful enemy as to your real purpose." 
 
 "And the appearance of making my living may 
 well run into the reality," said Wentworth, grimly. 
 "But you surely do not mean that I must abandon, 
 even for the time being, all effort to get at the bottom 
 of this thing?" 
 
 "Not at all. You must do your investigating with 
 adroitness, which is a different thing. You have 
 shrewd men and powerful agencies opposed to you. 
 I will take your interest in charge, as your lawyer. 
 It will be the obvious thing for you to have a lawyer. 
 In that position, it is possible that I may get a line 
 that you would never find. Working together 
 for I mean that you shall work, although as yet we 
 have not thought out a campaign we are certain
 
 A NEW WAY OF LIFE 59 
 
 to get the clue, sooner or later. If either of us dis 
 covers anything, when either of us discovers anything 
 we will act. In the meantime, you work, work, 
 work! That is the best anodyne for a weary mind 
 the Lord ever devised."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 A RED ROSE AND THE OLD LIFE ENDS 
 
 THE waiter brought the rum omelet, and 
 Upson began to spoon the blazing liquor over 
 the dish, cooking it after the manner approved 
 by the worldly. 
 
 "The thing for you now, John," he said, "is to 
 put yourself entirely in my hands as your legal ad 
 viser. Let the law feel its way, first." 
 
 "I will be honest with you, Fred," replied Went- 
 worth. He had in his mind a keen remembrance 
 of Mr. Chester the elder. "I don't like law, nor 
 yet, as a class, lawyers." 
 
 Upson smiled, divining the thought behind the 
 words. "You must have them, nevertheless to 
 meet law, and other lawyers," he said. 
 
 "There is a good deal of the idea of enlisting mer 
 cenary troops in it." 
 
 "The mercenaries volunteer in your interest this 
 time, old man. Hullo! There is Allison!" 
 
 Wentworth looked across the room, and saw the man 
 he had left on the back stoop of the Foothills Hotel 
 making his way toward them from the Grill entrance. 
 
 "I thought I had abandoned you in the south," 
 he said, rising to greet his friend. 
 
 60
 
 A RED ROSE 61 
 
 "So you did, dear boy," replied Allison, shaking 
 hands with one and then the other. "How are you, 
 Upson? But Brooks and I caught the Coaster this 
 morning at Ventura, after staying long enough to 
 give ease of mind to a number of your dear friends, 
 disturbed by stories in the Los Angeles papers, and 
 followed after. I could not desert Brooks as you 
 did me. I find he is a valuable asset to me, if only 
 in the way of an awful example of what follows on 
 human frailty. But do you know that it is after 
 midnight, you two owls? And I am as hungry as a 
 wolf." 
 
 The waiter, at a nod from Upson, had drawn a 
 third chair to the little table, and Allison sat down 
 and called for a steak and a bottle of Burgundy. 
 Waiting for his service, he was taken into the talk 
 at once. 
 
 "I have just been telling this youth," explained 
 Upson, after a short recital of Wentworth's expe 
 rience with the lawyer, "that he must let me represent 
 his interests in these matters." 
 
 " Surely ! " agreed Allison. 
 
 "And I have been telling Upson that I like neither 
 law nor the genus lawyer," said Wentworth; "that 
 the notion of employing mercenaries in warfare is 
 very repugnant to me." 
 
 "It seems to me that the mercenaries volunteer," 
 suggested Allison. "And it takes a lawyer to fight 
 lawyers." 
 
 This somewhat whimsical repetition by the new-
 
 02 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 comer of almost the very words that Upson had used 
 put the three into that humorous vein that is to be 
 found in almost everything human and so on a better 
 footing as to the tragic business they were discussing. 
 
 "I suppose that I will have to let you fellows 
 have your way of it," said Wentworth, under this 
 better influence. 
 
 "Of course you will," agreed Upson, cheerfully. 
 "And now, where are you stopping? " 
 
 "Here," replied Wentworth. 
 
 "At the St. Francis ! " exclaimed Upson. 
 
 "Pretty high, isn't it, all things considered? I'll 
 move to-morrow." 
 
 "Come up to the University Club with me!" 
 cried Allison. 
 
 "And Brooks? Thanks, old man. But that 
 would be pretty high, too. I must make my own 
 living, now, you know. My lawyer here tells me 
 that, and, indeed, I know it without any telling." 
 
 "And that will be enough of the battle for you 
 to undertake at first," said Upson. 
 
 "All the same," insisted Wentworth, "I do not 
 intend to give up the field to you altogether." 
 
 "The legal end of it, at all events," said Upson. 
 "And now, about making your living? " 
 
 "I might get a clerkship somewhere?" suggested 
 Wentworth. 
 
 "A form of slavery!" murmured Allison. 
 
 "Not bad, as tending to take all the time a man 
 has," said Upson.
 
 A RED ROSE 63 
 
 " Nevertheless, I didn't believe that it is good for 
 any man to become a mere drudge," said Allison, 
 speaking with an earnestness unusual to him. "I 
 think it would be better if you could find something 
 that would give you a chance to do some of the fight 
 ing. And, anyway, how do you propose to live until 
 you get your clerkship? " 
 
 "I still have most of the two hundred I left the 
 Foothills with. And I can sell the Green Flyer," 
 said Wentworth. "It cost me $5,000. I should 
 get half that." 
 
 "Give you three thousand for it!" said Allison. 
 
 "What do you want with it? You never drove a 
 car in your life." 
 
 "I am possessed of a wild desire to begin. And, 
 dear boy, think how eligible it will be for Brooks to 
 break his neck with on joy rides! Do you take it?" 
 
 "Of course I take it. Send me a check in the 
 morning." 
 
 "Good enough!" said Allison. 
 
 "Three thousand ought to keep me, even at the 
 St. Francis, for a day or two," said Wentworth. 
 
 "As your legal adviser, I still think it will be better 
 for you to find an occupation," put in Upson. "The 
 three thousand is a very good nest-egg, and might be 
 needed to buy powder. A war chest is a very good 
 thing to have, when war impends." 
 
 "Right you are!" exclaimed Wentworth. "What 
 a blessing it is that my poor, old dad would never 
 permit me to go into debt. I don't owe a soul!"
 
 64 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 He was silent, downcast for just a moment. And 
 then his cheerfulness came back. "I'll bank the 
 three thousand, and find a room in the Western 
 Addition to-morrow," he said. "Then I'll look fcr 
 a job." 
 
 "Ever do newspaper work?" asked Upson. 
 
 "Not a line. Why?" 
 
 "Well, there's Charlie Stringham, managing editor 
 of the Call, over there. I know him pretty well. I 
 used to do a turn or two at it myself, in my college 
 days. And they are always giving fellows tryouts 
 on the newspapers. Want to take a chance? " 
 
 He did not say, although he knew it to be the fact, 
 that if Wentworth became interested, the trade would 
 take all that he had to give, body and brain. The 
 fact that he wanted a clear field to work in was one 
 that he could not bring out too clearly. 
 
 "I'll take any chance:" replied Wentworth. And 
 then he went on, eagerly, "It would be the best thing 
 I could do. The reporters go everywhere." 
 
 "So they do," agreed Upson. He rose at that. 
 "Stay here a minute, you fellows," he said. 
 
 He went straight across the Grill to where there 
 sat at a table alone a square-jawed, clean-shaven man, 
 not old, but with the lines in his face that great 
 responsibility graves more deeply than the years. 
 This man looked up and nodded, and Upson sat 
 down opposite him. The lawyer seemed to lay the 
 matter in hand before the square-jawed man in a 
 very earnest manner indeed. Wentworth, watching,
 
 A RED ROSE 65 
 
 caught one swift glance from a pair of clear, blue eyes 
 that just swept over him in a look that seemed to take 
 in instantly everything in the Grill the lights, 
 the flowers, the men and women babbling in time 
 to the music, everything. And Wentworth knew, 
 meeting the blue eyes, that he had been measured. 
 
 Presently Upson rose, Stringham set down his 
 wine glass, empty, and followed him. They came 
 over to the table where Allison was now attacking 
 his steak and Burgundy, and Upson introduced the 
 editor. Stringham came to the point like a man 
 who meets, and passes, everything. 
 
 "Upson tells me that you want to try your hand 
 at newspaper work, Mr. Wentworth," he said. 
 
 "I want to work," replied Wentworth. 
 
 "There is work for men who want it," replied the 
 editor. "But it is real work. A newspaper demands 
 everything. Come to my office to-morrow at one 
 o'clock, and we'll talk it over. I dare say we can 
 arrange something, if you really want it." 
 
 "Thank you!" said Wentworth. 
 
 "Not at all. Good-night," said the editor. 
 "Good-night, Mr. Allison. I'm glad to have met 
 you. I will see you about that other matter any 
 time you like, Upson. Good -night." 
 
 The three young men gave him good-night, and 
 he went his way out of the Grill. And the next 
 day John Wentworth was regularly enrolled on the 
 City Staff of the Call, with orders to report for duty 
 the folio whig afternoon, and a salary of twenty
 
 66 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 dollars a week as a beginner. He had been accus 
 tomed to spend several times that amount in a day, 
 if it suited his humour, but this small stipend was a 
 healthy one for a man to begin the world on. He 
 found a room, too, away out on Bush Street, beyond 
 Fillmore; and for this he paid ten dollars a month 
 in advance, with the privilege of the bath. 
 
 To this place he sent his steamer trunk from the 
 St. Francis ; and later, a larger trunk from the marble 
 palace on Pacific Heights filled with such of his 
 personal belongings as it suited him to keep. A 
 few trinkets, his father's repeater which he found in 
 his own old room by some strange chance, and his 
 private papers. He got this trunk by favour of 
 Upson, who procured an order from the receiver in 
 bankruptcy. Bankruptcy proceedings had already 
 been commenced when Wentworth reached San 
 Francisco. The receiver it was who had taken pos 
 session of the marble palace as the only tangible 
 thing left by the elder Wentworth. Otherwise, 
 there was in sight only the promoter's interest in 
 various projected enterprises, and these the receiver 
 might hope to realize on only by an amicable arrange 
 ment with the people who were to revive the Bank. 
 
 After he had removed his luggage to his new quar 
 ters, Wentworth banked the three thousand Allison 
 paid him for the Green Flyer, and was ready to report 
 for duty to the City Editor. Upson, of course, had 
 already begun to look out for his interests. But 
 it was a hopeless task enough. There really did not
 
 A RED ROSE 67 
 
 seem to be any material interests to look out for. 
 No line appeared anywhere that could be followed 
 to any tangible result. 
 
 The new Bank of the Pacific had opened its doors 
 with five millions in gold com in sight. It was an 
 nounced that all agreements made by the late Presi 
 dent of the Bank would be carried out to the letter. 
 His big industrial projects would be financed and 
 completed. The old depositors would be taken care 
 of, in time, out of the realized assets of the Bank, 
 and trust funds would be cared for. 
 
 And as the men who were behind the Bank were 
 known to be the heaviest capitalists in the city, after 
 a flurry or two in the stock market the Street settled 
 quickly. Money began to be paid into the Bank, 
 before the close of business, faster than it had ever 
 come in before. The Directors, who had saved the 
 situation in the city with the help of the Clearing 
 House which announced its alliance with the new 
 management at the opening of business were hailed 
 as the financial regenerators of the Pacific Coast. 
 The mining stock market took a strong bullish tone. 
 Money rates eased up. The city, in a word, accepted 
 the new condition. And the fall of Elliot Went- 
 worth became, almost in a day, a vanishing mile 
 stone in the mad American race for money. He was 
 down and passed. The field swept on. 
 
 John Wentworth dined with Allison at the Uni 
 versity Club that night. He took it as the last taste 
 of a life that might never be his again and was not
 
 68 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 conscious of any keen regret on that score. Allison, 
 of course, had in his mind a purpose to hold his friend, 
 despite his changed position. And in some measure, 
 whatever might chance, he would probably be able 
 to do that. A newspaper man has associates every 
 where. 
 
 On his side, Wentworth realized how it would per 
 haps come that in the real interests of their lives they 
 would drift apart. But he ate his dinner, and drank 
 his wine, and let nothing of his realization appear. 
 After dinner they went to the Majestic and saw John 
 Drew in a couple of acts of "The Master." After 
 ward they took a taxi for Tait's to get a bite of 
 supper. 
 
 And as they sat over it there was the bustle of the 
 entrance of a theatre party, and Wentworth, forget 
 ting for a moment, rose to answer the smile and bow 
 that Margaret Graeme gave him as she passed with 
 a gay following of young men and women. Only, 
 she had paused in passing for the least fraction of a 
 second, her hand going to the cluster of red roses at 
 her corsage. And a rose, a single rose, seemed to 
 detach itself to fall at Wentworth's feet. 
 
 He stooped quickly, picked it from the floor, and 
 thrust it into the flap of his coat. She had swept 
 on into the inner room, with no more than the smile 
 and the bow. Allison, rising to bow in return, had 
 not seemed to notice the rose, although it may well 
 be that friendship is sometimes blind, as well as love. 
 Wentworth had his prize, at all events and it was
 
 A RED ROSE 69 
 
 not much. A silence fell between the two friends, 
 for a little, after the other party had entered. 
 
 Wentworth was the first to break it. "It is time 
 for working people to be in bed," he said. "It is 
 long past midnight." 
 
 If Allison had expected that the silence would have 
 been broken in another way he said nothing. " News 
 paper people run all night," was his only protest 
 at the parting. 
 
 "Not beginners. And the others do not keep 
 honest people up just for the fun of the thing, dear 
 boy. Good-night. " 
 
 He left Allison still lounging at the table, under 
 the lights and the palms, with the soft music rising 
 and falling across the chatter of the theatre crowds. 
 Allison would probably join the other party when he 
 was gone. Wentworth felt no bitterness on that ac 
 count. Allison's place was with the other party. 
 And he would be whimsical, and winning, and the 
 women would be well, his friend deserved to win 
 any woman. Allison was too good a fellow to care 
 whether a man who had dropped out of that old life 
 took down with him into the other and harder world 
 a memory of a sweet perfume and a faded rose. 
 
 Wentworth held the rose in his hand as he made 
 his way into the street, and the music followed him 
 as the doors closed behind him. It was Hawaiian, 
 the music, and Wentworth had a throbbing in his 
 brain in unison with the half -barbaric beat of it. 
 Once, in his early college days, he had taken a vaca-
 
 70 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 tion run to the Islands. It all came back to him in 
 the music. The sensuous strains brought to his 
 ears the soft grating of the palm trees stirred by the 
 trade winds, the murmur of breaking seas on far- 
 off reefs, the sighing of warm gales among spice 
 islands. And he saw the islands that night hi his 
 dreams, and a woman beckoned to him there, hold 
 ing a warm red rose in her hand.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE WEECK OF THE "HALCYON" 
 
 PROMPTLY at one o'clock in the afternooa 
 of the next day Wentworth reported for 
 duty to the City Editor. It was, perhaps, 
 not astonishing that he caught on to the newspaper 
 game quickly of course, not the whole game. A 
 man may labour at that for a score of years, even a 
 very clever man, and find at the end that there are 
 still unsuspected angles. In that lies something of 
 the game's fascination. There is with every moment 
 some new thing. The modern American mind is 
 constituted strikingly like the mind of the ancient 
 Athenian. If it is only a new dollar, the American 
 runs after the novelty. 
 
 Wentworth was sent, in the first casting of the 
 pawns that the City Editor uses in his daily play, 
 to lend a hand to the day police reporter. The day 
 policeman for the Call, and every other day man on 
 police, greeted him fraternally; made him one of the 
 cult at once. They were a helpful lot, with a good 
 understanding as to the routine of their labour. That 
 is to say, each served his own paper, primarily, seek 
 ing to get for it any exclusive piece of news that he 
 could. But even in the keenness of their rivalry no
 
 72 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 one of them would take an unfair advantage of the 
 rest. He would have been sent to Coventry if he 
 had, but the fear of that was not the deterrent. It 
 was much more the ethics of the thing. They played 
 the game honestly. 
 
 These men, while they were all willing to lend a 
 hand to the beginner, and to do it in genuine friendli 
 ness, without the least taint of patronage, began by 
 assuming that Wentworth knew the ropes that held 
 the players of the game safely within bounds. And, 
 under the influence of this assumption, tending inevi 
 tably to create self-confidence, Wentworth played 
 boldly and found the ropes where he expected to 
 find them. A man of fair intelligence, with the 
 knack of writing a plain newspaper story with some 
 slight touches of whimsical humour here and there, he 
 found after that first day that he got on. More, 
 having a deeper purpose below his work, Wentworth 
 saw very quickly how familiarity with policemen 
 and police methods might come to be of material 
 help to him in the working out of his purpose. 
 
 Now, it is the practice in every good newspaper 
 office to pile all the work on a clever and willing man 
 that he will do without protest. Wentworth was 
 both clever and willing; and was made to earn his 
 twenty dollars a week. Likewise he found that in 
 earning it he was so absorbed in each day's happen 
 ings, so occupied with the labour of the passing hour, 
 that he had but little time left to think on his own 
 concerns and no time at all for brooding. He never
 
 THE WRECK OF THE "HALCYON" 73 
 
 really lost sight altogether of the purpose that had been 
 behind his every act since the disappearance of his 
 father, but the daily call of the daily work kept his 
 mind from dwelling upon it. And that was healthful. 
 Secret design is never good for the heart of youth. 
 
 Wentworth went to his little room in Bush Street 
 every night, honestly tired, and slept the sleep that 
 attends on physical fatigue. And he arose refreshed, 
 along about noon, to go down for his morning coffee 
 to a little place he found handy in Fillmore Street. 
 
 It was coffee and rolls, mostly, or coffee and 
 "sinkers," which is the San Francisco argot for the 
 cheap and filling doughnut of city consumption. 
 And the coffee was the coffee-house decoction of the 
 ground berry and milk boiled together. Wentworth, 
 after the first few times of drinking, found that he 
 really began to have a taste for this beverage of the 
 poor. Also, with this kind of breakfast, a seventy- 
 five-cent table d'hote dinner at Paul's at seven, and 
 coffee and rolls with a couple of eggs, or fried sau 
 sage, or corned beef hash, or pork and beans at the 
 Fillmore Street place on his way home, he could live 
 very well within his twenty a week. 
 
 And he could save a dollar or two a week to buy 
 beer for the boys at the Press Club, too. But he 
 cut that out very soon, finding that it was more 
 profitable to his line of work to buy beer for the police 
 men and small politicians. The whole thing gave 
 him life in a new and not unattractive aspect. 
 
 For two months Wentworth lived his life thus,
 
 74 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 seeing little of Upson; and, after the first week, noth 
 ing at all of Allison. He heard, indeed, that Allison 
 had gone to Europe, read it in bed, one morning, on 
 the Society Page of the Call's Sunday Sup. And 
 on the same page was the story of the presentation 
 of a San Francisco beauty. Miss Margaret Graeme, 
 at an English Court drawing room ! The fact that he 
 got this information as the balance of the town did, 
 showed how far Wentworth had drifted away from 
 the old life. 
 
 And Upson, getting no line to work on, let him 
 be vigilant as he would, had no occasion to send for 
 his friend. Wentworth, in the two months, was sent 
 by his tyrant the City Editor here, there, and every 
 where on all kinds of errands. He tasted the glory 
 of handling alone a great story of a railway disaster, 
 and the humiliation of repulse from the kitchen door 
 of a defaulting labour leader to whose slattern wife 
 he was sent for a photograph. 
 
 And then, upon a day, having been kept with the 
 reserve on office watch for a couple of hours, he was 
 sent hurriedly down to answer a call for help from 
 the Waterfront Man an autocrat who worked after 
 his own method, at his own time, in his own jurisdic 
 tion and whom it chanced, therefore, that Went 
 worth had never met. 
 
 Threading his way from the foot of Market Street 
 in and out among electric cars, heavily laden trucks, 
 and nondescript human drift cast ashore along the 
 Embarcadero and eddying into the low liquor places
 
 THE WRECK OF THE "HALCYON" 75 
 
 there, Wentworth found the CalVs marine expert, 
 a master in his line, seated before a desk telephone, 
 the receiver at his ear, in a little wooden shed on a 
 place on Peterson's boat wharf. As it happened, 
 the expert was alone in the room, although there were 
 a few tarry-looking loungers just outside the door. 
 
 Wentworth stood quiet for a moment waiting for 
 the other to finish with the telephone. But the 
 expert, as it appeared, could talk to one man over 
 the phone and to another at his side at the same time, 
 a common talent among newspaper men. 
 
 "Oh, you are Wentworth?" he said, turning, with 
 the receiver still held to his ear. "Hullo! That 
 you, Jim? Is the Korea passing in? This is Hanna." 
 
 Then, again speaking to Wentworth: "I suppose 
 you saw the cable a few weeks ago about the wreck 
 of the tramp freighter Halcyon on Guam? Only 
 the captain and two men saved? Well, you'll find 
 one of the survivors, a sailor, on board another ship 
 just docked at Spreckles' wharf. Go over there and 
 get the full story, will you, please? And report back 
 to me. It ought to be a good yarn." 
 
 He turned back to the phone, over the mouth 
 piece of which he had held one hand while he was 
 talking to Wentworth. "Yes; I am listening. All 
 right, Jim. I'll go out with you. I am coming 
 right over." 
 
 "All right, sir!" said Wentworth, as soon as he 
 thought politeness permitted him to break in. 
 
 "Not gone yet?" asked the other, turning from
 
 76 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 the phone. "Better get a wiggle on! The sailor 
 might leave the ship." 
 
 He went out the door, at that, and was gone. 
 Wentworth, more slowly, made his way along the 
 Embarcadero toward Broadway wharf, and heard 
 himself hailed by name as he was picking his way 
 over the narrow, uneven footpath that lies between 
 the roadway and a high board fence shutting in the 
 wharves. He turned, just as his friend the sailor, 
 McGreal, came across to meet him from the open 
 door of one of the many groggeries standing all along 
 there. Having interest in his work, it occurred to 
 Wentworth that this man had been the third mate 
 of the Halcyon, and so might give him points about 
 the ship that would do to feature in his story. And, 
 anyhow, he would be interested. 
 
 " Hullo, McGreal ! " he said. " Found a ship yet? " 
 
 "Yes, sir; I got a berth on the transport Sherman. 
 Fourth officer, sir. She sails to-morrow." 
 
 Wentworth noted then, for the first time, that the 
 sailor had on a blue uniform, with neat cap, and that 
 there was about him a general air of nautical nattiness 
 that sat pleasantly on his loose strength. It seemed, 
 indeed, that the man had grown to a sense of some 
 responsibility, and that he had possibilities for growth 
 in reserve. It was an impression of the moment, 
 merely, Wentworth's own immediate duty taking 
 possession of him. 
 
 "Can you come along with me for an hour or two? " 
 asked the newspaper man.
 
 THE WRECK OF THE "HALCYON" 77 
 
 "Surely, sir. My watch on deck does not begin 
 until eight bells to-night. How you headed, sir?" 
 
 "For Spreckels' wharf. There's a ship lying 
 there with a survivor of the Halcyon on board." 
 
 "The Halcyon, sir?" McGreal had stopped in his 
 tracks. "I had not heard she was lost." 
 
 "The Halcyon" repeated Wentworth. "The loss 
 was cabled weeks ago." 
 
 "I missed it!" gasped McGreal, still standing 
 with his eyes grown large. "The Halcyon! Why, 
 that was my ship, sir!" 
 
 "So it was," agreed Wentworth. "She was 
 wrecked on the island of Guam, and I am going to 
 get the story." 
 
 "The story!" exclaimed McGreal. "Oh, I see. 
 You are on a newspaper. Was was anybody lost, 
 sir?" 
 
 "Captain and two men saved," replied Wentworth. 
 "Come along." 
 
 He started forward as he spoke, and McGreal 
 came stumbling at his heels. The sailor seemed to be 
 a bit dazed, striking his feet against the rough stones 
 of the street, now and then lurching over against 
 the high board fence, and paying no heed. Once, 
 turning sharply around, Wentworth drew him literally 
 out from under the feet of a heavy truck team that 
 otherwise would most assuredly have walked him 
 down. 
 
 "Wake up, man!" cried Wentworth. "Didn't 
 you ever heard of a shipwreck before?"
 
 78 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "The Hakyon, sir!" said McGreal, feebly. "All 
 of them gone! And you to be sent to get the story 
 of the Halcyon!" 
 
 "What's the matter with you?" asked Wentworth, 
 sharply. 
 
 "I don't know, sir," replied McGreal, in helpless 
 fashion. 
 
 "I think you must be drunk!'* said Wentworth 
 at that, looking at the sailor more sharply than he 
 had done yet. 
 
 McGreal braced up with an apparent effort. 
 "Not me," he said. "I've had nothing more than a 
 glass or two of steam beer. It was the shock, sir." 
 
 However, he came along very much better after 
 that. Wentworth found the survivor of the Halcyon 
 right enough, and, sailorwise, entirely willing to talk 
 to a newspaper man. The man was seated on the 
 edge of a bunk in the forecastle smoking a short 
 briar pipe. With a sailor's limitless patience he 
 was just waiting for the next turn of the wheel. He 
 would go, it was likely, with the first crimp that 
 came on board looking for men. And as he sat, the 
 purser pointed him out to Wentworth. 
 
 "Well, d'ye see, sir, it was this way," said the sailor, 
 when Wentworth questioned him, after he had 
 greeted McGreal as a former officer by touching 
 his forelock. "It had been blowing like hell out 
 of the southwest for three days; and the old tub 
 labouring in the biggest seas I ever saw, as if every 
 one of them would roll the engines out of her. I
 
 THE WRECK OF THE "HALCYON" 79 
 
 don't know what possessed the old man that was 
 Captain Graeme, sir to run down to Guam, unless 
 it was the passenger." 
 
 "The passenger?" exclaimed Went worth. 
 
 "He came aboard after you left the ship, Mr. 
 McGreal," said the sailor. "He was the only man 
 that got safe ashore, the passenger, excepting the 
 old man and me, sir. My name, as Mr. McGreal 
 here knows, is Oleson Arvad Oleson, sir." 
 
 "Who was the passenger?" asked Wentworth. 
 
 "He called himself Norman Ainsworth, sir." 
 
 "Where'd you get him?" 
 
 "Well, I think it was in this port, sir, but I don't 
 rightly know. It was my watch below when we 
 were passing into San Francisco, and we went out 
 of the port in a fog. And and, when I came aboard, 
 sir well, I had had a bit to drink and the old man 
 gave me a jolt with a marlin spike and another watch 
 below. When I came on deck again, outside the 
 Farallones, there was the passenger, talking to the 
 old man on the after deck. A good sailor he was, 
 sir, and a gentleman. Sent a case of beer forward 
 the first Sunday out of port, and every Sunday after 
 that until the very last." 
 
 "What do you know about this passenger, Mc 
 Greal?" asked Wentworth, turning suddenly to his 
 sailor footpad friend. 
 
 "M-me, sir? Nothing!" 
 
 "I thought you seemed to, a bit ago. Did the 
 Halcyon carry passengers? "
 
 80 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "She carried one that voyage, anyway/* said 
 Oleson. McGreal was mute. 
 
 "There is a touch of mystery here," said Went- 
 worth. "That makes it a better story. But go 
 on and tell us how the wreck occurred, Oleson." 
 
 "As I was a-saying, sir," resumed the sailor, "I 
 don't know what it was possessed the old man to 
 run down to Guam. She had cleared for Nagasaki, 
 out of this port. But there was the island, right 
 enough, standing up rocky and black out of those 
 big seas. And I don't think the old man was glad 
 of a landfall, one time. Still, it might have been all 
 right, even then, if she could have got under the lee 
 of the long point of San Luis d'Apra, to run inside. 
 The sea was a fright, sir, and the wind howled like 
 the tail of a tropic hurricane; but she was fighting her 
 way in for the headland, and a little more than hold 
 ing her own, when, snap! the propeller dropped 
 clear away from her broken short off by a green sea, 
 and she just fell over on her side, the shaft racing 
 and smashing things to hash in the belly of her. 
 
 "They got the engines stopped in a minute; but 
 the seas were running her right in on the reef outside 
 the harbour, sir. You could see the white spray 
 thrown over a hundred feet every time that one of 
 them curled over and broke. And there must have 
 been a strong set of the current in toward the island, 
 too, because we went drifting right down on it at 
 better speed than the Halcyon had ever made since 
 she was engined.
 
 THE WRECK OF THE "HALCYON" 81 
 
 "Of course it wasn't any use to make sail. Those 
 tramps don't carry a rag to bless themselves that is 
 worth a damn. And it wasn't any use to try to leave 
 her, because a boat couldn't have lived in that sea. 
 We just had to drift in to destruction and take our 
 chance. It was near about three o'clock in the after 
 noon when we made the landfall, sir. It was just 
 gone dark when she struck, once and again! We 
 could see the lights of a big transport inside as we 
 came on, and a searchlight was held on us. It 
 gave them the sight of our poor fellows drowning, sir. 
 They couldn't help us. Nothing afloat could have 
 come out into that wind and sea. 
 
 "And so she struck, once and again, and there was 
 an awful grinding and smashing noise; and the wild 
 shriek of the steam to the top of that. And then I 
 was in the water, sir, with a smother of white foam 
 all about me; and a queer kind of light all through 
 it, like the green flames of hell. 
 
 "I don't know how I got over the reef; nor how any 
 man could have passed it with those ferocious seas 
 beating straight down, and lived. I saw the black 
 rocks all about me in the shining water, and got 
 a badly scratched knee and arm, sir. Wet coral 
 rocks are nasty. And then a straight line of water 
 stood up over me, like the cutting edge of a long knife, 
 sir, and a wave threw me over into still water, and 
 just seemed to lift me above the rocks. Some 
 Chimorros in a canoe picked me up and took me 
 aboard the transport. I found the old man and the
 
 82 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 passenger there. They had been picked up, as I had 
 been, by the niggers. And that is all, sir." 
 
 "What became of Captain Graeme and the 
 passenger?" 
 
 "Well, sir, they were offered passage on the 
 Hancock that's the transport that was in San 
 Luis d'Apra, storm bound and we all came to 
 Honolulu in her. They would not carry us beyond 
 the first regular port, sir. The old man paid me off 
 at Honolulu, and I came on in this ship. They 
 stayed there." 
 
 "In Honolulu?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Where is the Hancock?" asked Wentworth, next. 
 
 "On the way up from the island, sir. She left 
 a day ahead of us, but the transports are slow, sir." 
 
 "Gee! It's a great story!" exclaimed Wentworth. 
 "The Halcyon was a total loss?" 
 
 "No more than the bones of her left by this," 
 replied Oleson. 
 
 "What was her lading?" 
 
 "She cleared this port in ballast, sir. She was 
 bound for Nagasaki to coal, and then to Hankow 
 for tea." 
 
 "She was a long way out of her course, at Guam." 
 
 "Five or six hundred miles," agreed Oleson. 
 "But we laid it to the passenger, sir." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Well, sir, there wasn't any special reason and 
 the passenger didn't stay at Guam after he got there.
 
 THE WRECK OF THE "HALCYON" 83 
 
 But something took the old man south, and we got to 
 laying it to the passenger among us." 
 
 " By God ! " exclaimed Wentworth. " I am inclined 
 to think that the passenger is the whole story! 
 What kind of looking man was he, this passenger, 
 Ains worth?" 
 
 "Well, sir," replied the sailor, "he was much about 
 your build, but older, and heavier. He was near 
 fifty, I should say, sir; maybe more, maybe less. 
 He grew a heavy beard and moustache on the ship; 
 and his hair was gray. But his eyes had a twinkle 
 in them, like yours, sir; and he was very pleasant- 
 spoken and civil. Dressed, sir well, like a lands 
 man. And was very curious about all the workings 
 of a ship." 
 
 It was a description that might have fitted any 
 one of a million of middle-aged men. The sailor 
 had eyes, but, clearly, no manner of notion of the 
 use of them where men were concerned. Wentworth 
 was baffled. There was about this mysterious pas 
 senger on the Halcyon something that it was desirable 
 to throw light upon, and he hardly knew which way 
 to look, unless McGreal could give him a line, once 
 they were away from the sailor. McGreal had 
 seemed to know about the passenger, although he 
 had later disclaimed any knowledge. That might 
 have been to throw Oleson off. Wentworth turned 
 to McGreal now. 
 
 " Come along," he said. " I've got all I want here." 
 
 He slipped a silver dollar into Oleson 's hand as he
 
 84 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 spoke, and started out. McGreal did not follow 
 at once, and, turning to ask Oleson one more ques 
 tion, Wentworth saw that the fourth mate of the 
 Sherman was whispering very earnestly to the sur 
 vivor of the wreck of the Halcyon. 
 
 "I don't believe you told me the date of the wreck, 
 Oleson," Wentworth said. 
 
 "It was on the 28th of April, sir. We were just 
 twenty-three days out of San Francisco." 
 
 Then Wentworth left the steamer, McGreal fol 
 lowing him, and, which he thought a little odd, 
 Oleson came along, too, slinging a bundle of dunnage 
 over his shoulder. At the head of the wharf, Went 
 worth turned to ask McGreal something apart from 
 the other, thinking, naturally, that Oleson would 
 drift along to the first saloon that chanced to be in 
 his way. But Oleson stopped, too, and McGreal, 
 coming very close to Wentworth, said in a tone that 
 was almost a whisper: 
 
 "I'll tell you what, Mr. Wentworth! I'll see that 
 no other reporter gets at Oleson here. We have 
 made that up between us. And," sinking his voice 
 still lower, "if I were you, sir, I wouldn't make too 
 much of a story about the Halcyon's passenger."
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS SAVED 
 
 WHAT the devil have you got to do with 
 my story of the Halcyon's passenger?" 
 flashed Wentworth. 
 
 His purpose to get points from McGreal as to the 
 career of the tramp steamer that had laid her bones 
 on the reef outside the harbour of San Luis d'Apra 
 was lost sight of in a moment, and with the quick 
 instinct of the newspaper man he resented this 
 interference by an outsider with the manner of his 
 work. 
 
 McGreal, on his part, took no offence at the tone 
 of the question. He looked into the face of Went 
 worth, and there was real sorrow in his eyes. 
 
 "It is as I say, sir," with a strange manner of in 
 sistence. "If I were you, I wouldn't make too much 
 of a story about the Halcyon's passenger." 
 
 "By God; you've got to tell me what you mean!" 
 cried Wentworth. 
 
 "Why, yes, sir; I'll do that," replied McGreal. 
 "Come over to the Blue Wind, sir. We can get a 
 room to talk in, there." 
 
 He led the way across the wide road along the 
 waterfront, dodging trucks and electric cars, to 
 
 85
 
 86 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 the row of groggeries facing the wharves on that 
 side; and Wentworth and the sailor Oleson followed 
 along after him. The Blue Wind saloon, a typical 
 resort of the front, stood open to the street, and a 
 wavering row of the men of the salt sea, more or less 
 under the influence of the drinks of the land, stood 
 before the long bar down all one side of the place. 
 They talked, or shouted, or just stared stupidly, 
 with eyes that saw only the visions of the drunken, 
 but they all called for more drink, and all drank. 
 The two bloated, red-faced men behind the bar, in 
 dirty white aprons, had all they could do to serve 
 them. And a boy, in a white apron rather more 
 dirty, was kept going backward and forward across 
 the sanded floor with drinks for other men seated 
 at the small tables standing in a row on the side of 
 the room opposite the bar. 
 
 McGreal knew the place, and was known in it. 
 He paused, in passing through, just long enough to 
 say to one of the men behind the bar: "Send us in 
 three steams to the Glory Hole, Bill!" 
 
 The man so addressed nodded, by way of assent, 
 and McGreal led the way out through a back door, 
 and for a little distance along a dark corridor in the 
 rear of the saloon. He turned from this into a dingy 
 room, feebly lighted by one dirty, fly-specked, sixteen- 
 candle-power electric bulb swung from the ceiling 
 above a small, round table with four rickety chairs 
 about it. The place reeked of the fumes of stale 
 beer and sewer water. The floor, of rough boards,
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS SAVED 87 
 
 sounded hollow to the tread of men. It seemed to 
 have been the floor of a wharf at one time and to 
 cover, now, an obscene cavity wherein might abide 
 nameless horrors. And, indeed, it is likely that it was 
 a section of some old wharf. All that part of the 
 front is built on made land. 
 
 The walls of the room were splotched with mildew, 
 breaking out in impolite places on the pictures, mostly 
 of ladies in scant attire, or no attire at all, cut from 
 illustrated gutter weeklies, and pasted up by way 
 of mural decoration. The years had dimmed the 
 pictures, too, the years and the damp, and Jack's 
 gross familiarity with these questionable female pre 
 sentments had not always been happy. 
 
 McGreal sat down at the round table. Oleson, 
 who seemed at home here just as he had seemed at 
 home in the forecastle of the ship, dropped his bundle 
 on the rough floor and sat down likewise. Went- 
 worth, sniffing, rolled and lighted a cigarette by 
 way of fumigation and self-defence before following 
 the example of his companions. And by the time 
 he had done that, the bar boy had come in with his 
 tray, had set three foaming glasses of steam beer 
 on the table, pocketed the three nickels laid down by 
 McGreal, and gone out again. 
 
 "Now, McGreal!" said Wentworth, reaching out 
 for his glass of beer. " Out with it ! " 
 
 The fourth mate of the Sherman blew the foam off 
 his beer, and sipped it slowly. Oleson had gulped 
 his down at once and set the empty glass back on the
 
 88 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 table; seeing which, Wentworth slid toward the 
 sailor his own measure of the beverage. But 
 McGreal seemed in no hurry to begin. He sipped 
 his beer, still slowly, but, at that, probably not so 
 slowly as his thoughts shaped themselves for speech. 
 Wentworth found a button on the table, pressed it, 
 ordered, and paid for three more glasses of steam 
 beer, and the silence in the Glory Hole was not 
 broken. 
 
 "Take all day if you need it, McGreal!" Went 
 worth said, as he rolled himself a second cigarette. 
 "Of course I'm in no hurry!" 
 
 "Well, sir," said the fourth mate at last, "I don't 
 know as it's much to tell, or whether it will strike 
 you as it does me, sir. But it was a thought that 
 crossed me when I first heard your name that day 
 we came up from the south in your devil wagon." 
 
 "And what has this thought, whatever it is, got 
 to do with my story of the Halcyon's passenger?" 
 asked Wentworth. 
 
 "Why, there it is, sir! The thought crossed me 
 again to-day, when I heard you say the passenger 
 was the story. I believe that the passenger is the 
 story. But it is not a story you may write." 
 
 "I'll be damned," cried Wentworth, starting as 
 if he would get up from his chair, "if I can tell what 
 the man is driving at!" 
 
 "Hold on a second!" cried McGreal. "Let me 
 get my bearings; I have not told you yet." 
 
 "That is the first sensible thing you have said
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS SAVED 89 
 
 since we arrived. You have not told me yet. Do 
 you intend to tell me?" 
 
 "Yes, sir," replied the fourth mate, seriously. "I 
 do. The Halcyon came to San Francisco solely to 
 get that passenger. Do you mind when I told you 
 why I left the steamer at Pedro?" 
 
 "You said something about helping a robber to 
 get away with the loot of widows and orphans," re 
 plied Wentworth and in a lower key than he had 
 heretofore used. He had gone white as that memory 
 came back to him with another associated memory: 
 his own thoughts at the time. 
 
 "That was it, sir," said McGreal. "I don't like 
 to go on from that but it looks like it was my duty. 
 The old man, Captain Graeme, sir, did not tell me 
 who his passenger was to be. We were to receive him 
 aboard ship after we came to anchor. He wanted 
 the man on watch to do that and stow him away 
 not wishing to appear in the thing directly himself. 
 A captain would better be able to carry a straight 
 yarn to the owners, in case of things happening. 
 Of course he couldn't throw a man overboard after 
 he was on deck and she was outside, d'you see? 
 And his duty to his owners would not permit him 
 to turn back, excepting for grave cause, when he had 
 cleared the port, and got outside. Besides, the pas 
 senger would not want to go back. 
 
 "But a man might be carried out of his course by 
 wind and current far enough, sir, once he was at 
 sea, to land a man who wanted to leave the ship at
 
 90 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 Guam or even at Yap, say. The man on the deck 
 watch had only to receive the man on board and 
 hide him in an empty cabin and then keep up a 
 pretence of ignorance, whatever he might see, to 
 earn a thousand dollars. I am not better than an 
 other man, and I agreed to the scheme that far. 
 But I did say a thousand dollars was a pretty fancy 
 price to pay just for helping. And it was then that 
 the old man blurted out that a stowaway who was 
 put aboard by a man who had probably got away 
 with the savings of most of the widows, and had 
 robbed a lot of the orphans of San Francisco, could 
 afford to buy all the sailors running out of the port, 
 body and breeches." 
 
 "And and, then?" asked Wentworth. He had 
 to take a long drink of the steam beer before he could 
 get that much out. His lips, when he tried to speak, 
 felt as though a swift flame had seared them. 
 
 "Well, sir, I've done a lot of things in my time, 
 and I don't have to make any treaty with my con 
 science in the ordinary run of every day, but taking 
 the money of women and children, or helping away 
 the man who takes it, is one too strong for me. And 
 so I went over the side at Pedro. It was the only 
 way out. I knew the old man, sir. He would never 
 consent to my discharge; and, after what he had 
 told me, it was possible that I might make the voy 
 age to San Francisco in irons; and lie in them until 
 the steamer cleared again from there." 
 
 "And and, the Halcyon's passenger?" whispered
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS SAVED 91 
 
 Went worth. He knew what the answer to his ques 
 tion would be, what it must be, but something that 
 seemed apart from himself impelled him to force 
 the sailor to frame the words. All that Upson had 
 said to him in justification of his father came back 
 to him, but seemed feeble in the face of McGreal's 
 plain relation. With that realization, a load of 
 guilt seemed to form itself on Wentworth's own shoul 
 ders, bearing him down. He looked around the room 
 always away from McGreal, taking in the dark 
 interior, and the sailor Oleson asleep in his chair. 
 And he came back to his question with a strange 
 insistence, whispering it once more. 
 
 "There was only one man who fitted the case 
 who slipped out of San Francisco on the day the 
 Halcyon sailed," whispered McGreal, leaning across 
 the table with his face close to Wentworth's. 
 
 Still Wentworth would spare neither the sailor 
 nor himself. "And that man was? " he asked. 
 
 "Hush!" whispered McGreal, warningly. "Cap 
 tain Greame never told me the name of his passenger, 
 sir. The Halcyon passed out through the Heads on 
 the evening of the very day that the Bank of the 
 Pacific closed its doors." 
 
 Thus the sailor slipped away from the utterance 
 of the name. And Wentworth sat dazed, like a man 
 whose life is stricken all at once. McGreal, still 
 leaning across the table, went on : 
 
 "I felt it, sir, on that day at the garage, when I 
 first heard your name spoken. It came over me all
 
 92 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 at once, like. But still I could not be sure; and it 
 was not for me to make charges. I would not help 
 Captain Graeme to carry out his plot, but at least, 
 after the man had got clear away, it was none of my 
 business to put the dogs on his track. I could hold 
 my tongue. The Halcyon had not been lost, then. 
 And you had been very good to me, sir." 
 
 Wentworth looked at him for a moment before 
 there came a slowly dawning consciousness of the 
 meaning of what he had said. 
 
 "And did you did you," he asked, at last, "think 
 that I knew?" 
 
 "What was I to think? He was your father. 
 Until I heard you say that the Halcyon's passenger 
 was the story, I thought so." 
 
 "Great God!" ejaculated Wentworth. And then, 
 for a long time, he sat silent. It seemed to him that 
 the years rushed in on him through the dark of that 
 dingy room. He was very, very tired; like an old 
 man. But his faith must not go. He must pull 
 himself together. The darker the skies lowered, 
 the more firmly and fiercely would he struggle on 
 to make head against the breaking storm. 
 
 The fact that the sailor, his friend, had believed 
 his father a thief, and himself a sharer in the shame, 
 was but one more reason for the struggle. Went 
 worth knew that McGreal's tale was true; his con 
 jecture as to the identity of the Halcyon's passenger 
 sound. The other sailor's tale of the wreck of the 
 Halcyon bore it out. And the tale being true, how
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS SAVED 93 
 
 hard would it be to find a reason for that planned 
 flight beyond doubt with something of the loot 
 of the bank in hand? 
 
 He rose, at last, and staggered out of the place, 
 almost like one drunk. The fourth mate watched 
 him go without a word. But, after he had gone, 
 McGreal leaned over the other sailor, and made 
 sure that he slept soundly. Then he himself went 
 out, turning the key in the lock outside the door as 
 he went. It was one of the peculiar things about 
 the Glory Hole that a man in the confidence of the 
 house could always thus pass out and hold on the 
 inside any companion guilty of the indiscretion of 
 going to sleep in his chair. 
 
 "Give him whatever he asks for," McGreal stop 
 ped to whisper to his friend behind the bar as he went 
 toward the street, jerking his thumb over his shoulder 
 in the direction of the room he had just quitted. 
 "But hold him. I want him hi the SJierman. We 
 were shipmates before.'* 
 
 "What's in it for me?" asked the landlord of the 
 Blue W T ind, nodding his head in acquiescence. 
 
 "Twenty, and the usual percentage of advance." 
 
 "Good enough!" replied the crimp. "He's your 
 man." 
 
 Once he was in the outer air Wentworth's thoughts 
 cleared quickly enough. He would have liked to 
 consult Upson on this new development, but it was 
 growing late, and the newspaper was exigent. Long 
 white streamers of the night fog were already begin-
 
 94 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 ning to scurry along the streets, to beat the backs 
 of the crowds hurrying to catch the suburban ferries, 
 to curl and eddy around the high facade and tower 
 of the ferry building. He must report back at once 
 to Hanna, in the shed on Peterson's wharf. 
 
 Wentworth, indeed, did not hesitate for one mo 
 ment about his duty to the newspaper. That duty 
 to the newspaper must be defined with reference 
 to another duty which, for him, might be higher. 
 And in his definition of his duty Wentworth did 
 not attempt to delude himself with sophisticated 
 arguments. If his conjecture as to the identity of 
 the Halcyon's passenger, which agreed with McGreaFs 
 conjecture, was well founded, then the wreck of the 
 Halcyon became a newspaper story of much greater 
 magnitude than any that he had ever handled. 
 But it became, also, a story that he could not handle. 
 Of course there was the possibility that McGreal 
 and himself might be mistaken; that the departure of 
 the tramp steamer on the day that the bank closed 
 its doors was a coincidence; that in the incidents of 
 crime in a great city there might be more than one 
 defaulter interested to get away. 
 
 But Wentworth dismissed the alternative possi 
 bilities with no more than a thought, and made up 
 his mind to tell his story without suggestion; and 
 be then governed by events. He reported to Hanna 
 and suppressing the tale McGreal had told him, saw 
 the waterfront man pass over very lightly the cir 
 cumstance of the presence of the passenger on the
 
 THE MAN WHO WAS SAVED 95 
 
 wrecked steamer. For Hanna knew the devious 
 ways of the captains of tramps and of all drunken 
 sailors. 
 
 "Oh!" exclaimed Hanna, when he had listened 
 to the tale. "A passenger! Those tramps have 
 no license to carry passengers. But they all do it. 
 Name of Norman Ains worth, the sailor said? I 
 suppose the captain of the Halcyon has broken the 
 law in every port in the world in his time. I know 
 him. Well, he won't come back here to answer for 
 this infraction for awhile and, when he does come 
 back, it will have been forgotten. But it's a good 
 story, Went worth. Write me a thousand words of 
 it." 
 
 Wentworth went up to the office at that, and wrote 
 the thousand words, as he had been bidden. And he 
 received the congratulations of the Night City Editor 
 on the vividness of his relation. Also, he heard an order 
 go up to the art room for a layout of it; with the pic 
 ture of the Halcyon and of Captain Graeme. No 
 body seemed to grasp the significance of the touch 
 of mystery he had thrown about the identity of the 
 passenger saved from the wreck of the tramp) the 
 passenger on the ship which had sailed on the very 
 day that the President of the Bank of the Pacific 
 vanished from among men. 
 
 Wentworth went to dinner after he had turned 
 in his story, but to the St. Francis Grill instead of, as 
 usual, to Paul's. As he had hoped, he found Upson 
 there. They dined together and sat so long in
 
 96 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 talk after dinner that Wentworth would have earned 
 a strong rebuke, if not something worse, at the hands 
 of the City Editor for his failure to show up for his 
 night assignment, if it had not been that the course 
 of the talk soon put him beyond caring for the office 
 at all. How far he had gone beyond caring was 
 shown in his parting words to Upson. 
 
 "It will suit me down to the ground, old man, 
 if you can manage transportation on the Sherman. 
 If that is impossible, the Hortense sails in three days. 
 She will land me in Honolulu in six from that. The 
 transport will only beat that by a couple of days." 
 
 "I can manage it without any trouble at all," 
 replied Upson. "Come to my office the first thing 
 in the morning, and we will go down and see the 
 Quartermaster. You can attend to your letter of 
 credit afterward."
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 
 
 OUT of the massed pictures of the trade wind 
 clouds lying all along the southern horizon 
 leaped, upon a rainy morning, a point of blue 
 that did not change its shape as the outlines of the 
 cloud pictures changed. So the U. S. Transport 
 Sherman, faring steadily for seven days and nights 
 into the southwest across a sea that seemed the most 
 lonely in the world, made her landfall on Makapuu 
 Point on the morning of the eighth day. She had 
 passed and spoken the Hancock one day out of San 
 Francisco. 
 
 John Wentworth, standing on the bridge alongside 
 the Quartermaster-Captain, saw the outline of the 
 blue point rise and strengthen, while the cloud pic 
 tures were ceaselessly dissolving and building up 
 again beyond it, until at last the whole black and 
 rugged coast of Windward Oahu stood out from the 
 sea; and, on either hand, Molokai and the Hana 
 Coast of Maui loomed dimly. 
 
 Following that Windward Coast, the white line 
 of the breaking seas arose and changed and fell at 
 the base of the tall cathedral cliffs. Rabbitt Island 
 broke from the larger land mass at last, and then 
 
 97
 
 98 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 there were the pallid green cane fields of Waimanalo, 
 with a rugged ridge of bars, brown craters towering 
 behind them. And the Sherman floated into the 
 sheltered water around Coco Head; and Diamond 
 Head, old and massive and hoary, leaped into the 
 picture, with many white villas peeping out from 
 the massed foliage of the algaroba thickets at its 
 base. 
 
 Just at half speed, as a white ship glides across a 
 stage picture, the Sherman moved along in front of 
 beautiful Waikiki; and the graceful cocoanut trees 
 held themselves like stars against the bit of clear 
 sky that curved down to fill the space of Waialae 
 Gap, between the hills. 
 
 Honolulu stood revealed, white houses with red 
 roofs, in a wilderness of tropical foliage. Beyond 
 the city the green hills curved from Tantalus to 
 Round Top, with the Nuuanu and Manoa valleys run 
 ning far back; and the endless procession of the rain 
 bows moved in stately gorgeousness across the 
 forested highlands under the cloud masses that cling, 
 always, holding the rain, to the summits of the high 
 est peaks. 
 
 The Sherman was one of those outworn iron tubs, 
 rechristened, which were unloaded in numbers on 
 the Government by their owners in the hurry to pro 
 cure transports which marked the panicky first 
 days of the Spanish War. She had been, when new, 
 one of the first of the "Atlantic Greyhounds," and 
 in her day capable of fair speed. She had become
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 99 
 
 rather of the Newfoundland Pup order by the time 
 she passed into Government ownership, and a pup 
 of somewhat clumsy habit at that. But the north 
 Pacific is calm enough, in the summer months, and 
 she tumbled away before the long swells out of the 
 north if not with speed, certainly with safety. 
 
 Wentworth found that the transport travelled all 
 too slowly for his impatience in the first three days 
 out of San Francisco. Upson had had no trouble in 
 arranging for his transportation on the Government 
 vessel as far as Honolulu, and farther if it should suit 
 his purpose to go on from there. None but soldiers 
 and officers of the Government, with their families, 
 were supposed to travel on the transports, but that 
 rule, very rigidly enforced now, was a long time 
 in coming strictly into effect. And Upson and the 
 Depot-Quartermaster in San Francisco were very 
 chummy. 
 
 Wentworth had sent his written resignation to the 
 City Editor of the Call, and on the morning of the 
 day of the publication of his story of the wreck of the 
 Halcyon, found himself in a comfortable cabin amid 
 ships as the transport dropped down through the 
 heads and met the black seas on the bar. The 
 Sherman was making this voyage with supplies for 
 the army in the islands, carrying only a few casuals by 
 way of passengers. 
 
 For the first three days out of San Francisco she 
 ran with a strong slant of northwest wind, kicking 
 up a beam sea that made her roll until every inch
 
 100 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 of exposed deck space on her was sopping. That, 
 naturally, did not contribute anything to the com 
 fort of the voyage. Nor did it make Went worth's 
 case any easier. A man is doubly uncomfortable on 
 whom wet and anxiety prey at the same time. 
 
 But they ran into the Trades on the morning of 
 the fourth day out, and the wizardry of those winds 
 changed the whole world. The motion of the ship 
 eased. The seas rose and fell but lazily, and with 
 favouring direction. The perfumed air seemed to 
 come over the blue waters from the very gates of 
 Paradise, and behind the squalls of rain that ran 
 pattering across the face of the deep with the passing 
 of each changing cloud opened a vista of such ravish 
 ing colour as might have been a glimpse vouchsafed 
 to man into the streets of the Wondrous City. It 
 was only the rainbow, but, set above that sea in the 
 castles and battlemented towers of the clouds, it 
 was like a fleeting vision of the glory of the angel 
 host. 
 
 Wentworth felt that life had never been freely 
 his to enjoy until he breathed the velvet air of the 
 Trades that first morning. The troubles that had 
 vexed him while the steamer tumbled along through 
 the darker seas of the north dropped from him. 
 They would come back again, of course. If a man 
 may lay down trouble, even at the portal of the grave 
 well, that will be enough for the grave to offer. 
 
 But, for the moment, his impatience vanished; 
 his anxiety to find the passenger saved from the wreck
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 101 
 
 of the Halcyon was put away; his fear of the ghost 
 that might arise and walk when he found that passen 
 ger died. He was content to live and breathe, watch 
 ing the goonies as they circled in lazy flight about the 
 steamer, letting the ship fare on the more slowly 
 over his dreamland of the deep, the better. 
 
 At Honolulu awakening came. When the Sherman, 
 after passing Quarantine, docked at the Navy Wharf, 
 he was one of the first men on shore. Upon another 
 occasion, as on his first visit to the islands, the 
 outland life of this remote city in Uncle Sam's domain 
 would have interested him greatly. The strange 
 cries of the native Hawaiians, one to another, like 
 the barking of dogs across the narrow harbour; the 
 brown divers calling to the people on the transport 
 to throw small coins into the water; the sellers of 
 leis; the chaff ering in the King Street markets of 
 dark men and women of many races, chiefly as it 
 seemed concerned with the buying and selling of 
 bizarre-looking fishes; the mingling in the building 
 of the town of the architecture of the east and of the 
 west; the busy life of the Americans touching the 
 lazy indolence of the natives and the Portuguese half 
 castes, with the darker colouring of the Japanese 
 and Chinese showing always as a part of the life 
 picture all these things were well worth the study 
 of any man from staider lands. 
 
 But, filled with the purpose that had brought him 
 to that beach, Wentworth walked rapidly to the 
 head of the wharf and caught a passing Alakea
 
 102 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 Street car to King Street. His own newspaper ex 
 perience, short as it had been, had taught him that 
 in any American city which breasts the outer seas 
 a man must seek first among newspaper men for 
 light on the things which come up out of the deep. 
 The conductor of the car stopped it at Bang Street 
 for him, and obligingly told him that it was so short 
 a walk to the office of the Commercial Advertiser that 
 it would hardly be worth his while to wait for the con 
 necting car, to which he had given him a transfer. 
 
 Following the man's directions, Wentworth walked 
 rapidly along east on King Street Ewa, they call 
 that direction in the islands and found the place 
 he sought up one flight of steps in a low brick build 
 ing. It was then just early luncheon time. The 
 Commercial Advertiser is the morning paper of Hono 
 lulu, and at that hour none of the staff had reported 
 for duty. But an obliging man in the business office 
 told Wentworth that he would probably find Mr. 
 Pray, the marine reporter, at breakfast in the Union 
 Grill, next door, and went down on the street with 
 the stranger to point him out. 
 
 Mr. Pray was at breakfast. He was eating papaia, 
 with cracked ice in it, at a little table facing the street 
 right in the front of the Grill. Furthermore, as the 
 luncheon crowd had not yet begun to come in from 
 the business offices round about, he was alone in 
 the place save for the presence of a white-clad waiter 
 or two hovering in the background; and of a tall 
 man, with a face like that of Mephistopheles and in
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 103 
 
 something of the dress of the Greek stage pirate, even 
 to the crimson sash, who lounged behind a little 
 counter in front of a long, low window opening to 
 the street. Through this he could conveniently 
 dispense cigars to passers along the highway. 
 
 Mr. Pray was approachable and obliging, and 
 being a newspaper man not curious. He had 
 written the story of the wreck of the Halcyon for the 
 Advertiser a little while before. 
 
 "Oh, the Englishman!" he exclaimed, when Went- 
 worth mentioned that he had a particular interest 
 in the passenger. He smiled a little and in a peculiar 
 fashion, as he said it. 
 
 "The Englishman?" repeated Wentworth. 
 
 "Sure! If your friend is not an Englishman, 
 you are on the wrong track. This man is the most 
 decidely English Englishman I ever saw," replied 
 Pray. "The very first thing that he tells you about 
 himself is that he is an Englishman, and he doesn't 
 have to tell you, at that." 
 
 For the rest, Pray said that Ainsworth was a tall 
 man with full gray beard and gray hair. He might 
 be sixty years old, but was well preserved, and carried 
 himself as a much younger man. His eyes were 
 keen with a twinkle in them that reminded you 
 and he begged pardon of his questioner. Mr. 
 Wentworth, was it? Thanks! He did not suppose 
 there could be any relationship. But the resemblance 
 was very marked, barring the full beard, of course. 
 
 Now, while Wentworth was conscious of a feeling
 
 104 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 of relief consequent on Fray's announcement of the 
 nationality of the passenger saved from the wreck 
 of the Halcyon, there was left by the newspaper man's 
 manner, even more than by his description of Ains- 
 worth, an impression not comfortable. There was 
 no mockery in the tone with which he had spoken 
 of the Englishman, but there was a palpable some 
 thing that might have been the shadow of mockery, 
 a hint of ridicule, as though Ainsworth had been 
 found amusing. And yet Pray spoke with perfect 
 seriousness; and with an evident purpose to give 
 all the enlightenment in his power. Certainly there 
 was no perceptible attempt at suppression. 
 
 Wentworth, listening with that queer impression 
 of discomfort barely defined in his mind, sought to 
 analyze what it was about Pray's story that had 
 created it. His father, as was the Englishman de 
 scribed, had been a tall man, and it had often been 
 remarked in Wentworth's hearing that father and 
 son were much alike. To be sure, Elliot Wentworth 
 had always gone clean shaven, but the sailor Oleson 
 had said that the Halcyon's passenger grew a beard 
 on shipboard. And eyes, and manner, and the whole 
 description from this keen observer of men fitted. 
 But if Ainsworth were an Englishman, then, of course, 
 resemblance ceased to count and the whole matter 
 of the quest was off. He had not come to the islands 
 looking after any vagrant English. 
 
 And yet it might have occurred to a fugitive seek 
 ing to hide his identity to cultivate the English
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 105 
 
 manner and so make his disguise complete. The 
 sailor Oleson had not shown himself a keen observer; 
 and the passenger would not be likely to reach any 
 degree of familiarity with the men before the mast, 
 anyhow. Also, the English assumption may have 
 been an afterthought, following some change of 
 purpose necessitated by the wreck. Oleson was on 
 the transport, and could be questioned as to the 
 English part of the tale. And still it did not seem 
 probable in view of the fact that Pray was so evi 
 dently sure of what he said that there could be fraud 
 in the thing. Pray was not likely to be fooled 
 
 But there was doubt enough in Wentworth's mind, 
 nevertheless, to impel him to follow on the trail of 
 this Norman Ainsworth until he had run the man 
 down and settled the matter. And so he asked: 
 "Is Ainsworth still here or Captain Graeme?" 
 
 "Both, I believe," replied the newspaper man. "Of 
 course you will understand that my interest in the 
 party ended when I had written the story of the 
 wreck. But both gentlemen took their meals here 
 at the Grill. If I am not mistaken, I saw them both 
 here at dinner yesterday, or the day before that. 
 But it will be easy to find out." 
 
 He looked across at the piratical man of devilish 
 cast of countenance behind the little counter. 
 
 "George! "he called. 
 
 The man came across the room, smiling as an 
 amiable Mephistopheles might have smiled upon 
 any one or two of a billion of his particular friends.
 
 106 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "This is Mr. Wentworth of San Francisco," re 
 marked Pray. "He wants to find out something 
 about Ainsworth, the Halcyon survivor, you know. 
 This is George Lycurgus, Mr. Wentworth. He is 
 one of the celebrities of Honolulu." 
 
 Mephistopheles bowed, and Wentworth bowed. 
 The smile of the piratical gentleman grew even more 
 amiably devilish. 
 
 "Ainsworth?" he repeated. "Oh, the English 
 man! The man who wore a pongee every day, 
 and who was always with Captain Graeme?" 
 
 "That is the man," agreed Pray. 
 
 "A gentleman, too!" cried Mephistopheles. "With 
 a fine taste in hock, and a weakness for the best we 
 had in cigars not that a palate cultivated to good 
 tobacco is weakness ! Was he a friend of yours, sir? " 
 with a warmer smile than ever toward Wentworth, as 
 if the friend of a man with a fine taste in wine and 
 cigars was himself a person entitled to consideration. 
 And yet, even under this warmth, Wentworth seemed 
 to be conscious of that lurking shadow of mockery. 
 
 "I am not sure," Wentworth said, replying to the 
 question. "He may be a friend for whom I am seek 
 ing, or it may be that I am on the wrong track al 
 together. I am most anxious to know. And what 
 is wrong with him?" 
 
 The mockery that seemed to lurk in the manner 
 of this man forced the question. 
 
 "Wrong with him?" echoed Lycurgus. "Why, 
 nothing in the world so far as I know ! "
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 107 
 
 "I am glad of that," said Wentworth. "Where 
 can I find him?" 
 
 "Why, that is too bad!" cried Lycurgus. "But 
 he is gone!" 
 
 "Gone!" echoed Pray. "Where is he gone?" 
 
 "Captain Graeme and Mr. Ainsworth both took 
 passage on the Tenyu Maru last night," replied 
 Lycurgus. "The captain was booked for Hongkong. 
 I heard Mr. Ainsworth say that he thought he would 
 go to Manila. He did not say it to me, however." 
 
 "Why," exclaimed Pray, "I was aboard the Tenyu 
 an hour before she sailed! I saw neither of them on 
 board." 
 
 "They sailed on her, all the same," said Lycurgus. 
 "They were stopping at my place out Waikiki, you 
 know, and I sent their luggage aboard from there 
 yesterday afternoon. They had dinner here up 
 stairs and sat late. They said that they wanted 
 to get away quietly, having had enough of publicity 
 since the wreck of the Halcyon. Captain Graeme had 
 a cable from his owners, I believe." 
 
 "That accounts for it," said Pray. "They prob 
 ably went on board after I left the steamer." 
 
 He turned to Wentworth. "I am sorry that you 
 have missed your man," he said, "if this is the Ains 
 worth you seek." 
 
 "I am not at all sure," answered Wentworth. 
 "My friend was not English, but that may be a 
 reason the more for me to see this man. The story 
 of the wreck of the Halcyon was only published on
 
 108 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 the day we left San Francisco. Reading it, and read 
 ing that Ainsworth had left the Hancock here, 
 I thought to look him up if he were still in town." 
 
 Pray looked at him curiously. There was a story 
 here his trained intelligence told him easily enough. 
 Whether he could land it was another thing. And, in 
 the meantime, there was always a commonplace. 
 
 "You are going through on the Sherman?" he 
 asked, politely. "I see she made port this morning." 
 
 "Yes," replied Wentworth, with slow deliberation. 
 "I am going through on the Sherman" 
 
 He had made up his mind to do that at the mo 
 ment of speaking. It was the only thing for him to 
 do. Whether or no, he must run this Norman Ains 
 worth to earth. The doubt in his mind but made 
 that the more imperative. 
 
 "You will find Ainsworth In Manila, then," said 
 Pray. "The Tenyu will beat you to it, of course, but 
 it is likely that he will stick around for a week or two 
 after he gets there.'* 
 
 "That is true," agreed Wentworth. 
 
 And then Pray, who was accustomed in his position 
 to meet all kinds of men intent upon all manner of 
 business, pressed Wentworth to have something more 
 by way of changing the breakfast into a luncheon, 
 and, upon refusal, called a taxi and rode down to 
 the Navy Wharf with him. The island newspaper 
 man did not seek any confidence, hoping, it might 
 have been, to get a line on Wentworth's story aboard 
 the Sherman, and Wentworth did not volunteer
 
 THE ENGLISHMAN 109 
 
 any. And when Pray questioned the Quartermaster- 
 Captain, he found out only that Wentworth was a 
 young San Franciscan out to see the world. So, 
 having surer matter for copy in hand, Pray let the 
 thing drop. Maybe he would have followed the 
 scent harder if he had seen the cablegram that came 
 that day to a certain banker in Honolulu from a big 
 San Francisco banking concern. The private banker 
 cabled his correspondent that Wentworth had made 
 certain inquiries, and gone on in the Sherman. 
 
 Wentworth, whom Upson's forethought had pro 
 vided for just such an emergency, had seen the Quar 
 termaster-Captain before Pray had, and had arranged 
 to go in the transport. He still occupied his stateroom 
 when the steamer dropped down the Channel that 
 night, cleared the bell buoy, and breasted the western 
 sea for Guam. He had cabled Upson of his purpose to 
 go on, as he had agreed to do on leaving San Francisco. 
 
 It was early on the second morning out from 
 Honolulu, and the Sherman was making the only 
 ripple hi that blue sea for a thousand miles, when he 
 went forward and found the sailor, Oleson, polishing 
 some bits of brass work about the forward rail. 
 
 "Oleson," Wentworth asked, in a low tone, stop 
 ping close to the sailor as he worked, "was this 
 Ainsworth, the passenger on the Halcyon, an English 
 man?" 
 
 "Why, no, sir," replied the sailor, looking up from 
 his work in some surprise. "I never thought he was. 
 He seemed to be an American, sir."
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 BEING A LETTER FROM MR. FREDERICK DENT UPSON 
 TO MR. JOHN WENTWORTH, WRITTEN TO THE CITY OF 
 MANILA 
 
 MY DEAR WENTWORTH: Your sudden departure 
 on the Sherman caused something of a flutter in the 
 Pine Street dove cote. And, by the same token, 
 there is reason to believe that you are on the right 
 track. Stringham put me wise to it. The incident 
 took place on the very day that the Sherman sailed- 
 which shows a very marked degree of vigilance 
 indeed, and may indicate an interest more than 
 passing in the wreck of the Halcyon but I did not 
 see Stringham until nearly a week afterward; and 
 then the thing came out casually. It was this way: 
 I met Stringham in the St. Francis Grill, and had a 
 drink with him, and in the course of the talk he asked 
 me what had become of you. 
 
 I knew that you had not told them at the office 
 where you were going, although it was likely enough 
 that their waterfront man would find out. But 
 Stringham is discreet, and, anyway, there was no 
 good making a mystery of the plain fact of your 
 sailing. So I told him that you were off to the islands 
 
 no
 
 LETTER FROM FREDERICK UPSON 111 
 
 on the Sherman, and, still casually, I ended my re 
 mark with a query as thus : 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 "Why," replied Stringham, "I find an interest 
 in the movements of that young man manifested 
 in certain very high financial quarters. Mr. William 
 Chester you know Chester, of Chester, Wiley & 
 Chester phoned me the other day to know whether 
 young Wentworth was still on the staff, or what had 
 become of him. The matter being out of my line, 
 I referred him to the City Room." 
 
 I did not press the thing with Stringham, but dis 
 creet inquiry in other quarters gave me the date, 
 and the news that Chester got the information he 
 wanted. And it may be accepted, if you are on the 
 right track and the incident goes to show that you 
 are that letters calculated to thwart you went 
 forward on the Tenyu Maru, which left this port 
 two days after you did. She would beat the Sherman 
 into Honolulu, a day at least. And the Tenyu carries 
 mail, although she carries no passengers to the islands. 
 
 If I had found this out soon enough I would have 
 written to you at Honolulu by that steamer. It was 
 of no use to cable. If you were to be blocked you 
 would find it out, as you probably did. And you 
 would go on, as your cablegram informed me that 
 you certainly did. This letter, which goes by the 
 China's mail, will meet you at Manila and advise 
 you in plenty of time. 
 
 Comes now a matter of even more importance
 
 112 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 than Mr. Chester's anxiety as to your movements, 
 although the two things fit each other. I have got 
 a line, old man, at last. If I am in the right upon 
 it and I am at least morally certain that I am it 
 makes it more important than ever that you should 
 find Captain Graeme, late of the Halcyon, and his 
 passenger. Indeed, the success or failure of your 
 quest in the Far East becomes the one great factor 
 in the solution of the problem before us. 
 
 Allison, you must know, is home from Paris, got 
 home a week or two after you sailed. He came to 
 me on the very day of his arrival. He was in a state 
 of some excitement, which is unusual with him, as 
 you know. The first thing he asked was about you. 
 He wanted to know your movements, what you had 
 been doing, and all about it. I am his legal adviser, 
 you know, and after I had told him all about your 
 concerns, he produced to me, as his legal adviser, he 
 said, some half-dozen debentures of the Market 
 Street Railway Company, which he had picked up at 
 the office of his broker in New York. Knowing that 
 Allison has a fad for putting his money into local 
 securities, this did not excite me to more than a 
 cursory glance at the bonds. I was preparing to 
 put them into a safe place before sending them to the 
 bank for him when he called my attention to some 
 endorsements on them. 
 
 Man, those bonds had been issued to William 
 Chester! They had been endorsed by Chester to 
 one Robert Graeme. They had been sold by
 
 LETTER FROM FREDERICK UPSON 113 
 
 Graeme to a bank in Honolulu, which passed them 
 to New York in regular course. They must have 
 gone straight east, and been found by Allison almost 
 on the day of then* arrival. 
 
 But that is not all. Like all the world, I had seen 
 the published list of securities reported missing when 
 the Bank of the Pacific failed. Unlike most of the 
 world, I had saved a copy of that list. So had 
 Allison. He called my attention to the numbers of 
 these bonds, and I ran for my copy of the list. These 
 debentures were among those that it was reported 
 could not be found when the bank closed its doors. 
 They had been listed as lost by William Chester. 
 
 Yet here they were, and with William Chester's 
 endorsement to the captain of the Halcyon ! What 
 had William Chester to do with the captain of the 
 Halcyon, who came to San Francisco only to pick up 
 a passenger, in defiance of the law? Was the en 
 dorsement on the bonds a forgery and, if so, by 
 whom forged? If no forgery has been committed, 
 if William Chester passed the bonds to Robert 
 Graeme after the failure of the Bank, as the endorse 
 ment shows, our enemy has put his foot in the trap. 
 Clever, cold, calculating as we know him to be, 
 Chester has shown the weakness common to all great 
 criminals. He has made the fatal and almost in 
 evitable mistake of leaving open one door to detec 
 tion while thinking he has closed all roads behind 
 him. The chance was about one in a million that 
 this door would be found at that. How could any one
 
 114 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 foresee that Graeme would dispose of the debentures 
 at once; and, Graeme disposing of them, how could 
 any one then foresee that Allison would happen along 
 and buy them? Surely, the devil has served his 
 friend a scurvy trick in this. 
 
 So much the better for us. The mistake of Ches 
 ter is colossal, like the miscalculations of Napoleon 
 before Waterloo. You will see, in the light of this 
 development, how essential to victory for our side it 
 is that you should find Captain Graeme and his 
 passenger. Never mind about money. We will 
 take care of that at this end. Follow your men to 
 the end of the world. And you will probably have 
 Allison to help you by the time you get this letter. 
 At all events, he is going out to Hongkong in the 
 Korea, and will join you from there. I have not 
 tried to hold him back. I have not seen him so keen 
 on anything since he left college and the interest 
 will do him good. 
 
 I think I have told you everything there is to 
 know that will interest you, excepting that the papers 
 this morning announce the election of William 
 Chester to the Presidency of the Bank of the Pacific. 
 It was done at a directors' meeting yesterday. 
 Somebody has been made to come across sure. I 
 wonder what the new President would say, in the 
 event that those debenture bonds Allison brought 
 from New York should be presented for negotiation? 
 We will find out, too, one of these days when our 
 battle line is made.
 
 LETTER FROM FREDERICK UPSON 115 
 
 Oh, yes; and there is talk, in high political quarters, 
 of sending Harran to the United States Senate. 
 It is under the rose, as yet, but the thing will break 
 in due time. "The man who saved the financial 
 situation in the state," and all the rest of it, you know. 
 
 Well, good-bye, and good luck to you. Allison will 
 give any details I have omitted or overlooked in 
 this. And don't either of you hesitate to use the 
 cable, if it becomes necessary to tell me anything 
 in a hurry. 
 
 Faithfully yours, 
 FREDERICK DENT UPSON.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 AT THE END OF THE WORLD 
 
 AT) having followed my man to the end of 
 the world," said Wentworth, making a ges 
 ture with both hands, as one who politely ad 
 mits an opponent's promise, "I suppose that it 
 is up to me to jump off. For this place is the end of 
 the world if it is not Tophet." 
 
 He drummed impatiently with Upson's letter, 
 which had fallen folded into his hands after perusal, 
 on the side of his wicker steamer chair in time with 
 the shuffling of thousands of slippered feet along 
 the sun-baked pavements in the Tondo Quarter of 
 Manila. Looking down upon the strangely dressed 
 throng out there in the glaring sunshine from the 
 shaded verandah of the Hotel Oriente, Wentworth 
 wondered in vague fashion how any human energy 
 could rise to activity in that breathless heat? Over 
 his head a creaking punkah just puddled the stag 
 nant air of the verandah, and from the dark of his room 
 came the tiresome buzzing of an electric fan that 
 could no more than send a lukewarm eddy as far as 
 the fluttering ends of its own crepe paper streamers. 
 
 Wentworth had been in Manila just one day. 
 That letter from Fred Upson had waited for him at 
 
 116
 
 AT THE END OF THE WORLD 117 
 
 the Hotel Oriente for several days while the Sherman 
 plowed her way slowly across that sea of summer 
 calms in which the island of Guam sleeps between 
 Honolulu and Cape Angana. 
 
 He had seen the bones of the Halcyon in the clear 
 deeps without the reefs that shelter San Luis d'Apra 
 from the strong swell of the Pacific, a native taking 
 him across from the transport in company with 
 McGreal and Oleson. And Oleson, under the pouring 
 of the tropic rain that came down upon the waves like 
 the running of a river from the upper air, had gone 
 over the story of the wreck. 
 
 The stop at Guam w r as to no other profit so far 
 as his quest was concerned. The naval officers 
 on the station could tell little. Neither Captain 
 Graeme nor his passenger had gone ashore on the 
 island, so far as the Governor-General knew. Cer 
 tainly neither of them had taken the trouble to call 
 on that puissant personage. Taken at once from 
 the water on board the Hancock, which left for 
 Honolulu on the day following the shipwreck, their 
 casting away had been to the islanders an incident 
 as fleeting as the alighting of a tropic bird in passage. 
 
 And then the Sherman, after a couple of days in 
 the island harbour, put out across the Nero Deep, 
 rounded the northern point of Luzon, breasted the 
 usual half gale in the China Sea, and, in the early 
 daylight of the thirty-second day out of San Fran 
 cisco, ran under the shelter of the sea wall that 
 carries the waters of the Pasig out into the bay of
 
 118 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 Manila, and dropped her anchor squarely in front of 
 the walled city. 
 
 Thence at once in a native banca, Wentworth 
 landed in front of the old Custom House in the 
 Binondo Quarter, and turned on the top of the stone 
 wall holding the yellow current of the river to shake 
 hands with McGreal, who had come ashore on some 
 ship's business in the same boat. 
 
 "You will have shore leave to-night?" he asked 
 the sailor, at the same time making a motion with 
 one hand to stop a passing cochero. 
 
 "Yes, sir," replied McGreal. 
 
 "Look me up at the Hotel Oriente," said Went 
 worth. "And if you can bring Oleson, so much the 
 better." 
 
 These two, in the voyage across the Pacific, he had 
 come to look upon as enlisted in his quest, gaining 
 much comfort in his talks with either as the ship fared 
 on across the still seas. He relied on them for active 
 help, too, now that he had reached the port for which 
 the men he sought were thought to be bound. And if 
 the sailors were to help him, of course it was needful 
 to have a consultation with them. Their investi 
 gations must be directed to those parts of the town 
 which their eyes could reach, and his own, most 
 likely, could not. That was to the end that they 
 might see intelligently. The more ground that 
 could be covered, the better was the chance for 
 success. Moreover, both the sailors knew Captain 
 Graeme; and Wentworth had never seen him. He
 
 AT THE END OF THE WORLD 119 
 
 thought, grimly, that he would be likely to know 
 Ains worth. 
 
 " If Oleson gets shore leave, we will both be there, 
 sir," replied McGreal. " I will come myself, any 
 how." 
 
 "So long until then!" said Went worth. He 
 stepped into the waiting carromata, and went plung 
 ing away at a furious rate toward the Hotel Oriente, 
 the only guest place of which he knew the name in 
 that thronged city. He found quarters there, a 
 long, low, dark room, opening out into a verandah with 
 shutters of latticed mother-of-pearl shell, and sent 
 to the transport for his luggage. Also, he found 
 Upson's letter waiting him. He read the letter lying 
 in a big wicker chair out in the verandah, with the 
 noise of the shuffling of countless slippered feet and 
 of the strange cries of the natives chaffering in the 
 Tondo Market floating up to him. He felt, as he 
 read, that helpless loneliness a man will feel who sits 
 amidst a throng of his fellows, all strangers to him. 
 He could have shrieked aloud, but the momentary 
 energy of that madness died in him. For, lonely 
 as he was, the climate had him. The languor of 
 the deadly tropical heat was wrapping him about 
 as a miasmatic garment, endowed with the quality 
 of paralyzing that which it touched. 
 
 " I suppose," he repeated aloud, still tapping the 
 side of his wicker chair with the letter, "that it is up 
 to me to jump off!" 
 
 He knew that he ought to be in action. He felt
 
 120 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 the shadow of the impulse. Certainly lying on his 
 back in a shaded hotel porch was never the way to 
 arrive at any definite achievement. He should be 
 out making inquiry at banks or consulates, shipping 
 offices or clubs, for Captain Graeme; striving, some 
 where down in that busy crowd, to find trace of 
 the "Englishman" Norman Ainsworth. There were 
 many English in Manila. If the Halcyon survivor 
 were still in the town, it would be easy enough to get 
 some track of him. Nothing draws an Englishman 
 in an outland place like another Englishman. 
 
 But Wentworth's shadow of an impulse to action was 
 not strong enough to stir him. It needed something 
 from the outside. The cloak of paralysis woven in that 
 deadly heat was wrapping him fold on fold. 
 
 " I suppose it is up to me to jump off," he said to 
 himself aloud, and for the third time. " I have come 
 to the end of the world. Well, then! Which way to 
 jump? I wish Frank Allison were here!" 
 
 "And, behold ! He enters at the word ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE MAN AND THE HOUR 
 
 ALISON spoke from the doorway of Went- 
 worth's room, standing a cool and smiling 
 figure in white duck against the darkened 
 background of the interior. And at the sight of him 
 the cloak of paralysis that had been wrapping itself 
 about the soul of Wentworth dropped away, and he 
 leaped to meet his friend with all the native energy of 
 his race alert for action. 
 
 " When did you get in, old man?" he cried. "Gee! 
 but I'm glad to see you!" He was shaking both 
 Allison's hands as he spoke, and it seemed that he 
 would never quit shaking them. 
 
 "I got here two hours ago," replied Allison. "I 
 went through some formalities at the Custom House, 
 and here I am. It was more than you had to submit 
 to, of course, but a skipper does not get past those 
 red-tape fellows as easily as a passenger." 
 
 "A skipper?" echoed Allison. 
 
 "Surely! A man is permitted to skip his own 
 yacht, I believe although it is a privilege I would 
 just as soon forego in these typhoon latitudes. 
 Beating around San Francisco Bay is a different 
 thing." 
 
 121
 
 122 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "You don't mean to tell me that you brought the 
 Sea Spray across the Pacific?" cried Went worth. 
 
 "Nothing so foolish. I made my escape from 
 Brooks and came over in the Korea. But I found a 
 little beauty of a yacht for sale cheap in Hongkong. 
 Clyde built! Steel hull! Bronze keel! Designed 
 by Watson! Schooner rigged! Eighty feet over all! 
 With auxiliary engines and tankage for one thousand 
 gallons of gas! For sale cheap, by a gentleman who 
 is unexpectedly called home by reason of important 
 private affairs! Rated Al at Lloyd's! Doesn't 
 that sound like an advertisement from a real, live Eng 
 lish newspaper published in Asia? Well, the Lurline 
 is a beauty, my boy, with comfortable cabins, and a 
 turn of speed that really surprised me, considering 
 that she is English built. More than that, she is pro 
 visioned for a cruise around the world. I took ac 
 count of the stores, running down here and that was 
 a labour, without a cabin steward. My fellow left at 
 Hongkong. The stores are English, and so of the 
 best. And if the men we seek have gone to the end 
 of the world and stepped off why we can float down 
 into the abyss more comfortably with a good ship un 
 der us than in any other possible way." 
 
 "In a search among islands we would have to have 
 a boat, too," said Wentworth. " The passages would 
 be wet, inevitably." 
 
 "That being the nature of island channels," agreed 
 Allison, politely. 
 
 "And of course," went on Wentworth, getting back
 
 THE MAN AND THE HOUR 123 
 
 to the serious side of his affairs, "if the men are still 
 in Manila we could go home in the Lurline and 
 take one of them with us, if he is the man we want." 
 
 "I have not the least doubt that he is the man we 
 want," said Allison. "But he is not in Manila." 
 
 "How do you know that? " 
 
 "Why, we are here!" replied Allison. "Your 
 friends in San Francisco have already been in com 
 munication with the men, knowing that you were on 
 the way. Did you suppose that the departure of Cap 
 tain Graeme and his passenger from Honolulu on the 
 day before you got there was a coincidence? I 
 passed through Honolulu myself, you know. A cable 
 gram from San Francisco would have sent them out 
 of there in a hurry and it did. Captain Graeme 
 received the cable." 
 
 "Why, Lycurgus told me that!" exclaimed Went- 
 worth, his mind going back to the island, and to his 
 meeting with the proprietor of the Union Grill. 
 
 "Sure he did!" cried Allison. "He told me the 
 same thing, incidentally, when I asked about you." 
 
 "And did he tell you that the Halcyon's passenger 
 was an Englishman?" asked Wentworth. 
 
 "An Englishman! Why, no. But I did not ask 
 him about the passenger. My inquiry was as to you 
 only and I purposely made that casual." 
 
 "The Halcyon's passenger," said Wentworth, 
 speaking very slowly, "according to all the infor 
 mation I could get in Honolulu, was an Englishman. 
 An Englishman of the English! He was assert-
 
 124 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 ively, and if not offensively, at least amusingly, Eng 
 lish. It was the most noticeable thing about him. 
 Even in Honolulu, where they are relatively common, 
 it was noted, and, I gathered, would have been, even 
 if he had not always and insistently asserted the fact 
 of his nationality." 
 
 "Why, then," said Allison, ruefully, "he cannot 
 be our man!" 
 
 "But," went on Wentworth, "in spite of this very 
 notable and noticeable Anglicism, the sailor Oleson 
 did not observe it while he was aboard ship with the 
 man. The sailor thought his shipmate was an 
 American. Maybe it did not occur to Ains worth 
 to assert his nationality sooner." 
 
 "The devil!" cried Allison. "Then you think 
 
 "Nothing, my son! If Norman Ainsworth is an 
 Englishman, he is likely to be in Manila. If he is 
 only assuming to be English, then it is my view that 
 you would better begin to get the Lurline ready for 
 sea." 
 
 "Which will not take a day's time," said Allison. 
 
 "So much the better," replied Wentworth. "If he 
 is gone, we must follow on. Of course, if it conies 
 to that, an Englishman could go away from Manila, 
 too, but we must still follow on." 
 
 "Right you are!" cried Allison. "And now to 
 find out! An Englishman in Manila 
 
 "Would have his name put up, first rattle out of the 
 box, at the English Club," interrupted Wentworth. 
 "Let us call a carromata and go down at once to
 
 THE MAN AND THE HOUR 125 
 
 the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank. I have to de 
 posit my letter of credit, and so have you. The 
 cashier will be a big man in the club and he will give 
 us a line." 
 
 It was really astonishing, once Wentworth shook 
 off the lassitude of the country with the coming of 
 his friend, how quick he was to spring into action. 
 Within ten minutes after the appearance of Allison 
 at the Hotel Oriente the friends were inside a closed 
 caliso, tearing through the narrow streets and around 
 the sharp corners in the Binondo Quarter at a gait 
 that perilled the life of every passer in the roadway. 
 
 "These cocheros missed their destiny in not being 
 born auto speed maniacs," said Allison, as their driv 
 er drew up his panting pony in front of the bank. 
 
 "Think of having a racer in these narrow streets, 
 without a sidewalk to give a pedestrian any chance 
 at all and a Filipino devil grinning at the wheel!" 
 
 They stepped into the bank, and^another closed 
 caliso, which had followed them fr^m^the hotel at 
 speed, drew up to the door. The man who got out 
 of it descended slowly, looking first to make sure 
 that the two friends had gone in. This man had an 
 air of furtive jauntiness about him, as if a rat were to 
 turn dude. And he was a little, sallow, smoothly 
 shaven man with a subtle something about his car 
 riage, or his manner, or his face expressive of the deep 
 and old, old craft of Asia. 
 
 More, this little furtive dandy of a man had 
 taken a room at the Hotel Oriente the day before,
 
 126 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 after spending some hours of the morning lounging 
 about the Custom House a room adjoining that occu 
 pied by Wentworth. And that spite of the fact that 
 he had a den and a family in a hut in a nipa row in 
 the outskirts of the Quarter of Sampaloc. In that 
 quarter he was respectfully spoken of by the neigh 
 bours as the Senor Don Miguel di Sousa, and known 
 to have influence in quarters which the neighbourhood 
 regarded with some awe. He enjoyed considera 
 tion there, likewise, as the proud father of as promis 
 ing a litter of young rats as was to be found in any 
 nest in the quarter; and, what was a matter of 
 greater personal pride to him, as the owner of a red 
 game cock which, at three years old, had never been 
 whipped. 
 
 The dark little man slipped into the bank imme 
 diately behind the two Americans. He was very close 
 to the cashier's desk when that obliging young Eng 
 lishman said that he himself had put up Norman 
 Ainsworth and Captain Graeme at the club at Malate 
 a week before. They had done some business with 
 the bank. And they had taken a house at 32 Calle 
 San Pedro, in the Quarter of Guiapo. Mr. Ains 
 worth was an Englishman, of course. 
 
 "And he need not have kept on asserting it all the 
 time, either," said the cashier, with a quiet smile. 
 
 It was the same kind of thing Wentworth had met 
 at Honolulu, and he looked at Allison. 
 
 "Are the gentlemen here now?" he asked. 
 
 "Why, no," replied the cashier. " Captain Graeme
 
 THE MAN AND THE HOUR 127 
 
 received cabled orders from his people in London 
 to take over the command of the Neried, of the same 
 line as the Halcyon, which had limped into port from 
 the Archipelago a week or two earlier. Her cap 
 tain passed out down Iloilo way. Black cholera! 
 Mr. Ainsworth told me at the club he would go with 
 his friend. They sailed three days ago." 
 
 "Do you know for what port?" asked Wentworth. 
 
 "I did not inquire. But they would know over 
 at the Consulate," replied the cashier. "I will give 
 you a note to the Consul, if you like." 
 
 "You are very kind," said Wentworth. "The 
 Neried belonged to the same people as the Halcyon, 
 you say?" 
 
 "They have a lot of those tramp freighters, 
 Clarke, Wyse & Compton, of London," replied the 
 cashier. 
 
 He penned the note of introduction to the British 
 Consul as he spoke and called a Chinese boy to show 
 the gentlemen the way to the Consulate. It was 
 but a few steps, just around the corner. And the 
 Consul was most obliging. A clerk found, very 
 quickly, that the Neried had cleared for Iloilo, in 
 ballast, to get a cargo of hemp for Nagasaki. 
 
 "You can cable to see if she is still at Iloilo," said 
 the Consul. "She may be clear away on the other 
 side of the world in a couple of months. If you want 
 to catch her, I should say the surest way would be to 
 head her off at Nagasaki." 
 
 Wentworth and Allison thanked the official for his
 
 128 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 courtesy, and went back to their caliso, which they 
 had kept waiting. 
 
 "I suppose it wouldn't do any good to look up the 
 address in the Guiapo Quarter?" queried Allison, as 
 they went whirling back toward the Hotel Oriente. 
 
 "Why, it might be wise to go out there before we 
 leave," replied Wentworth. "We may get some 
 points. But, in my opinion, the first thing is to get 
 the Lurline ready for sea. And we should cable to 
 Iloilo. I suppose that the yacht can follow any 
 where that a tramp can go? " 
 
 "Around the world," answered Allison. "But 
 I wish I had a sailing master. It is so much more 
 comfortable to have a man to stand your watch." 
 
 "Why don't you get my friend McGreal?" 
 
 " The sailor-highwayman? Could he sail a yacht? " 
 asked Allison. 
 
 "I should think so." 
 
 " How are we to get him off the transport? " 
 
 "I don't suppose he would have any sentiment 
 about holding to that job if he could get anything 
 better. You have only to offer higher pay. And it 
 might be a good scheme to get the sailor Oleson, 
 too." 
 
 "That would give us a couple of men we could de 
 pend on, surely," said Allison. "That is rather a 
 desirable thing in seas on whose beaches you pick up 
 the riff-raff of the world. I haven't seen a thing out 
 of the way with any of the mixed lot I have but I 
 swear to you, John, that I wouldn't bank on a single
 
 THE MAN AND THE HOUR 129 
 
 man on the Lurline not being safe to cut my throat 
 and turn pirate if he saw his profit in it. " 
 
 "A cheerful crew!" said Wentworth. "We will 
 get the two men, if we have to steal them from Uncle 
 Sam, but I think we may manage it without that. 
 Anyway, they are both due here to see me to-night, 
 and we will find out." 
 
 Their caliso set them down in front of the Hotel 
 Oriente, and Allison took a room next to Wentworth's, 
 the two being thrown into a suite communicating by 
 way of the front verandah. And, on the other side, 
 the dark little Eurasian, crouching behind a shutter 
 whose removal would have made the suite still 
 larger, listened for anything that might be let drop. 
 He had not, unfortunately for the cheese and bread he 
 was expected to provide for that nest of young rats 
 in the Quarter of Sampaloc, been able to worm as 
 much as he would have liked out of the friend of his 
 who was a kind of under clerk in the British Consu 
 late. Nor could he know what talk had taken place 
 between Wentworth and Allison in the caliso on the 
 way to the hotel. 
 
 Neither was he aware of the sending of a cable 
 gram to Iloilo in the middle of the afternoon; which 
 cablegram brought an answer from the British Con 
 sular officer to the effect that the Neried had loaded 
 hemp at that port and sailed that very morning for 
 Nagasaki. But the watcher did know that a cable 
 gram was received. That was the extent of his finding 
 on the afternoon watch. The Mestizo boy who de-
 
 130 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 livered it could not tell him where it came from, 
 and dared not let him open it, even in return for 
 several pieces of silver offered. 
 
 Still, the day of the rat had not been altogether 
 wasted. Even with no more than the information 
 that he had gained, Seiior Don Miguel di Sousa 
 had a very considerable budget to carry to a certain 
 dark office up one flight in the Escolta, on a sign be 
 side the door of which office it was proclaimed, in 
 English, Spanish, Tagallog, and Chinese, that with 
 in was the place of business of Eric Hale, private in 
 quiry agent. 
 
 Being a man of experience in his trade, Eric Hale 
 sent a cable in cipher to San Francisco on the receipt 
 of Di Sousa's report; and that produced another 
 sent back across the ocean to the care of the 
 steamer Neried at Iloilo to be repeated to Nagasaki. 
 A little later in the day Eric Hale issued certain ex 
 plicit instructions to Sefior Don Miguel di Sousa. 
 And then the old rat crept back to the room adjoin 
 ing Wentworth's, in the Hotel Oriente.
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 A FRIEND AND HIS CONSCIENCE 
 
 AID because the Americans in the verandah, of 
 the Hotel Oriente did not think to lower their 
 voices from the ordinary conversational tone 
 Mr. Miguel di Sousa found, that evening, that the 
 spy who waits gains many things. The old rat only 
 left his post to slip out to the family nest in the Quart 
 er of Sampaloc for a bite of fish and rice while the 
 Americans were at dinner in the ordinary of the hotel. 
 He was on watch again long before they had finished 
 eating, and heard them come back to the verandah 
 and settle themselves, overlooking the night bustle 
 of the street, for their after-dinner cigars. 
 
 "I only brought up the subject because you had 
 not asked me a word about it, and because I wanted 
 to discharge my conscience," said Allison, after a 
 bit, as though coming back to a matter which had 
 been in their table talk. 
 
 Silence followed for a moment, and then Went- 
 worth said: "How do you <mnect your conscience 
 with Margaret Graeme?" 
 
 The name caught the attention of the rat at once. 
 It might be, of course, that it was not a name with 
 which he would ever have anything to do, but it 
 
 131
 
 132 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 was a woman's name; and in women there are in 
 finite capacities for complication. Mr. Di Sousa had 
 been in the spy business long enough to know some 
 thing of its possibilities. 
 
 Wentworth, apparently, was willing to let the 
 matter of Allison's conscience drop when that gentle 
 man did not at once reply to his question. 
 
 "Where was the good of letting my thoughts 
 linger on Margaret?" he asked, taking up another 
 phase of the subject. "A woman may dwell in a 
 star. No man can draw her down by looking at her. 
 You left her in San Francisco, I suppose? " 
 
 "But I had found her in Paris, and again in San 
 Francisco. She had crossed from Boulogne while I 
 was coming over from Southampton. The old 
 dragon the aunt, you know, Mrs. Pen worthy 
 was with her both times." 
 
 "Bad for you!" and Wentworth smiled. "I 
 had my bout with Mrs. Penworthy at the Coronado. 
 Being unexceptionally rich at the moment, I finally 
 got past the guard." 
 
 "She thinks that you are the greatest man on 
 earth!" exclaimed Allison. 
 
 "Mrs. Penworthy? That is strange, and not in 
 character. But you should be able to disarm her, 
 old man. You are richer than I ever was." 
 
 "It would do no good," replied Allison, just a 
 shade gloomily. 
 
 "You are young, passably good looking, have 
 plenty of money, and good table manners, do not
 
 A FRIEND AND HIS CONSCIENCE 133 
 
 make any bad breaks in dress. At what point do 
 you fail?" asked Wentworth. 
 
 There was a tinge of bitterness in the grim humour 
 of that. Allison brought the talk to the sanity of 
 earnestness. 
 
 "Margaret Graeme loves you, John Wentworth," 
 he said. 
 
 "Nonsense!" 
 
 "It is the truth." 
 
 "Man!" cried Wentworth, "I am hopelessly out 
 of her class. That I that I that she was more to 
 me than any other woman can ever be, I grant you." 
 
 It was difficult for him to find words, but he went 
 on after a bit: "If poverty had not come; and, well, 
 dishonour, I would have tried for my happiness as 
 a man may. I do not mind admitting that to you. 
 But not now ! Not now ! " 
 
 "Nevertheless, and in spite of everything, I tell 
 you that Margaret Graeme loves you, John." 
 
 "How do you know that she does?" 
 
 It was Allison's turn to hesitate at that. "Maybe 
 I have tried!" he said, at last, speaking very slowly, 
 and looking down into the street. "It may be that 
 that is a part of the burden on my conscience. I do 
 not pretend to more probity than another, John. 
 I had the right to try." 
 
 "God knows you had!" And then, more slowly, 
 and in a lowered tone: "And it is your right to 
 try again." 
 
 "It would do me no good," said Allison. "When
 
 134 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 a woman talks of one man to another; when she is 
 interested in the movements of a man only so far 
 as they concern another man, when her eyes fill 
 at the thought of one man's absence, and silence 
 well, the thing is sufficiently obvious. Love stricken 
 to its death is no longer blind, John." 
 
 "Margaret Graeme would never wear her heart 
 on her sleeve!" cried Wentworth, with a manner of 
 resentment that drew a smile in the dark from his 
 friend. 
 
 "Not where the world might see," agreed Allison. 
 "I should say she would be much more likely to do 
 things to gain her heart's desire. She is a young 
 woman of action, most emphatically. But I was 
 your friend, remember. Through me lay the only 
 road she knew to any knowledge of your movements." 
 
 "And you told her?" 
 
 "That is the other part of the burden on my 
 conscience, John. I did." 
 
 "Everything?" 
 
 "She seemed greatly interested and, well, I sup 
 pose that she got the whole thing out of me." 
 
 "That I sailed on the Sherman, and the purpose 
 of the trip, and all?" 
 
 " That would be about the size of it, old man ! " 
 
 "That was thoughtful of you," said Wentworth, 
 with just the least fine shade of sarcasm. "I hope 
 that she may prove more discreet than you have 
 been." 
 
 "She will never tell anything that will hurt you,
 
 A FRIEND AND HIS CONSCIENCE 135 
 
 John," said Allison, eagerly. "Be sure of that! 
 But what could she tell? Your intimate enemies 
 in San Francisco do not seem to have any trouble in 
 following your movements, if it comes to that." 
 
 "I have nothing to hide yet ! " said Wentworth. 
 
 "Surely you have nothing! And what did it 
 matter if she knew? But have I told you that 
 Margaret Graeme seemed strangely familiar with 
 the story of the wreck of the Halcyon? I do not 
 believe that women read the shipping news at all, 
 as a rule. And did it ever occur to you that the 
 captain of the Halcyon is of the same name?" 
 
 "Often," replied Wentworth, answering the last 
 question. "But what of that? It is a common 
 name enough, and I have never, in my thoughts, 
 coupled the two together. This Captain Robert 
 Graeme, coming out of the Clyde and spelling his 
 name that way, is most likely Scotch." 
 
 "As Margaret is by birth. Didn't you know 
 that?" 
 
 "I know little of her family." 
 
 "It is the fact. Old Donald Graeme, her father, 
 quit the sea to find the Yellow Aster mine, and sold 
 it for a million. He went back to Scotland for a wife. 
 Both the children were born in Edinborough. The old 
 man came back to San Francisco when his wife died, 
 and devoted himself to the making of more millions." 
 
 " Were there two children? " asked Wentworth. " I 
 thought that Margaret came in for all the millions. " 
 
 "So she did. But there were two children. The
 
 136 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 boy was much older, and he went wild and ran away. 
 That was before you and I had begun to take much 
 notice. But the brother was eight to ten years senior 
 to Margaret. My mother told me about the Graemes 
 a long time ago, when Margaret and I went to the 
 Denman Primary together. I was in love with her 
 even when I was in knickers. The families were 
 neighbours on Nob Hill, you know." 
 
 "And the brother? Why did he leave home?" 
 
 "Some difficulty about government. Old Donald 
 was a tartar, and maybe the boy was like him." 
 
 "Did you ever hear the brother's name?" 
 
 "If I ever did, I have forgotten it." 
 
 "I wonder " began Went worth, and then broke 
 off. "Harran was Margaret's guardian, wasn't he?" 
 
 "Only a trustee," replied Allison. "She came into 
 the money a year or two ago." 
 
 "But Harran would have known the family his 
 tory. And he may have kept track of the boy." 
 
 "It is probable enough," agreed Allison. "At all 
 events, it is sufficiently remarkable that Margaret 
 should read the shipping news in the papers. And 
 her interest in the Halcyon story is at least notice 
 able." 
 
 "There are strange things under the sun," said 
 Wentworth, musingly, but more to himself than to 
 his friend. Then, turning to Allison: "You say 
 that the elder Graeme was a sailor?" 
 
 "He was Scotch. There was probably seafaring 
 blood in the family for a hundred years. But here
 
 A FRIEND AND HIS CONSCIENCE 137 
 
 are our sailor friends, I believe. I suppose that it is 
 settled that we shape a course for Nagasaki?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 A Chinese boy, in a long, white gown knocked 
 at and opened the door of Wentworth's room, and 
 the two sailors from the transport, hats in hand, 
 came forward slowly on to the verandah. Oleson was 
 knuckling his forehead as he came stumbling along 
 through the half darkness. A torrential rush of 
 tropic rain roared across the light of the stars at the 
 same instant, driving the people from the street 
 below into temporary shelter, and drowning the 
 greetings of the party with its thunder on the cor 
 rugated iron roof of the hotel. The houseboy pushed 
 out two more reclining chairs from the room, and 
 McGreal and the sailor sat down, the last named 
 just touching the edge of the cane seat, and holding 
 his white duck hat in his hand as he sat. Also, 
 they both took cigars when the boy passed them at 
 a sign from Wentworth. Then the boy went out. 
 
 "When did you come ashore?" asked Wentworth, 
 by way of putting the two at ease, as soon as they 
 were seated, and the roar of the rain had passed, and 
 after he had presented Allison in form to the visitors. 
 
 "We landed half an hour ago, sir, at the Custom 
 House," replied McGreal, "and took a carromata 
 on. She was unloading, sir, and we could not get 
 away from the ship any earlier." 
 
 "Then, of course, you have seen nothing of Captain 
 Graeme or his passenger?" said Wentworth.
 
 138 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "We have been nowhere, sir," replied McGreal. 
 "But we have twenty -four hours' leave, the both 
 of us, and we'll scour this town to-night and to 
 morrow, sir." 
 
 "It will not be necessary," said Wentworth, to 
 this, "although I'm obliged to you just the same. 
 The men are not here." 
 
 "Not here, sir?" exclaimed McGreal. 
 
 "We got track of them to-day, Mr. Allison and I. 
 They went to I'oilo in the Neried" 
 
 "Why, that is one of Clarke, Wyse & Compton's 
 boats, sir," cried McGreal. 
 
 "Just so. Captain Graeme is in command of 
 her. Ever been in her?" 
 
 "I made the run to Good Hope as a 'prentice in 
 her," said McGreal. "That was my first service 
 with the company." 
 
 "Well, you may see her again. We propose to 
 go after her in Mr. Allison's yacht." 
 
 "Tolloilo, sir?" 
 
 "To Nagasaki. She has already sailed for that 
 port." 
 
 "You say J may see her, sir," went on McGreal; 
 "but I am signed on for the whole voyage of the 
 Sherman." 
 
 " Can't you get a discharge? " 
 
 "I might be able to get it, sir. It is not usual." 
 
 "What will it be worth to take it?" asked Allison. 
 
 "That is a different matter," replied McGreal. 
 
 "And Oleson, here, too?" went on Allison, eagerly.
 
 A FRIEND AND HIS CONSCIENCE 
 
 "Now, look here, my men! I have just bought a 
 yacht in Hongkong. I can sail her myself, but I 
 prefer a sailing master, and I would like to pick up a 
 sailor or two in this port, if I can get men that I can 
 depend upon in a pinch." 
 
 "I am listening, sir," said McGreal. 
 
 "Well, if you can get your discharge from the 
 Sherman or can get away from her I will give you 
 $150 in gold a month to navigate the Lurline under 
 my direction. You know navigation?" 
 
 "I took the examination in San Francisco, sir. 
 I have my master's papers." 
 
 "This offer will be for one year, say. It may not 
 take that long for what we have to do, but you sign 
 on for the cruise, and if we reach port in less than a 
 year, your wages will run on for that time, anyhow. 
 If you suit me, it may be even longer." 
 
 "It is a handsome offer, sir," said McGreal. 
 "Very handsome." 
 
 "Do you think that you can make your discharge 
 from the transport upon it?" asked Allison. 
 
 "Well, sir, by giving up the couple of months now 
 due me it may be arranged." 
 
 "You will .not lose anything by that," said Allison. 
 "And about the man here, Oleson? " 
 
 "Why, that will be harder," replied McGreal. 
 "I am an officer, when all is told. If I force it, I 
 will be allowed to go. A man before the mast is in 
 harder case." 
 
 "It means $100 to him, and another $100 to you,
 
 140 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 if he is in the Lurline when she leaves here," said 
 Allison. "And I will pay him $50 a month in gold.* 
 
 "What do you think of that, Arvad?" asked 
 McGreal. 
 
 "I can do a good deal for $100 advance, and fifty 
 a month in gold," said the sailor, with a grin that was 
 lost in the dark. 
 
 "Then I'll expect you," said Allison. 
 
 "Is the yacht here, sir? " asked McGreal. 
 
 "I sailed her down from Hongkong myself," re 
 plied Allison. "She lies behind the seawall, about 
 200 yards outside the Sherman." 
 
 "Which one of them is it, sir?" asked Oleson. 
 
 "Which one of them?" repeated Allison. "The 
 Lurline was the only yacht in sight when she dropped 
 her hook in the mud this morning. She is a schooner 
 yacht, painted white, with a gold figurehead. And 
 the prettiest lines you ever saw in a yacht built 
 outside of America." 
 
 "Well, sir," said Oleson, knuckling his forehead, 
 "there is another of them lying twenty yards to 
 seaward of her, only this one is painted green, and 
 the figurehead of her is silver, sir." 
 
 Allison turned to McGreal. "Did you see the 
 other one?" he asked. 
 
 "I saw the two of them lying out there at dusk, 
 sir," replied the future sailing master of the Lurline. 
 "They looked very chummy and comfortable when 
 we left the transport. Two of a kind. The white 
 yacht is a beauty; but the green one seems a bit more
 
 A FRIEND AND HIS CONSCIENCE 141 
 
 fine and graceful in her lines, and the spars higher. I 
 should say that she would be an American-built boat." 
 
 "The Lurline was built on the Clyde," said Allison. 
 
 "They don't build any better boats than at those 
 Clyde yards," said McGreal, with a polite manner 
 of conviction. 
 
 "Anyway," went on Allison, "my yacht is the 
 white one. And if you care to take command of her, 
 Captain McGreal, it will be well for me to take you on 
 board first thing in the morning. Will it do any 
 good for us to see the transport people in your 
 behalf?" 
 
 "I do not think so, sir. And it might make trouble 
 for you. I will meet you at the Custom House in 
 the morning, and we can go out to the yacht in a shore 
 boat. Then I will take her boat and go aboard for 
 my dunnage. If there is to be any row with the old 
 man, I'll face it alone, sir. But you'll find me in 
 charge of the Lurline after to-morrow." 
 
 "The captain of the Sherman will storm, I sup 
 pose?" said Allison. 
 
 "Like enough, sir. But the storm will pass." 
 
 "And about Oleson here?" 
 
 "Well, sir; it may be just as well for you not to 
 know too much about him. Sailors often disappear 
 ashore. If he turns up again in the fo'castle of your 
 yacht, that will not be your lookout." 
 
 "Very well," said Allison. "I leave it to you." 
 
 The two sailors had risen to their feet, and Went- 
 worth said, seeing them thus prepared to go: "I
 
 142 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 suppose you two will want to see something of the 
 town to-night?" 
 
 "Why, sir, if you gentlemen don't mind," replied 
 McGreal. "We thought we would go down to the 
 Alhambra for a song and a bottle of beer, and then, 
 maybe, run around town for a bit." 
 
 "You would better arrange to come back and stop 
 here to-night," suggested Allison. 
 
 "That's as may be, sir," replied McGreal, smiling 
 slightly. "You don't either of you gentlemen think 
 it would be worth while to have a look about here for 
 Captain Graeme or his passenger?" 
 
 "Why, no," replied Wentworth. "We know that 
 they sailed from Iloilo." 
 
 "But there is one thing that I would like to have 
 you see to, Mr. McGreal, if you will," said Allison. 
 "The cabin steward of the yacht left her in Hong 
 kong, and I was in too much of a hurry to get another 
 one there. If you can find me a good China boy here, 
 I wish you would." 
 
 "Why, sir," replied McGreal, "I don't take kindly 
 to a Chinaman aboard ship." 
 
 "I don't stipulate for a Chinese," smiled Allison. 
 "Any likely boy who can do the work will answer." 
 
 "It shall be attended to," replied McGreal. 
 
 And it was. McGreal and the sailor Oleson had 
 hardly got their beer set before them on a little 
 table in the Alhambra, looking out on the moving 
 lights along the Pasig River, before the sailing master 
 of the Lurline noticed a Eurasian half caste, of slight
 
 A FRIEND AND HIS CONSCIENCE 143 
 
 build, and with the air of the cabin steward in every 
 line of him, from his natty white hat to his white 
 duck trousers, red sash, and canvas shoes, sipping 
 frozen absinthe, and emitting deep sighs the while, 
 at the very next table to them. From his sighing, 
 and the general air of depression upon him, he was 
 evidently a cabin steward most decidedly down on his 
 luck. McGreal watched him for a moment, caught 
 his eye, and beckoned to him, after the manner of 
 the quarterdeck. And the doleful one came. He 
 would have been no cabin steward, else. 
 
 "Got a ship, mate?" asked McGreal, patronizingly. 
 
 "Not any, sar," replied the Eurasian. "And I 
 am on this beach many weeks. We got laid off at 
 the end of charter here, sar; and nothing I can find 
 to do it any more. Madre di Dios! I can find no 
 ship, it is two or t'ree days and I can not eat, sar!" 
 
 "Well, I'll fix you," cried McGreal. "Finest 
 yacht in these waters. Ever sail in a yacht? " 
 
 "Sar, many time!" 
 
 "We lost our cabin boy at Hongkong. Didn't 
 know when he had a good thing! Forty dollars, 
 gold, a month, and twenty advance if you'll see me 
 at the Custom House at ten to-morrow morning." 
 
 "I will be there, sar!" said the Eurasian, grate 
 fully. "I will be there. Madre di Dios! Never 
 be to fear on account for me, sar!" 
 
 So Mr. Miguel di Sousa, making a late report at the 
 office in the Escolta, had obeyed orders, and secured his 
 berth aboard the Lurline. The rat will find the ship.
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE GREEN YACHT 
 
 MR. MIGUEL DI SOUSA squatted beside a 
 very small camphor-wood chest set on the 
 edge of the sea wall just in front of the Manila 
 Custom House, a figure of patience in the midst of 
 the hurry and bustle of the quay alongside the Pasig. 
 He held, under one arm, a red game rooster, and 
 soothed the nervousness of the bird now and again 
 by a gentle touch on its slim and shapely head. It 
 was well enough, in the way of duty, to separate him 
 self by the width of the city from this passion of his 
 life. He could not have borne separation overseas. 
 And he waited because it was not for him to be late 
 for his appointment with Captain McGreal. 
 
 Presently, breaking through the swarm of caribou 
 carts and carromatas, squat Tagals, and naked, shin 
 ing Chinese coolies, the spy saw the tall form of Mc 
 Greal come surging on, like a great liner that plows a 
 way amidst many lesser craft to get into dock. And, 
 at the same moment, Allison leaped out of a closed 
 caliso that had stopped just in front of where Mr. Di 
 Sousa sat beside his camphor-wood chest. 
 
 "We are both on time, Captain McGreal," said 
 Allison, shaking hands with the sailor. 
 
 144
 
 THE GREEN Y4CHT 145 
 
 "Yes, sir; and here is the new cabin steward of the 
 Lurline" 
 
 Di Sousa had risen quickly as the two came up, 
 and now touched his hat. 
 
 "This the man?" queried Allison. And then, to 
 Di Sousa: " What are you doing with the chicken? " 
 
 "Sar! " replied Di Sousa, his point of pride touched 
 at once, "it is el Rio Rey. Never yet has this 
 bird been beaten." 
 
 He spoke in a soft, sibilant voice, and with an ac 
 cent Allison could not place an elusive, musical in 
 tonation, suggestive at once of the tongue of the 
 Latin and of some older Asian people. 
 
 "What is your name?" asked Allison next, looking 
 at the man in puzzled fashion. There was a vague 
 impression that he had seen him or heard his voice 
 before, but it passed. 
 
 "Miguel di Sousa, sar!" 
 
 "You have served as cabin boy?" 
 
 "Sar, many times, in many ships." 
 
 "You are Eurasian, I think?" said Allison. 
 
 "I am born in Macao, sar." 
 
 " I thought so. What ship were you in last? " 
 
 "Sar, it is the Monirose Castle; port of London. 
 We are laid off on this beach for the end of charter, 
 sar." 
 
 "Well, I guess you'll do," said Allison, "if Cap 
 tain McGreal is satisfied. Are you ready to go on 
 board?" 
 
 "Sar, here is el Rio Rey. I am ready."
 
 146 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 Allison smiled, and, stepping to the end of the sea 
 wall, motioned to the Tagal in one of the many ban 
 cas lying tied alongside. 
 
 "Here, you ! " he cried. " We want two bancas ! " 
 
 Half a dozen little brown men in their waiting 
 canoes sprang into swift activity, paddles in hand and 
 each contributing his share to that clamour which 
 attends on any labour done or attempted by Asiatics. 
 
 "Come on!" said Allison to McGreal, stepping 
 into the first banca that came under him. Then, 
 turning to the waiting Eurasian, "You take the 
 next boat, Miguel, and follow on. Get the nigger to 
 tumble your chest in." 
 
 The loading of the chest was a noisy business, too, 
 but it was done at last, and then the two bancas, 
 one behind the other, shot out into the stream and 
 went swiftly down with the tawny current of the 
 Pasig. 
 
 They swept thus around the edge of the seawall, 
 the boatmen scarcely using their paddles excepting 
 for the purposes of steering, as long as they were in 
 the river. But once they breasted the waters of the 
 bay, the two Tagals in each boat dipped their broad 
 blades in furiously. In twenty minutes after leav 
 ing the Custom House the bancas drew up, one after 
 the other, to the gangway hanging down from the 
 port side of the Lurline. 
 
 They had passed close under the stern of the green 
 yacht as they came along and Allison read the name 
 of her, set in silver letters, "Petrel, New York.*'
 
 THE GREEN YACHT 147 
 
 He noted the trim lines of her, and the tall, rakish 
 spars, and the screw well down by the stern. 
 
 " Looks like she might be able to go some," he said 
 to McGreal. 
 
 "Sure thing, sir. And to make good weather in 
 most any going." 
 
 Several of the crew in neat green and white suits 
 lounged about the forward deck of the yacht and 
 a Negro came and looked down over the after rail as 
 they passed, showing every bit of ivory that he had in 
 his head. But of her cabin people, there was none in 
 sight. 
 
 "I suppose her people are ashore, sightseeing, sir," 
 said McGreal. 
 
 "I'd like to challenge them to a race," said Allison, 
 the sporting instinct in him rising strongly at sight of 
 the beautiful craft. 
 
 "She might give you all you wanted, at that, sir," 
 said McGreal, and then, the banca drawing in close 
 to the white hull of the Lurline., the sailor went on, 
 "but this is a beauty, too. Ought to walk around 
 anything in the water near her measure." 
 
 "She's the real thing, all right," replied Allison, but 
 he stopped at the head of his gangway to look across 
 once more, longingly, at the green yacht. Then he 
 turned, courteously, and welcomed the new captain 
 aboard. 
 
 After that formality, to put McGreal in possession 
 of the captain's office was the work of but a few min 
 utes. There was the form of calling to the break of
 
 148 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 the poop such of the crew as were aboard and intro 
 ducing the new commander. The Lurline carried a 
 cook, eight men, and a mate, of such as are to be 
 picked up commonly in Asian ports. Four of the men 
 were on shore leave that morning. The other four, 
 with the mate and the cook, came aft and ducked to 
 their new officer, a service of grog by the cook, at 
 Allison's order, tending to carry the introduction off 
 well. The mate, a great, white, blue-eyed Norse 
 man, with a tawny mane like a lion's came up on the 
 quarterdeck and was introduced by name as "Mr. 
 Andressen." 
 
 "We will want to get out of here first thing in the 
 morning, Mr. Andressen," said McGreal, sizing up 
 the mate in one comprehensive glance. "Mr. Alli 
 son tells me that the yacht is provisioned for a long 
 cruise, and that you had orders to get water aboard 
 to-day. There will be nothing to hold us, then. And 
 I wish you would get out my gig for me." 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir," replied the man addressed. "The 
 other four men will be aboard at dark, sir." 
 
 He turned, at that, and McGreal watched him swing 
 his great six feet of body forward along the main deck. 
 
 "A Viking, sir," he said, turning to Allison. "I 
 think we may count on that man in a pinch." 
 
 "Yes," replied Allison. "I believe that Andres- 
 sen is an honest man." 
 
 "It is one to the good," said McGreal. 
 
 Then, while a couple of sailors were lowering the 
 yacht's gig from the davits under the stern of her, and
 
 THE GREEN YACHT 149 
 
 a couple more were hoisting Di Sousa's camphor- wood 
 chest aboard the game cock was carried up very 
 tenderly by its owner Allison took his new sailing 
 master into the cabin of the yacht. It was all in 
 white, picked out in gold beading, and the furnish 
 ings were of bird's-eye maple. Six roomy cabins 
 fitted with brass beds and stationary washstands 
 opened from the mam saloon, three on either side, 
 and there was a roomy tiled bathroom, with hot and 
 cold taps, away aft. 
 
 Running forward from the cabin to give access to 
 the main deck, a narrow passageway opened to two 
 large rooms, one on either hand; that on the star 
 board side for the captain and on the port for the mate. 
 And, still forward of these, were two cabins of smaller 
 size. The one on the port side was filled with a general 
 litter of sails and cordage, and was used as a sew 
 ing room by the crew in mending sails. The star 
 board cabin, adjoining the captain's, was fitted 
 for the use of the cabin steward, with a sideboard 
 handy. Di Sousa was already in the place when Alli 
 son showed it to the captain, his camphor- wood chest 
 under the bunk and the game chicken tethered by a 
 soft leather holdfast to a staple behind the door. 
 
 Returning to the saloon, Allison touched an elec 
 tric button set in the head of the cabin table, and, 
 in a moment, Di Sousa came in softly from the 'mid 
 ships passageway. 
 
 " Ready for duty, Miguel?" asked the owner. 
 
 "Sar,Iamready!"
 
 150 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "Very well; the captain is going on a little expedi 
 tion of his own, and while he is away, I will show you 
 where the things are kept." 
 
 Turning to McGreal, he went on: " I will wait here 
 until you come back from the transport. Then we 
 we will go ashore together and get ready to clear the 
 yacht." 
 
 McGreal left him with the new steward, and, with 
 in the hour, was back again. A couple of the crew 
 hoisted aboard the Lurline a second camphor-wood 
 chest, much larger than Di Sousa's, which was stowed 
 away in the captain's cabin. 
 
 " Have any trouble, Captain?" asked Allison. 
 
 "Not a great deal, sir. The Old Man stormed 
 about a bit at first, but he let me go." 
 
 "Well," said Allison, " I am glad that is settled, so 
 far. Now for the shore, and clearance. We will 
 take the gig, this time, and bring Wentworth off 
 with us. Then we can drop down the harbour at day- 
 light." 
 
 The few formalities needed to clear the yacht for 
 Nagasaki were got through with very quickly, al 
 though the business involved a second and formal 
 visit to the British Consulate. Allison telephoned to 
 Wentworth at the Oriente from the Custom House, 
 and the two friends went together to the Hongkong 
 and Shanghai Bank for their letters of credit, and after 
 ward to the Consulate. The cashier and the Consul 
 both regretted, politely, that they could not have the 
 pleasure of showing the Americans the hospitalities
 
 THE GREEN YACHT 151 
 
 of the club. The Consul readily gave McGreal a 
 license on his American papers. 
 
 Late in the afternoon Wentworth and Allison, with 
 McGreal, went off to the yacht, again passing close 
 to the Petrel, and again seeing no one on board that 
 craft but the lounging members of her crew. The 
 four absent members of the Lurline*s crew, a Jap, two 
 Lascars, and a Portuguese Negro, came tumbling 
 aboard from a banca after dark. Their white duck 
 uniforms were pretty badly soiled, but they all seemed 
 sober, which was a blessing. And, away along in the 
 night, while Allison and Wentworth sat smoking un 
 der the poop deck awning, there was a subdued hail 
 from the water, and another man came over the side 
 out of a banca, was received with a few whispers at the 
 head of the gangway by McGreal, and slunk away 
 forward. 
 
 "Oleson, I suppose?" muttered Allison in a low 
 tone. 
 
 Wentworth kept on smoking for a little. " It seems 
 to me we have rather a mixed crew, Frank," he said, 
 at last. 
 
 "Rather," agreed Allison. "I rely upon the last 
 two ingredients added to hold the mixture stable." 
 
 "McGreal and Oleson?" 
 
 "That's right! A Dane and an Irishman. We 
 can depend upon them, backs to our backs. And I 
 believe that the mate is an honest man." 
 
 "Andressen, is it, you call him? Yes; I like An- 
 dressen. He is a splendid specimen of manhood."
 
 152 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "Magnificent! Looks like a Norse god but may 
 be a Norse devil." 
 
 "A devil, depend upon it, can be a very serviceable 
 friend," said Wentworth. " But there are many kinds 
 of devils. And, apropos, your new cabin boy has a face 
 that is not calculated to inspire confidence, although 
 his notion of bringing the game cock along pleases me." 
 
 "I rather like that myself," agreed Allison. "Al 
 though it is no proof of probity. I have known a 
 murderer make a pet of a canary bird. This fellow is 
 a rat." 
 
 "He looks like a rat," said Wentworth. "On the 
 whole, it is a queer gang. I saw the four that came 
 aboard to-night. What are the others like?" 
 
 "One is a Finn and there are two Chinese. I do 
 not know what the fourth one is, some kind of mix 
 ture from down Celebes way. The cook claims to be 
 a Solomon Islander. They are cannibals, you know, 
 and he looks the part. He is the ugliest devil I ever 
 saw, out of a jail." 
 
 "There are possibilities in the lot," said Wentworth. 
 "The very diversity of the elements may make for 
 peace, but it is a lucky thing the inducements are 
 rather to serve us than to cut our throats. You keep 
 the arms aft, I suppose?" 
 
 "All but the brass four-pounder. And the powder 
 for that is in the magazine aft. There are a couple 
 of dozen cutlasses on the rack in my cabin, and six 
 Lee-Metford carbines in the bathroom cuddy. And we 
 have our revolvers. Those are all the arms aboard."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 FOLLOWED TO SEA 
 
 THE mixed crew worked with a will in the early 
 gray of the morning to get the Lurline's anchor 
 out of the mud, and long before the sunbeams 
 began to redden the sky behind the white city the 
 yacht dropped down across the glassy waters of 
 the bay, past Marrivales, and out through the 
 Boca Chica into the short chop of the China Sea. 
 There had not been, as she ran down with the engines 
 working smoothly, the faintest ripple of wind. Cor- 
 regidor lay mirrored in the sea like a picture of two 
 islands, one upon the other; and every banca moored 
 beside the pier before the village of nipa huts, every 
 native that moved along shore or about his boat, found 
 his reflected double following his movement in the un 
 derworld of the water. 
 
 Yet out at sea the short waves ran under the sun 
 that rose from the red and golden glory of its crimsoned 
 couch in the clouds, each wave tipped with a twinkling 
 cascade of shining jewels as the long gusts of wind 
 out of the northeast reached down to touch the sur 
 face of the water. 
 
 "It will be blowing strongly enough by the time we 
 are abreast of Lingayon Gulf," said Allison, turning 
 
 153
 
 154 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 from contemplation of the shore line of Luzon to 
 speak to Went worth. 
 
 They stood together at the stern rail, watching the 
 steep shores recede and the strong waves as they ran, 
 while Captain McGreal, well forward on the poop, 
 kept the crew jumping to get sail on her. 
 
 " I hope it will not turn to a typhoon," replied Went- 
 worth, " at least until we are clear of Cape Angana." 
 
 "No danger of that, so long as this wind holds," 
 said Allison. "If a typhoon should strike us, with 
 no more offing than this, we would not be likely to 
 get even as far as Lingayon. McGreal handles her 
 well, doesn't he?" 
 
 "And himself better. He is going to make good 
 in his first command. He is getting sail on her now 
 to save gas." 
 
 "That's what!" 
 
 And the new captain was showing himself a master 
 hand in the handling of a schooner which is a 
 different trick from sailing a square rigger. He had 
 put the engine at half speed and got the jibs on her 
 the moment she was clear of the little mouth of the 
 harbour. In a little more the foresail was shaken out, 
 and then the main. And, as Allison spoke, he called 
 two men forward and two aft to go aloft and break 
 out the topsails. Then only he stopped the engine. 
 
 The schooner was standing straight out on the wind, 
 and it was evident that McGreal wanted to get every 
 inch there was in it out of her while the breeze held 
 fair. The green and rugged shores of Luzon were
 
 FOLLOWED TO SEA 155 
 
 dropping astern fast and faster with each passing 
 moment. 
 
 "I want to get a good offing," the captain said, at 
 last, coming aft to Allison and Wentworth as the top 
 sails bellied out and were sheeted home. "This 
 China Sea is a nasty bit of water, sir. It will not do 
 to lie on a lee shore and trust to Providence." 
 
 "There isn't much danger of a typhoon at this time 
 of year," said Allison. 
 
 " There is not," agreed the captain. "And the glass 
 holds up well. All the same, I'll feel better when 
 she's clear of Cape Angana, with the whole North 
 Pacific to dart out into. I don't take kindly to run 
 ning among islands. The green yacht has followed 
 us out, sir." 
 
 Allison and Wentworth looked astern, at that, very 
 quickly. There, sure enough, was the Petrel of New 
 York, standing straight out from the harbour, and 
 following, as nearly as might be, the course of the 
 Lurline. 
 
 "That fellow wants an offing, too," observed Cap 
 tain McGreal. "You may get your will of her and 
 have a race yet, sir." 
 
 "Now, wouldn't that beat you!" exclaimed Alli 
 son. "Where do you suppose that fellow is going?" 
 
 "Let's take your glass, Frank," cried Wentworth. 
 Then, after holding it to his eye for a moment : " There 
 are women aboard her. Look ! " 
 
 Allison took the glass which Wentworth held out 
 to him.
 
 156 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "That is so," he said. "There are two of them on 
 the poop, and I suppose the man standing with them is 
 the skipper. We have been lacking in yachtsmen's 
 courtesy, John. We should have called on the Petrel 
 in the harbour." 
 
 Went worth made no reply to this. His mind ran 
 upon things graver than the mere forms of politeness. 
 
 "I wonder," he said, after a little, still watching the 
 yacht astern of them, "if they can be following us?" 
 
 "We will soon know whether they are on the same 
 course, anyhow," said McGreal. 
 
 The Lurline held on as she was until the hills of 
 Luzon were but a dim blur, lying all along the eastern 
 horizon and the Petrel held on, likewise, maybe a 
 mile astern of her. Just before noon the Lurline 
 wheeled like a white bird upon the water, going off 
 on a long tack into the northwest, with the wind abeam 
 and still fair, and looking back over the stern rail, 
 Allison and Wentworth saw the Petrel wheel, also, 
 and still follow on.
 
 CHAPTER XVH 
 
 THE WAY OF A MAN AND THE WAY OF A MAID 
 
 NOW it is a fact that two yachts out of Manila 
 might very well take the same course to get 
 a proper offing without the one astern being 
 fairly suspected to be in chase of the other. And 
 while the people in the Lurline had, perhaps, some 
 reason to suppose that they might be followed, ashore 
 or afloat, as a matter of fact, after that first conject 
 ure on the part of Went worth, none of them for the 
 moment gave very serious thought to the possibility 
 that the Petrel was hi pursuit. 
 
 The Lurline stood well away from the shore all day 
 and all night, and as long as Wentworth and Allison 
 sat smoking on deck under the awning aft they could 
 catch occasional glimpses of the lights of the Petrel 
 where she was holding a position about a mile astern 
 and a little to the windward of them. The breeze 
 held abeam all night long, and, for a bit of water with 
 the reputation that it bears among mariners of all 
 nations, the China Sea was well behaved. 
 
 By daylight, according to the judgment of McGreal, 
 the Lurline had northing enough to clear Angana in 
 the event of a shift of the wind into the cyclone quar 
 ter. And the Petrel, still holding the same relative 
 
 157
 
 158 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 position astern, had attained, of course, the same ad 
 vantage. 
 
 "That fellow is heading up for Hongkong, I sup 
 pose," said Wentworth, coming on deck after his 
 morning coffee. 
 
 "Why, yes, sir,*' replied the captain. "But I 
 do not make out why he did not run away from us 
 in the night." 
 
 "Could he have done that?" 
 
 "It's plain enough you are no sailor, sir. Do you 
 not see that we have about everything on her that it 
 is wise to carry in cruising, topsails and all? And 
 everything we have drawing? Well, we have carried 
 on all through the night, and got everything out of 
 her that the wind would give us. And that fellow is 
 running close hauled, and without his topsails. At 
 that, he has held his place all night long!" 
 
 "You think the green yacht the better sailor, 
 then?" asked Wentworth. 
 
 "She could sail rings around us, sir." 
 
 "Why, then," said Allison, who came on deck at 
 the moment, "it is perhaps just as well that I did not 
 challenge her people to a race." 
 
 "You would have been beaten hollow, sir," 
 said McGreal. 
 
 "You mean to say she has kept up with us close- 
 hauled while we have been carrying on?" asked 
 Allison. 
 
 "Just that, sir!" replied the sailing master. 
 
 Allison whistled.
 
 "Do you think," asked Wentworth, the notion 
 of the day before coming back to him, "that they are 
 folio wing us?" 
 
 "I do not think that I have enough to go upon to 
 say that, sir," replied McGreal, slowly. "But we 
 will find out to-day, or, at the latest, to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 "How? "asked Allison. 
 
 "Why, sir, do you see, we will be high enough up 
 by dark for that fellow to begin to shape a course in 
 for the China coast; if he is bound for Hongkong. 
 With this breeze of wind, indeed, he could make better 
 time now by bearing away to the westward. But 
 some captains like to keep plenty of sea room, and it 
 may suit his notion to get more northing and then run 
 down for the island on the wind. If he holds the same 
 course all night to-night that he held last night why, 
 then we will see." 
 
 "How will we see?" persisted Wentworth. 
 
 "WTiy, sir," replied McGreal, "to-morrow morn 
 ing should put us well up toward the entrance to For 
 mosa Channel if this slant of wind holds. Even if 
 the wind falls off, and we have to trust to the engine, 
 we can do it, bar a big blow. Well, then! If that 
 fellow is still following us to-morrow morning, I 
 intend to put about and run down and speak to 
 him." 
 
 "He may still be making for a port above Hong 
 kong," suggested Allison. 
 
 "No harm done if he is," replied McGreal. "But
 
 160 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 if he is following us he will never permit us to come 
 within hailing distance of him." 
 
 "That seems likely, too," said Wentworth. 
 
 "Surest thing you know, sir," said McGreal, 
 stepping away at the same moment to speak to the 
 man at the wheel. 
 
 The Lurline held on her course all day; and the 
 green yacht attended her as closely as any consort. 
 Allison and Wentworth, indeed, began to feel a kind 
 of sea friendliness for the beautiful craft, and that 
 despite the possibility, recognized by both, that she 
 might be dangerously hostile to them and their pur 
 pose. She was so fine to look upon! She held her 
 place with such a mastery of sea craft as though 
 the soul in her ruled and spurned the running waves ! 
 Even in waters that bore so much of man's treachery 
 as the China Sea, it did not seem possible that so fair 
 an exterior as that of the green yacht could cover a 
 menace. 
 
 Those on the Lurline could see the people on the 
 deck of the other yacht very plainly: two women in 
 reclining chairs aft, as there had been the day before, 
 and the man in uniform of white trimmed with green, 
 and with a sparkle of gold at his cuffs. This man 
 seemed to be full of the cares of his vessel. Although 
 there was a chair placed for him aft, close to the 
 the chairs of the women, he sat in it but little. Us 
 ually he was up and about the deck, giving quick 
 orders to the men who moved about forward, speak 
 ing to the man at the wheel, studying the sea or the
 
 THE WAY OF A MAN AND A MAID 161 
 
 horizon, watchful, alert, as a sailing master should 
 be. 
 
 The women, on the other hand, took matters very 
 easily. Perhaps they had full faith in the skill of 
 their sailing master. They were in white and green, 
 and one of them seemed intent upon some fancy work 
 in her hands. The other sat reading, or looking idly 
 on the changing beauty of the sea. Through the 
 glass, indeed, Allison and Wentworth could see that 
 the book took but little of her attention, lying neg 
 lected, for the most part, in her lap. 
 
 Once she rose, a tall, graceful figure, and picked up 
 a marine glass from the cabin skylight. Wentworth, 
 lying back in his steamer chair, was watching her 
 through a glass at the moment himself. And some 
 thing seemed to flash across to him as she looked, an 
 electric shock. The meeting in space of human 
 thought waves it might have been. 
 
 "By God!" he exclaimed, springing to his feet, 
 and still holding the glass to his eye. "By the 
 living God!" 
 
 "What is it?" asked Allison, looking up quickly. 
 
 "The woman!" cried Wentworth. "It is not 
 possible! I must be crazy! Yet I would swear it 
 to be the figure of Margaret Graeme ! " 
 
 "Nonsense!" exclaimed Allison. 
 
 "Do I not say that I must be crazy? " replied Went 
 worth. "But take the glass and look."
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 "LET HER FOLLOW HER WAY" 
 
 WENTWORTH handed the binocular to his 
 friend as he spoke, and Allison, who had 
 risen, focussed the glass to his sight. 
 
 "It does resemble her," he admitted, after a long, 
 slow look. "I cannot distinguish the face plainly 
 at this distance, but it does look like her. Could 
 Margaret Graeme, by any possibility, be here?" 
 
 "You told her of my plans," said Wentworth, in 
 reply. "You may have been putting into her hands 
 more than you dreamed. If Captain Robert Graeme 
 is her brother? By George! We must find out 
 about this!" 
 
 "We are not sure that it is Margaret Graeme," 
 said Allison. 
 
 "I believe that it is," said Wentworth. "The 
 first thing is to make sure." 
 
 He motioned McGreal toward him as he spoke. 
 
 "Captain," he asked, "when did you mean to find 
 out whether the yacht out there is following us?" 
 
 "To-morrow morning, sir, when we are well up to 
 ward the entrance to Formosa Channel." 
 
 "I think that we can prove it earlier," said Went 
 worth. 
 
 162
 
 "LET HER FOLLOW HER WAY" 163 
 
 "How so, sir?" 
 
 "Both Mr. Allison here and myself are inclined to 
 think that we recognize one of the women on her as 
 well, as a friend of ours," replied Wentworth. "If 
 we are correct hi our conjecture, the yacht must be 
 following us. And we can prove it this moment by 
 running down as if to speak her." 
 
 "A woman, you say, sir?" queried the captain. 
 
 "A woman, yes." 
 
 "A woman who would be interested in following 
 you, sir? I beg your pardon, but would it be for the 
 woman's reason?" 
 
 "It might be that or another," admitted Went 
 worth, flushing. 
 
 " I think it is that," said Allison. 
 
 "Just so," said the captain. "And would her 
 other reason, if she has another reason, be con 
 nected with the purpose of our cruise?" asked the 
 captain. 
 
 "We think so," replied Wentworth. 
 
 "Friendly interest?" persisted the captain. 
 
 "I don't know," said \Ventworth. 
 
 "I should say friendly, decidedly," struck in 
 Allison. 
 
 "Why, then, sir," said McGreal, "if you will permit 
 me to make a suggestion, it would be that it is unwise 
 to go about now, and attempt to force the hand of 
 the people in the other yacht." 
 
 "Why?" asked Wentworth. 
 
 "Well, you see, sir, a woman's purpose is generally
 
 164 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 different from a man's purpose, and she goes about 
 the accomplishment of it in a different way." 
 
 "More subtle?" suggested Allison. 
 
 "That is the word, sir. A man never puts his foot 
 into another man's game but he takes a chance at 
 marring it. Ladies are different; and this one, being 
 a friend of yours, if so be that you are in the right 
 of it as to that, is no doubt following you with the 
 notion of helping you in her own way and at her own 
 time. Being a woman, she probably has the whole 
 thing mapped out, sir. And if she hasn't she will be 
 all the quicker to act on the spur of the moment for 
 trusting to the chapter of accidents. 
 
 "More than that, sir, my experience of the China 
 Sea is such that a friendly consort is a thing that any 
 seaman would be wise to keep at hand, so be that 
 he could. Now, as a woman, your friend will only 
 want to help you in her own way, and it is likely that 
 she won't want you to know who is doing the help 
 ing. If we go about now, and show her that we sus 
 pect her, why, we are as likely as not to frighten her 
 clean out of the whole adventure." 
 
 "That sounds altogether reasonable," said Allison. 
 "But who would have suspected an old sea dog of 
 such deep knowledge of the ways of the sex? " 
 
 "It is reasonable, sir," replied McGreal, putting 
 the jocular imputation aside with a blush. "If that 
 fellow there," indicating the Petrel, "is still on our 
 track to-morrow morning, we will know pretty well 
 that he is following us without any test about it.
 
 "LET HER FOLLOW HER WAY" 165 
 
 And we will not have given our own hand away, 
 either." 
 
 "I suppose that is so," said Wentworth. 
 
 "It is so," went on McGreal. "And if they are 
 following us, and the lady on board is a friend of 
 yours, I should say that the yacht is more likely to 
 drop alongside at a critical moment and lend a hand 
 than to hurt us." 
 
 "Much more likely" agreed Allison. 
 
 "It comes around to the same thing, then," said 
 the captain. "It will pay us not to let on at any time 
 that we suspect we are being followed. Even if that 
 yacht runs up into Formosa Channel behind us, it is 
 no particular harm, that I can see that is, always 
 provided that the green yacht carries your friends. 
 
 "And, on the other hand," continued McGreal, 
 "if the yacht is following us with her movements di 
 rected by those who are not friends I do not see how 
 we are to shake her off. And what the devil are you 
 doing here?" 
 
 He broke off, suddenly, to hurl his question at the 
 steward, Di Sousa, who had crept up on deck and had 
 been standing, none of them could say how long, very 
 close to the three men as they talked. 
 
 "Sar," responded the Eurasian, "I come to say 
 that the breakfast, she is serve!" 
 
 "Come up in front of me, and speak out, then!" 
 said McGreal, sternly. " Go on below ! " 
 
 And as the Eurasian bowed and effaced himself, 
 the captain turned to Allison and Wentworth.
 
 166 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "There are times when that chap reminds me of a 
 rat, with his sneaking ways," he said. "As I was 
 saying, sir, if that yacht is an enemy I do not well 
 see how we are to shake her off. She has the heels 
 of us. And it is possible for her to do a lot of harm 
 too." 
 
 "In case we should sight the Neried out here?" 
 suggested Allison. 
 
 "That's one thing, sir. She could run down ahead 
 of us to cut the tramp off and give warning. And at 
 the last, she could beat us into Nagasaki and do the 
 same thing." 
 
 "Which is what she will be more likely to do," 
 remarked Wentworth. 
 
 "I am not so sure," replied the captain, who had 
 been glancing all around the horizon as he talked, 
 after the manner of seamen. "There is a steamer 
 now off to windward." 
 
 He pointed, as he spoke, to a long smudge of smoke 
 lying low along the eastern horizon. And then he 
 trained his glass, and studied the point for a mo 
 ment or two where the smoke seemed densest. 
 
 "I may be wrong," he went on, "but she is cer 
 tainly heading up the coast. These seas are much 
 frequented, still, that may be the Neried bound north 
 from Iloilo. If we are to see her at all it should be 
 somewhere along about here that we would pick her 
 up." 
 
 Allison and Wentworth had both looked at the 
 smudge of smoke as soon as McGreal pointed it out.
 
 "LET HER FOLLOW HER WAY" 167 
 
 And with about as much satisfaction as untrained 
 men usually get from such things at sea. Away off 
 there to windward, maybe five miles distant, a 
 steamer was passing. They could make out her two 
 sticks and a double funnel through the glass. And 
 that was all. 
 
 "The Neried has two sticks and a double funnel," 
 said McGreal. 
 
 " Will you head out toward her? " asked Allison. 
 
 "I do not see the good, sir," replied the captain. 
 "We are safe to cross her, going as we are; and we are 
 making better weather on this course. If that is the 
 Neried, she cannot get away from us now, and we 
 will just about run her down in Formosa Channel. 
 Those tramps are slow tubs." 
 
 The interest of the two friends came back again 
 to the Petrel and the woman in her. She had seated 
 herself again in the deck chair, but through the glass 
 Wentworth could see that she still studied the group 
 on the after deck of the Lurline. Agreeing in the 
 entire reasonableness of the proposition of letting a 
 woman and her purposes alone, neither Allison nor 
 Wentworth, as they went below to breakfast, was yet 
 ready to give up the purpose to come at last, in some 
 way, to close quarters with the Petrel.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 ALONE UPON A STORM-TOSSED SEA 
 
 A CRUISE at sea is like the life of a man in 
 this: that day by day routine duties arise 
 and are performed; and work is left lying, 
 half forgotten, along the course which yet leads surely 
 to the crisis of man's performance. The routine 
 duties hold the day's interest, no more. Men, other 
 men, contemplate the catastrophe and point out, one 
 to another, how the avoidance of this one error, or the 
 better performance of that task, would have changed 
 the sum total. And yet no man avoids the error or 
 betters the performance in the work of his own life. 
 
 For three days the Lurline stood up along the 
 China coast, well out at sea, heading for the For 
 mosa Channel to the leeward of Patas on her course 
 for Nagasaki. For three days the Petrel followed 
 approximately on the same course, sometimes far to 
 windward, sometimes almost out of sight, but always 
 giving those on the Lurline to know that they were 
 not to be permitted to get out of view. With the 
 slant of wind out of the northeast, which held steady, 
 this was easy enough for the faster boat to do. 
 
 The people in the two yachts saw many smudges of 
 smoke along the horizon. Those be populous seas. 
 
 168
 
 UPON A STORM-TOSSED SEA 169 
 
 Great numbers of the crowded junks of Hangchau, 
 running down the coast on the wind and with their 
 painted eyes staring dead ahead, passed them. Once 
 the Lurline went close to a big P. & O. liner, holding 
 down from Shanghai with a bone in her teeth; and 
 again, one day, a beautiful white cruiser of the 
 American navy raced past, bound north, spurning the 
 waves like some swift sea bird, and dipped her colours 
 in salute. And in the many vessels sighted, far off and 
 close at hand, and in the passing of the nights, it 
 happened, naturally, that the particular smudge that 
 had been thought to mark the passing of the Neried 
 was lost. It did not make a great deal of difference. 
 It might have been difficult to deal with the tramp 
 at sea. Her next port of call was known, and the 
 Lurline people counted on beating her to it* The 
 chance of an encounter before reaching Nagasaki 
 had hardly been more than reckoned on as among 
 the possibilities. 
 
 In the afternoon of the third day, with the two 
 yachts well up into the Channel, the slant of wind 
 that had held on for so long died in long, wailing 
 gusts. The breeze became fitful, chopping all around 
 the compass. The sails of the Lurline falling over 
 against the booms slatted with the roll of the sea, 
 cracking as a pistol cracks. The long booms 
 creaked dismally as they swung over, catching with a 
 sickening jerk at the end of the swing, and every 
 block in her rigging groaned. It seemed, momentarily, 
 as if the slatting would jerk the sticks out of her.
 
 170 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "We are in the lee of Formosa, I suppose," said 
 Allison to McGreal, catching the after rail quickly, as 
 he spoke, to keep his steamer chair from sliding clear 
 away across the deck. 
 
 "Aye," replied the captain, casting a long look 
 astern. "That is like enough. But I don't like the 
 look of the sky, sir; and the glass is running down." 
 
 Wentworth, who sat in another chair alongside 
 that of Allison, rose at that and went into the cabin 
 companionway to consult the aneroid kept hanging 
 there. 
 
 "Gee!" he exclaimed, as he came back and sat 
 down again. "It is going down with a run." 
 
 "It will come on for a good blow out of the south, 
 and I wouldn't wonder," said Captain McGreal. 
 
 "A typhoon?" asked Allison. 
 
 "It would be hard to say, sir. But this Channel 
 is in their regular course, blowing out to sea." 
 
 "Not exactly the best place to be caught?" sug 
 gested Allison. 
 
 "Why," replied McGreal, "there are better places. 
 I thought that the slant of wind that has failed would 
 have carried us through, but we must even make 
 shift anyway not to be caught in here, if we can help 
 it." 
 
 He stepped to the break of the poop as he spoke. 
 
 "Forrard there, Mr. Andressen!" 
 
 The mate, who was stirring up the men to the 
 polishing of brasses and the general painting and 
 brightening of things forward, after the manner of
 
 UPON A STORM-TOSSED SEA 171 
 
 mates when work is to seek on shipboard, answered 
 at once: 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir!" 
 
 "Rout out that engineer and get some way on 
 her!" cried the captain. "Let him turn her over 
 for all she has, at that ! And get the sails off her and 
 fold away the cabin awnings! Make all snug. And 
 get it done lively, now! It is no use, this slatting." 
 The captain came back to Allison and Wentworth, 
 having seen the bustle of obedience to his orders be 
 gun. 
 
 "They are doing the same thing on the Petrel, 
 sir," he said. "She has lost the wind, too." 
 
 A glance astern, to where the other yacht had 
 been rolling a mile or two to windward, showed that 
 she was indeed getting her sails in with a run, and 
 beginning to gather way as her screw turned. In an 
 other moment the exhaust of the Lurline began to 
 talk, too; there was a gurgling sound as the steers 
 man threw her over a point or two to meet the long 
 seas running out of the northeast and the yacht 
 moved forward, lightly and easily, in obedience to the 
 screw. 
 
 The sea went down very fast. One hour before 
 sunset the Formosa Channel lay like a lake about 
 the schooner, only the long heave of the lazy ground 
 swell rising and falling. It was a lake of bright 
 coppery tinge, reflected from the glowing face of a 
 malignant sky. And the sun, on the western edge 
 of the waves, was just a great shield of red-hot brass,
 
 172 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 alive and quivering. And it changed its shape as it 
 went down until it became a fiery, giant, humming 
 top that seemed to spin dizzily before it plunged, 
 point foremost, into the sea. 
 
 All along the southern horizon, as the sun sank, 
 a mountain range of clouds was growing out of the 
 ocean. It was a fair range of golden hills at first, 
 but it darkened, deep ravines and then towering 
 summits, through copper and bronze to blue-black 
 as the day died. And, in the red afterglow, it shone 
 with soft rose colour in all the changing depths of its 
 peaks and valleys. 
 
 Then, as the red faded out, streams of fire darted 
 from peak to peak across the deep black canons of 
 cloudland, and the thunder crashed and echoed and 
 rumbled amidst the summits as when a summer 
 tempest rolls among the mountains of the earth. 
 
 "I wish we were well out of this damned Channel! " 
 said Captain McGreal, standing to watch the clouds 
 as they climbed, high and higher, into the fast-dark 
 ening sky. 
 
 "Why, after all, there is some room in here,'* ex 
 claimed Allison. 
 
 "Ha!" replied the sailor. "Some room? With 
 the shallows, and Panghi Island close aboard, it is 
 likely; and every sea a trap! Some room! There 
 is more in the Yellow Sea, to the north'ard!" 
 
 "The other fellow is in the same case," remarked 
 Wentworth, indicating the yacht astern with a 
 gesture.
 
 UPON A STORM-TOSSED SEA 173 
 
 "And the Neried is tumbling about, too, sir, some 
 where, and I wouldn't wonder," replied McGreal to 
 this. "We are as safe to ride anything out as that 
 old tub, anyhow!" 
 
 "It will be a typhoon, then, you think?" asked 
 Allison. 
 
 "No less than that, sir! Do you note how the 
 yacht talks to the seas as she goes on? Ships know, 
 sir!" 
 
 "Why, then," said Wentworth, "wouldn't it be 
 better to make for some port? The map seems 
 dotted with harbours hereabouts." 
 
 "No time, sir," answered McGreal. "This 
 Lurline is good for not more than ten knots on the 
 screw, I should say, take her at her best. That 
 storm down there is rushing up behind us at the rate 
 of not less than sixty and it may be coming faster." 
 
 "Better turn and face it, then," said Allison. 
 
 "Ten against sixty!" exclaimed McGreal, with a 
 short laugh. "We will run as far north as we can at 
 speed, sir; and then even we must trust to the wind 
 to drive us into the open sea before we get the full 
 force of it. If it strikes us with its extreme fury at 
 the first, why, then we must hang on tight to the 
 coat tails of Providence, and avoid every green sea 
 that seems like to poop her! That's all we can do, 
 sir." 
 
 As he spoke there came, feeling its way across the 
 sea from the southward, a long, breaking sob of wind 
 that was like a catch of breath from the hot depths
 
 174 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 of hell. And it died away as it came, rippling the 
 dark face of the sea as though the touch of it had 
 made the water boil. 
 
 Then McGreal leaped to the break of the poop. 
 For the first time in that cruise he had caught from 
 its rack in the cabin companionway the silver trum 
 pet that went with the master's office. 
 
 "Forrard there!" he cried. "Mr. Andressen! 
 Get the fore and main on her! Break out the jibs! 
 Let us get all we can out of the wind while it is just 
 feeling its way, like." 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir," came the reply; and the men 
 leaped to the falls and ran the sails up, only to have 
 them slat over and over, banging the booms about to 
 the creaking of the blocks, and actually, for the mo 
 ment, making her lose way on the roll. 
 
 But it was only for that instant. Out of the south 
 once more came the sob of the hot wind, longer than 
 before. The Lurline was ready, and it caught her 
 sails and drove her through the water hissing. Then 
 the gusts came fast and faster, while the black clouds 
 rolled clear away across the heavens, and darkness 
 was on all the deep. Great waves rushed on before 
 the wind, rolling high and higher. The sails, holding 
 a good full, strained at their braces, and the taut 
 ropes sang of storm and wreck, and of that under 
 world where fishes sport over white bones in deep 
 sea caves. 
 
 Allison and Wentworth held the deck of the 
 Lurline while the wind increased to a steady gale,
 
 UPON A STORM-TOSSED SEA 175 
 
 but they had called the cabin steward to put their 
 steamer chairs below. The two friends stood, each 
 holding by a stanchion, to look upon the waves that 
 ran by in the darkness with an angrier hissing each 
 moment, breaking into little flashes of pale-green 
 flame where their crests were caught and scattered 
 by the wind. At rare intervals they caught glimpses, 
 far astern, of dancing lights which they knew to be on 
 board the Petrel. But the lights seemed to bear 
 away, more and more, toward the eastward. And, at 
 last, they could be seen no more. The Lurline might 
 have been alone upon that storm-tossed sea.
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 A LURID LIGHT UPON THE SEA 
 
 EVEN as the lights of the other yacht vanished, 
 Captain McGreal put the silver trumpet to 
 his lips and shouted another order: 
 
 "Forrard there! Mr. Andressen!" 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir!" came back, very faintly. 
 
 "Get the sails off her!" And at the same moment 
 the captain rang the engineer's bell for half speed. 
 
 The sails came down with a run, were sheeted 
 home, and the booms made fast inboard. McGreal 
 made his way back to where Allison and Wentworth 
 stood close together. The wind was a full gale, and 
 as the angry seas rose behind the yacht each one 
 seemed to threaten to engulf her in a streaming body 
 of green fire. But the Lurline, with the way on her 
 that was just safe to carry, rode among them like a 
 storm bird that shakes the wave crests from its tail. 
 And the seas fell back behind her with a hollow 
 gurgle into the dark and hungry cavities of the deep. 
 
 "She handles beautifully, sir," said the captain, 
 coming up to where the two friends stood close be 
 side the man at the wheel. He almost screamed to 
 make himself heard above the roaring of the tempest: 
 "She handles beautifully!" 
 
 176
 
 A LURID LIGHT UPON THE SEA 177 
 
 "Aye! She is worth all that she cost," shouted 
 Allison, in reply. 
 
 "If we can hold her so, sir, with just this way upon 
 her, she will ride it out!" cried McGreal. 
 
 *'If it comes on to blow no harder!" shrieked 
 Went worth. 
 
 McGreal shook his head at that. And then, as if 
 to change the subject: "That fellow behind is 
 gone!" he yelled. "Maybe he wants to try for 
 Changwa! The lee of the point in there would give 
 some protection, and I wouldn't wonder!" 
 
 "Could we make it?" cried Allison. 
 
 "I'll keep to the open!" shouted McGreal, to that. 
 "It is bad holding ground anywhere inside here, 
 and hard to get in without a pilot. As long as this 
 holds as it is, we'll do." 
 
 "But I think it is getting worse!" yelled Allison. 
 
 "Worse? Of course. But, at that, it is better 
 than failing to make around the point, or dragging 
 on a lee shore. God help him if he does not give 
 himself plenty of room as he runs in ! " 
 
 The captain was turning away when he caught 
 these words from Wentworth, "And God help the 
 women!" 
 
 "The women? I believe you! God have mercy 
 on all women at sea in a typhoon!" 
 
 For the gale had become a typhoon. There was 
 no longer any doubt of that. No other wind that 
 blows across the globe could have been strong enough 
 to raise those sullen, angry seas, rushing on like ranges
 
 178 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 of mountains in swift motion, and roaring as they 
 ran. No other wind could have held in its belly so 
 much of shrieking and wailing as of lost souls; no 
 other wind could have made men in a stanch ship 
 cling to ropes and stanchions as for their lives; whip 
 ping them, as they clung, with a thousand furious 
 lashes; stinging their faces and hands with the cut 
 ting edges of blown water drops that pierced like 
 little knives, driving them to shelter in any nook of 
 cover that offered even the slightest protection. 
 
 Wentworth, as the fury of the wind beat upon him, 
 sent up a prayer to his God for the safety of the 
 woman that he loved, abroad on the sea somewhere 
 in that storm, sent up a prayer because he loved her 
 although in his heart he was not sure whether she 
 loved or hated him. It was all that he could do for 
 her. And no more could any man have done amidst 
 that elemental fury. For a man is very helpless in a 
 storm at sea. 
 
 The Lurline, stripped bare, her engines working 
 at half speed, and, at that, with her screw racing 
 madly more than half the time, was in the storm's 
 grasp. She had not the power to lie to and face it; 
 and any attempt to get canvas on her would have 
 been an invitation to disaster. The men in her could 
 do no more. They must even let her drive as she 
 would, and pray that she might be driven into the 
 open sea to the northward, where lay their surest 
 warrant of safety. 
 
 Both Allison and Wentworth, grasping stanchions
 
 A LURID LIGHT UPON THE SEA 179 
 
 aft that had held up the cabin awning, stood close 
 beside the steersman in awed wonder at the running 
 of the wind and the waves. They stood there, un 
 conscious of the passage of the time, with no thought 
 of weariness, for hours. The whole black darkness 
 of the wide world was about them. They could 
 scarcely make out each other's forms as they stood, 
 save when a luminous wave, greater than the rest, 
 arose and ran behind them for a moment, threat 
 ening, as it mounted high and higher, to fall upon the 
 yacht's deck. 
 
 It was by one of these pale flashes from the sea 
 that Wentworth noted the steward, Di Sousa. The 
 man stood on deck, pallid with fear, clinging to a 
 stanchion as a dying man clings to his last hope of 
 life. Wentworth could see that his face, ghastly 
 green in that weird light, was working strangely; 
 that his lips moved, trembling, as one who says 
 prayers for the dying when the hand of the White 
 Terror reaches out to grip his own heart. 
 
 And then, with a quick revulsion, Wentworth 
 smiled, even in the face of the man's terror, and 
 amidst that appalling commotion of wind and sea. 
 For he could see that Di Sousa had loosened the 
 tether of his red game cock and now held the bird 
 fast under one arm even while the grim terror for 
 his own life held him. 
 
 Out of the darkness forward, at that instant, the 
 captain came staggering, clinging to the rail for sup 
 port.
 
 180 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "We can do no more, sir!" he screamed, close to 
 Wentworth's ear. "Pray that the engine does not 
 buck!" 
 
 Then, in a second afterward: "God Almighty!" 
 he shrieked, in a voice audible even above the roar 
 ing of the typhoon. "God Almighty! What is 
 that?" 
 
 Close astern of the yacht at that moment, almost, 
 as if it came to devour the Lurline, a great sheet of 
 flame leaped out of the black depths of the sea.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 THE STEAMER ON FIRE 
 
 INSTANTLY, the Lurline was set in the cen 
 tre of a sea whose great waves came leaping 
 onward in running flame, to die away, as 
 flame dies into black cinders, in the wild darkness 
 ahead. The clouds, plunging through the upper 
 spaces, close down, flung their changing shapes into 
 the picture, glowed for a moment in the baleful light, 
 and then hurried on to be swallowed in the shadows. 
 The whole fearful night was driving ahead with the 
 yacht, that sped on through the hissing seas. And the 
 fire pursued the night, and seemed to gain upon it. 
 
 One point, dead astern, gleamed bright and bright 
 er as the flame came on across the water. On the deck 
 of the Lurline every living man watched with pallid 
 face for the thing all knew would burst out from 
 that bright spot, watched and dreaded the coming of 
 what was sure to come. The Malay boy, standing 
 bare-headed at the wheel, his long hair streaming 
 about his face, holding the Lurline as only a skilled 
 seaman could among the low valleys of the tremen 
 dous waves that each instant arose and threatened to 
 beat her down, cast more than one glance astern to 
 where the centre of that weird fire glowed. 
 
 181
 
 182 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 Wentworth, looking about him at the little group 
 gathered on the after deck, Allison, McGreal, Di 
 Sousa with the chicken under his arm, the man at the 
 wheel, noted that each stood with white terror on his 
 face, with mouth half open, like men who strain their 
 bodies to the point of physical exhaustion, and pant 
 for breath. Forward, where every bolt and rope and 
 pulley in the LurUm's rigging was marked out 
 plainly, the men on deck had caught the same expres 
 sion; so they stood, fixed, in the attitude in which the 
 light of the fire had found them. One who had 
 lashed himself face down along the main boom, in fear 
 that some sea more mountainous than the rest would 
 sweep him overboard, had lifted his head and now 
 stared astern with open mouth and protruding eyes. 
 He looked as a turtle might to which something inex 
 pressibly surprising had happened. 
 
 Wentworth, glancing hastily at Allison after one 
 look at this man, saw the answering smile that told 
 him the same absurd notion had crossed the mind of 
 his friend in the thick of that tragic moment, and 
 yet Wentworth had never for one instant lost con 
 sciousness of that baleful fire which came rushing on 
 across the sea; nor lost one jot of the terror that 
 swept his soul as the flames came nearer. He had 
 caught Allison's smile, the manner and expression 
 of the lashed sailor, merely as in a flash. He was, 
 and knew himself to be, a component part of the 
 same picture. Allison's whimsical smile, answering 
 to his own, was as fleeting as the rest. The realities
 
 THE STEAMER ON FIRE 183 
 
 of that night were the storm, and the darkness, and 
 the wild flame that had leaped out of the sea. 
 
 Then from the very middle of the brightness 
 astern broke a shower of sparks and there could be 
 seen, for a moment, billows of fiery smoke that rolled 
 upward to be swept along swiftly with the flying 
 clouds. And a black spot came out of the sea which 
 shaped itself, almost instantly, as a great ship rush 
 ing toward the Lurline sending before it as it came 
 red banners of flame that streamed far across the 
 waves. 
 
 It was God's power of destruction sent down 
 swiftly on the work of men. The terror that had 
 struck to the souls of those on the Lurline when they 
 first saw that awful light upon the sea had been so 
 deep that it had deprived them of the power of 
 speech. With the actual coming of the ship into the 
 picture there grew out of their terror a human pity 
 for those other men in peril on the deep. The parted 
 lips closed, and in more than one pair of eyes there 
 came a sudden dimness through which the fearful 
 fire burned faintly. 
 
 But with pity came back the power of speech, and 
 those who looked on God's artistry in that awful 
 picture were moved in speech only by the sentiments 
 of their poor humanity. With a long, shuddering 
 catch of his breath, Captain McGreal turned to 
 Allison and Wentworth, voicing the obvious, as a 
 man will in his times of deepest feeling. 
 
 "A steamer on fire!" he shouted. "She is driving
 
 184 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 down before the storm and the sea with her engines 
 at full speed." 
 
 "And we can do nothing to help!" cried Went- 
 worth. "My God, is there no way?" 
 
 "No way!" repeated McGreal. It sounded like a 
 mocking echo in the storm wind. 
 
 "No boat could live in this sea," Allison said, as 
 if to bear the others out, explaining to them all their 
 own failure to take action. 
 
 The burning steamer came on, fast and faster. 
 She was dead astern of the Lurline. Those on the 
 deck of the yacht could feel the wind from her burn 
 ing hull, ten times hotter than the typhoon's breath, 
 sweeping in scorching gusts ahead of her. Driven 
 by the gale and the sea, driving at the same time with 
 all the power that her makers had given her, it 
 seemed for a little time as though she would run 
 the yacht down bodily. Sparks and cinders fell all 
 about the little group on the poop deck of the Lurline, 
 and rained a scattering shower forward. Even above 
 the roaring of the wind and the clamouring of the 
 waters there came a sharp hissing as the burning 
 particles struck the surface of the waves. 
 
 Once there was heard a sharp, unearthly squawk, 
 and the muttered word, "Carramba!" 
 
 The steward, Di Sousa, could be seen in the glare 
 to beat down and beat out on the yacht's deck a 
 living coal that had scorched the feathers and 
 burned the flesh of the red game cock which he still 
 held tightly clasped under one arm.
 
 THE STEAMER ON FIRE 185 
 
 It may have been that the smell of the burning 
 feathers checked in more than one of the little group 
 who watched a momentary hysterical desire to 
 laugh. 
 
 Still, out of the red flame that covered all the sea 
 and sky astern of the Lurline, the burning steamer 
 rushed on into the darkness that loomed ahead. It 
 was seen, after the first thrilling moment when it had 
 been feared that she would run the yacht down, that 
 her course would carry her a little ahead and across 
 the bows of the smaller craft. It was the last good 
 fortune. Neither vessel, in that wind and sea, could 
 have changed by one hair's breadth the direction in 
 which she was hurried. 
 
 The burning steamer, driving on with a swiftness 
 almost past belief, came down and passed the Lurline 
 not more than forty feet away. As she passed, those 
 on the deck of the yacht caught a glimpse of two 
 men on the bridge of her, forward of the wheelhouse, 
 with great waves of flame sweeping, as it seemed, 
 right out from under their feet, to stream far ahead 
 and break over the sea in a rain of fiery sparks. 
 They saw that these two men, muffled in storm coats, 
 stood looking ahead, stiff and stolid, like soldiers, on 
 parade, making not the least gesture as the doomed 
 vessel rushed forward. 
 
 A momentary backward eddy of smoke hid from 
 the watchers the name of the steamer, painted along 
 the side of the wheelhouse, but they caught the 
 passing picture of the tense, white face of the man at
 
 186 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 the wheel through the open window, seen in a frame 
 of whirling vapour. And there was a long row of 
 the faces of men lining the low rail of the vessel amid 
 ships in the semi-darkness abaft the blaze. They 
 leaned along the rail, pale, motionless, with a set 
 rigidity of feature. 
 
 One of them held a short pipe between his teeth, 
 although there were none of the lip motions of the 
 smoker to be seen. And their faces were like the 
 faces of a row of the dead in a picture. 
 
 And then, on a coil of heavy rope at the very stern 
 of her, farthest away from the fire, a small boy sat, 
 alone and raised his face to look down with a speech 
 less appeal for pity from the men on the deck of the 
 yacht as the burning ship swept along. He had been 
 weeping. The men on the Lurline could see so 
 much, even in the shadow that half covered him. 
 And that mercy of facile expression that is given to 
 a child prompted him to hold out his feeble hands 
 and, as he was swept onward with the rush of the 
 burning steamer, to wave one gesture as of a last 
 farewell. Then he dropped his face once more. 
 
 So the bits in the fire picture shifted, and the gaze 
 of the Lurline's crew must be set forward now to 
 follow the panorama. They failed, in the shadow, 
 to make out the name on the ship's stern. But they 
 heard, as the steamer passed them, the beating of 
 her screw against the waters. Her double funnels 
 vomited dense masses of smoke that were swept 
 forward to mingle with the smoke from her own burn-
 
 THE STEAMER ON FIRE 187 
 
 ing. And she was driving with the storm and being 
 driven by her own engines whither? 
 
 They watched her while the light that she threw 
 ahead on sea and sky seemed opening for her a path 
 into hell through the storm's darkness. And then 
 McGreal turned to the two friends who stood close 
 together on the yacht's deck in that time of tragedy. 
 He raised the silver speaking trumpet to his lips as a 
 man who performs some solemn right associated with 
 the dead. 
 
 "That was the Neried!" he shouted.
 
 CHAPTER XXH 
 
 INTO THE DARKNESS 
 
 WENTWORTH, grasping the awning stanch 
 ion by which he had held on during the 
 fury of the storm, still grasping it during 
 the time that the burning ship was hurried by, all but 
 faulted at the words. But Allison turned on McGreal 
 savagely. 
 
 "You lie!" he screamed. "You did not see the 
 name!" 
 
 "I know the ship, sir." McGreal said no more 
 than that. 
 
 The Neried! Then one of those men on her bridge 
 had been Captain Graeme ! And the other? Went- 
 worth felt a wild desire to laugh, and knew that mad 
 ness lay beyond that. The other man must have 
 been his father or the Englishman? The Neried! 
 And she was on fire, and driving fast to her doom 
 before the fury of the tempest! Hope, then, was 
 dead. What did it all matter, now? His father 
 gone! The yacht that he believed held the woman 
 that he loved carried away in the storm! Disgrace, 
 love, sorrow, his own honour, and his father's good 
 name all would be swallowed up in the catastrophe 
 that was hastening to its conclusion; that was all but 
 
 188
 
 INTO THE DARKNESS 189 
 
 at hand. For the men on that burning ship there 
 could be no salvation in this world! For those who 
 still fronted the typhoon in a frail yacht perhaps as 
 little hope. It was all a transitory part of the weak 
 futility of human endeavour. 
 
 And then anger succeeded despair, and he leaped 
 away from the supporting stanchion, forgetting the 
 unstable and dangerous footing afforded by the heav 
 ing deck, to confront McGreal. More by instinct 
 than because of any conscious desire to save himself, 
 he caught, as he leaped, at the after rail of the vessel. 
 
 "Follow her!" he yelled, shaking his fist in the 
 face of the sailing master. "Follow that burning 
 ship! Damn you, I tell you, follow her!" 
 
 The sailor looked at him, a deep pity in his eyes. 
 It was remarkable, although not remarked, that all 
 through the trying scenes which the flames from the 
 burning steamer illuminated on the deck of the 
 Lurline, McGreal lost neither his head nor his temper. 
 And yet the terror grasped him, as it grasped the 
 others. 
 
 "We are following her very swiftly, sir," he said, 
 at last. "The wind and the seas and our own power 
 drive us fast on the same course." 
 
 "Where?" shrieked Went worth. He was mad, 
 for the moment, with the passion that swayed him. 
 
 " God knows, sir! I pray that it may not be some 
 where on the rocky shores of Formosa." 
 
 Still, far ahead, the glare from the burning ship lit 
 up the sky, and her masts and spars and hull could
 
 190 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 be seen marked out black against the flames as she 
 swept on, fast followed by the fiery seas. And the 
 Lurline followed likewise, although the steamer 
 gained. The powerful engines of the Neried, kept 
 at full speed for very desperation, had the greater 
 driving power, and her larger hull gave sea and wind 
 more surface for their play. But to those who 
 watched from the Lurline it seemed that a rope of 
 glowing flame was drawing the larger vessel fast and 
 faster away from them. The yacht held after the 
 red glare in sea and sky, but it grew fainter. 
 
 And then, suddenly, with one great leap of flame 
 almost to the zenith, it flickered and went out, as 
 the flame leaves a candle extinguished by the wind. 
 For several minutes the glare of the fire, as seen from 
 the yacht, had been perceptibly lessening. That 
 was the natural effect of the burning ship running 
 away fast across the sea. But this sudden quench 
 ing of the fire was no natural part of any such running. 
 It was, rather, as if some monster wave had whelmed 
 the steamer, a startling thing, leaving in the eyes 
 of those who watched a momentary sensation of 
 pain. 
 
 For a little time no one in the group on the after 
 deck of the Lurline made any movement or remark. 
 They stood staring into the darkness, where the light 
 had vanished. And then Allison, with some effort, 
 struggled across the deck to where McGreal and 
 Wentworth stood close together. The heads of all 
 three were bared to the storm.
 
 INTO THE DARKNESS 191 
 
 "God rest them,'* Allison heard McGreal say, 
 in a hoarse voice. 
 
 For a few minutes the three men clung, close to 
 gether, to the after rail. It may have been that, 
 with the passing of the danger that had beset the 
 steamer's people into a catastrophe, a sense of their 
 own imminent peril settled back upon those of the 
 Lurline. The three men remained for a long time 
 silent, clinging morally to the mere fact of each 
 other's presence. 
 
 Allison was the first to speak, after that brief 
 prayer from the lips of the sailor. He put his hands 
 to his mouth, after the manner of a speaking trumpet, 
 sending his voice thus more surely to the ears of the 
 other two. 
 
 "It is the end," he said. 
 
 "It is the end," replied Wentworth, and the shud 
 der that swept through his heart was in the shaking 
 voice with which he echoed the words. 
 
 McGreal stood silent. His head was bent forward. 
 He was in the attitude of one listening. But the 
 words of the others had passed him. Whatever 
 it was that he hearkened for was at a great distance 
 and he seemed fearful of what he heard. White 
 fear, indeed, was in his face, a deeper fear than either 
 of these two men, his companions, had seen there 
 yet. And still he listened, and seemed to try and to 
 dread, at once, to catch some sound that would sepa 
 rate itself and be distinctly apart in the night from the 
 voices of the storm wind and the storm-tossed sea.
 
 192 THE TYHPOON'S SECRET 
 
 He caught the sound, at last, and there was con 
 tagion in it, for every soul aboard the Lurline heard 
 it in the next second. It was a deep, sullen roaring, 
 falling at intervals into the storm's clamour, as the 
 booming of great guns in a distant battle will make 
 itself heard across the lighter and sharper rattle of 
 the volley firing. And there came a hail from the 
 lookout forward, heard but indistinctly, and Mc- 
 Greal pointed ahead into the darkness to where a 
 long, irregular, changing line of white ran right 
 away across the inky surface of the sea in the 
 yacht's path. He shouted, as he pointed, one 
 word: "Breakers!"
 
 CHAPTER XXIH 
 
 THE MENACE OF THE SEA AND SAFETY 
 
 INSTINCTIVELY, as he pointed, McGreal leaped 
 forward to touch the bell on the poop rail and 
 signal to the engineer to stop. But he did not 
 give the signal. The thought came to him that, 
 driven on before the sea and the storm, the yacht 
 could not change her course to avoid the danger 
 ahead save at the cost of instant destruction. To 
 have stopped the engine, and so destroyed the meas 
 ure of control the men in her still held over her move 
 ments, would have caused her inevitably to roll over 
 and swamp in the seas. And she must even drive 
 on as she was going. 
 
 Near the breakers came and nearer. Their sullen 
 booming, in a moment, seemed to fall upon and 
 drown the whole wild clamour of the night. The 
 long white line, tinged with pale-green flame, defined 
 itself in the darkness as a seething mass of troubled 
 water rising to heights that seemed mountainous. 
 Stretching away on either side as far as a man might 
 see, there was no end to it, nor any visible break in 
 the line. And peer as they would into the blackness 
 beyond, those on the Lurline could detect no loom 
 of shore behind the breakers. 
 
 198
 
 194 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 And each man stood waiting! It was as though 
 each felt resting on him the touch of death, and 
 would face the destroyer with the courage of quick 
 manhood strung to tension. There could be no 
 escape ! In the hands of a power greater than human 
 they were borne onward swiftly to their destruction. 
 It was a part of the sublime sarcasm which is en 
 wrapped about the destinies of men that while they 
 were thus carried forward swiftly to their doom by 
 the restless invisible, the feeble throbbing of the 
 yacht's own engine beat steadily to help them along 
 the appointed way. 
 
 The steersman, straining with all his muscular 
 might to ease the yacht among the running seas, 
 as by an instinct continued to perform the duty 
 laid on him. The little group on the after deck, 
 silent, expectant, watchful, noted this. They might 
 have caught inspiration from the mere mechanics 
 of it. Wentworth, at last, reached out his right 
 hand and it met the right hand of Allison. The 
 Eurasian, Di Sousa, smoothed the feathers on the 
 head and neck of his red game cock, and soothed 
 it with a low, affectionate crooning in Portu 
 guese. 
 
 McGreal still stood at the break of the poop, where 
 he had leaped to touch the engine bell, shading his 
 eyes, straining them forward into the darkness beyond 
 the breakers. He waited, as they all did, for the 
 crash that would tell him that the Lurline had found 
 her grave. But, like a true sailor, he still sought a
 
 THE MENACE OF THE SEA 195 
 
 way to safety while relentless danger seemed closing 
 every avenue against him. 
 
 The yacht rushed on. Almost, it seemed, the 
 white line of the phosphorescent surf was under her 
 forefoot. They could see the foam running back 
 ward as the great waves broke, spreading a fiery 
 pattern as of hell's carpet over the black surface 
 of the sea. And still rushing out of the darkness 
 behind them the tremendous seas drove the Lurline 
 on; and the wind was the spur of the powers of the 
 upper air. It seemed as if the demons of the under 
 sea and of the gale, holding the yacht in their grasp, 
 shook her hi the madness of their wicked glee, with 
 such tremendous ferocity did the wind and the waves 
 tear at her; hurl her forward; raise her aloft; beat her 
 down, down in smothers of white foam. 
 
 And now they were so close to the line of breakers 
 that any one might catch and toss their frail vessel 
 into that seething white cauldron that set a boundary 
 to their lives. 
 
 And then! So quickly did the change come that 
 the extremity of peril was met and passed before 
 either Wentworth or Allison realized that death 
 had swooped, and missed the stroke. It was only 
 McGreal, who leaped backward from the poop rail, 
 put his silver trumpet to his lips and bawled an order 
 almost into the ear of the man at the wheel. 
 
 "Port! "he yelled. 
 
 The yacht, rushing on through the water, trembled, 
 but answered to the touch. Her sheer side just
 
 196 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 shaved the jagged point of a rock a running wave 
 revealed and hid. Then the little vessel was caught 
 on the very crest of the next great wave and car 
 ried forward at the dizzy speed of a racing motor in 
 full career. 
 
 "Starboard!'* yelled McGreal, dancing up and 
 down in his excitement. " Hard-a-starboard ! Hold 
 her ! Port ! Now, let her go off ! " 
 
 He jumped to the poop rail once more, and gave 
 the engineer the jingle bell. The Lurline seemed to 
 tear through the fiery green-white foam in a series 
 of desperate leaps, and ran into still, dark water 
 where only moderate seas followed her and drove 
 on fast before the sweep of the rushing wind. The 
 tremendous uproar of the breakers was all astern. 
 
 The captain tapped the bell again for half speed, 
 and, in an easy sea, the Lurline went forward, just 
 feeling her way. But the white line of the reef was 
 behind her, and the fiery pattern of phosphorescent 
 carpet grew fainter in its changing lines as it receded. 
 
 "Forrard there!" cried McGreal, paying no further 
 heed to danger past. 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir!" came a voice out of the darkness 
 on the main deck. 
 
 "Is that you, Mr. Andressen?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "Get out the sounding lead, there!" 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir." 
 
 In the next moment the voice of the leadsman was 
 floating out into the night as he threw the line, and
 
 THE MENACE OF THE SEA 197 
 
 the words were taken up by the strong voice of the 
 mate, and so carried backward to the group on the 
 after deck. 
 
 "N-o-o-o bottom!" 
 
 "No bottom, sir." 
 
 "Fifteen fathom!" 
 
 "Fifteen fathom, sir." 
 
 " Sca-a-ant twelve ! " 
 
 "Scant twelve, sir." 
 
 "Six fathom!" 
 
 "Six it is, sir." 
 
 "Five fathom! Easy five, and shoaling, sir!" 
 
 "Forrard there!" yelled the captain at that, with 
 out waiting for the mate's voice, and touching the 
 bell at the same time to stop the engine. "Get out 
 that port anchor, Mr. Andressen! Lively, now!" 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir!" 
 
 The chugging of the exhaust ceased. There was a 
 sharp rattling of chains. And the Lurline, in the 
 next moment, swung around by the port side and 
 came easily to a stop with the full sweep of the wind 
 hitting her in the nose. But the gale had lost much 
 of the force that it had outside; she was in shoal 
 water, with a sand bottom, and the sea was running 
 down. 
 
 "Get the starboard anchor over, Mr. Andressen!" 
 cried the captain. 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir." 
 
 Again the chains rattled out. The second mud 
 hook caught. And the Lurline was as safe as a church.
 
 198 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "She will do, now," said McGreal, coming alt 
 to where Wentworth and Allison still stood, their 
 right hands clasped. Only at that moment did 
 they break the clasp, with some slight feeling of 
 shame it might have been, and stand apart. 
 
 "By God!" the captain said, as he came up, 
 "that was a close call, all right! " 
 
 "There did not seem to be a lot to spare!" replied 
 Allison. 
 
 He reached out and shook hands with the captain 
 as he spoke, and Wentworth did the same thing im 
 mediately afterward. Those three men had just 
 passed, together, through the only break in the line 
 that death had laid down in their path. Out of 
 the storm and the sea and the darkness the Lurline 
 had come, straight as the arrow flies, to the one breach 
 in the reef through which a vessel could have passed. 
 No power below God's Providence had guided her in 
 the time of danger. Wentworth, after the hand 
 shake, turned to the Eurasian steward. 
 
 " Go below and make us a cocktail ! " he said. 
 
 So men cover the stirring of the primal emotions 
 with outward manifestation of the commonplace. 
 After that no one spoke for a little. Then Allison 
 asked: "Where are we?" 
 
 "God only knows!" replied McGreal. "And He 
 won't tell till daylight after which, He won't have 
 to. But I should say we were somewhere close in to 
 the foreshore of the Island of Formosa. We may 
 be half a mile from land, and we may be ten miles."
 
 THE MENACE OF THE SEA 199 
 
 "We are inside the reef?" queried Allison. 
 
 "We are in the lee of it, anyhow," said the captain, 
 "and in some kind of shelter. There's a vessel's 
 riding light off the port bow there. We must have 
 just missed running her down." 
 
 The two friends looked in the direction indicated 
 and, sure enough, a light was dancing there at a little 
 distance as the seas rose and fell. It must have been, 
 as McGreal said, that the Lurline passed her close 
 as she came rushing in to safety. Other men had 
 been in peril on their account. 
 
 The mate, Mr. Andressen, came on the poop deck 
 at the moment and saluted. "I have sent the watch 
 below to turn in, sir," he said. "There won't be 
 much doing here till morning." 
 
 "That is right," answered the captain. "Where 
 do you make out we are, Mr. Andressen? You would 
 be more used to these seas." 
 
 "I can't rightly say, sir. But there's a reef like 
 that runs out from Tali Point. I have seen the break 
 ers on it, passing close in here on the P. & O. boats." 
 
 "That is on Formosa?" 
 
 "Yes, sir." 
 
 "We are safe to ride here till morning, then?" 
 queried the captain. 
 
 "She is riding easily enough now, with both hooks 
 holding," replied the mate. "And the wind is blow 
 ing itself out." 
 
 "I note that. We seem to have found port in a 
 storm."
 
 200 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "It can't be much of a port, sir, at that. And 
 it won't be safe to get too close inshore. The natives 
 are a pretty savage lot hereabouts." 
 
 "Japs haven't got 'em tamed yet, eh?" asked 
 Went worth. 
 
 "Why, sir," replied the mate, "the Japs hold 
 the towns, and the camphor camps close in fast 
 enough. There would be a garrison in Tali, it is 
 likely. But five miles outside the town a man would 
 not be safe. And anywhere alongshore between 
 military posts there is danger. The native pirates 
 are as like as not to come swooping offshore in their 
 sampans if a vessel gets too close in and falls into 
 stays." 
 
 "Well, we could run out with our engine," said 
 Allison. 
 
 "True enough, sir," agreed the mate, "but I'd 
 not want my life to hang on the working of a petrol 
 engine. The natives are not likely to come off in 
 this wind." 
 
 He turned, as he spoke, to go below, and McGreal 
 addressed Allison and Wentworth : 
 
 "I would advise you gentlemen to get some sleep, 
 too," he said, holding his watch to the binnacle light 
 to note the time. "It is past midnight, and we can't 
 do a thing until day breaks and we find out where 
 we are. I will stand watch, and guard the ship." 
 
 "You will ride here until morning, of course?" 
 queried Allison. 
 
 "Sure!" answered McGreal. "There isn't any-
 
 THE MENACE OF THE SEA 201 
 
 thing else to do. The wind is dying, and the sea 
 begins to run down, but we would not dare venture 
 that reef in the dark. It will be like a mill pond here 
 by sunrise." 
 
 When Wentworth and Allison went below they 
 found Di Sousa standing beside the cabin table 
 with two cocktails mixed ready for them. They 
 drank, clinking glasses, and each turned toward his 
 own cabin. 
 
 "I suppose," said Wentworth, looking back to 
 ward the steward as he opened his own door, "that 
 the game cock is safe, Di Sousa? " 
 
 "Sar!" replied the Eurasian, bowing most pro 
 foundly, and with a gratified smile, "She is ! " 
 
 Wentworth and Allison were called, by the cap 
 tain's order, at sunrise. It was a clear, warm, beauti 
 ful morning, with not a cloud, and only the breath 
 of a gentle south wind coming in from the seaward. 
 The two friends came on deck in pajamas and their 
 Japanese bath slippers. 
 
 The Lurline, not half a mile from the curving 
 white beach, along which a little ripple of surf rose 
 and fell gently, lay at anchor before a village of 
 reddish-brown thatched huts standing like a stage 
 village against the brilliant green of a heavily forested 
 mountain range. 
 
 From a tall, white staff in the middle foreground 
 the sun flag of Japan blazed in the morning sunshine, 
 stealing down across the tops of the camphor trees 
 on the slopes to tip their new leaves with crimson,
 
 202 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 and a trig little Japanese sentry walked up and down 
 on the beach in front of two shining field pieces set 
 there with their black mouths toward the sea. Now 
 and again a native with tousled black hair would peer 
 out from one of the huts, and farther back, toward 
 the forest line, Wentworth and Allison could see 
 woodmen, shining axes over their shoulders, making 
 their way in straggling order up the first slopes of the 
 hills the camphor tree cutters of Formosa. 
 
 The tide had turned to go out in the night, and 
 the Lurline lay with her bow toward the shore, the 
 whole white line of the reef showing astern of her. 
 The waves were breaking upon the rocks, but not 
 with the force that had characterized them during 
 the typhoon, and the dark gap through which the 
 yacht had run in to safety during the night showed 
 plainly. 
 
 The two friends bade Captain McGreal good morn 
 ing, and turned to take in the points of the picture. 
 It was all very beautiful: the little sheltered bay; the 
 curving shoreline, running around to a densely 
 wooded point on either hand; the vivid green of the 
 camphor forests on the hills showing reddish tints on 
 the leaves where the tender new shoots were spring 
 ing. And riding not one hundred yards away, on 
 the starboard quarter, they saw a trim green yacht 
 at anchor. 
 
 "The Petrel! 11 said McGreal, in answer to the 
 startled look both gave him at the same moment. 
 "I suppose her captain knew this place, and ran
 
 THE MENACE OF THE SEA 20S 
 
 for shelter before the wind came on to blow too 
 hard." 
 
 Then, in a moment, those on the Lurline noted a 
 movement among the seamen on the green yacht. 
 They had, up to that time, been hanging over the 
 rail of her, idly looking at the vessel which had been 
 swept into the haven on the wings of the storm. 
 Her captain had come on deck, and given an order 
 which was followed by a boatswain's whistle that 
 sent half a dozen men scuttling down the port gang 
 way of her and into the yawl which swung idly in 
 the water there. The captain himself had followed 
 directly after them, and had taken his place at the 
 tiller of the small boat. 
 
 "She is sending a boat to board us," said Captain 
 McGreal.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 AN ARTIST IN COCKTAILS 
 
 PROPELLED by six oars, the yawl came 
 through the still water very swiftly. Al 
 most, as it seemed, in a moment after leav 
 ing the side of the Petrel it was passing around by 
 the stern of the Lurline. 
 
 "Forrard there!" cried McGreal. "Get that port 
 gangway down! Lively, now!" 
 
 The sailors leaped to obey, just as a hail came from 
 the man in the stern of the yawl. 
 
 "Lurline, ahoy!" 
 
 "Ahoy!" replied McGreal, man-of-war fashion. 
 
 "I want to come aboard you, sir!" 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir!" 
 
 It was all very ship-shape and proper. With that 
 answering shout from McGreal as a signal the yawl 
 shot alongside and the captain of the Petrel leaped 
 lightly to the platform and ran up the gangway. He 
 touched his cap to Captain McGreal as he stepped 
 on deck, and the two shook hands. 
 
 "Good morning, Captain McGreal!" the stranger 
 said. 
 
 "Very glad to see you, sir," answered McGreal, 
 "although you have a little the best of me." 
 
 204
 
 AN ARTIST IN COCKTAILS 205 
 
 "Ah!" replied the stranger, smiling. "I cleared 
 from Manila after you, you see. I am Captain 
 Stoddard, sir, sailing master of the Petrel. 19 
 
 Wentworth and Allison had come down over the 
 break of the poop, and McGreal introduced them 
 in due form. 
 
 "I am come aboard to congratulate you on your 
 escape out of the typhoon," said Captain Stoddard. 
 
 "It was a close call," murmured McGreal. 
 
 "Aye, sir, it was that. And I want to invite 
 you gentlemen to breakfast on board the Petrel" 
 went on Captain Stoddard. "You must be weary, 
 after the night of stress, and may be willing to let 
 your fellows try to cheer you up a bit. I thought 
 you had been safe to pass the Channel and run out 
 into the open sea when we saw you come in last 
 night. You just missed running us down by a hair, 
 sir; and you came so suddenly that I had no time to 
 burn a flare. It was a wonder of seamanship that 
 you made the passage of the reef in that gale." 
 
 "It was the hand of God!" replied McGreal, 
 lifting his cap as he spoke. 
 
 "Ha!" exclaimed the visitor. "The burning 
 steamer was in the devil's hands, likely, when she 
 tried the passage. She struck, with a crash, a mile 
 below the opening and winked out." 
 
 "That was the Neried" said McGreal. 
 
 "The Neried!" repeated Captain Stoddard, and 
 then, slowly, as if to himself: "The Neried! It is 
 ended, then?"
 
 206 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 He recovered from the surprise that had made 
 him forget his part for a moment, it might have been, 
 and addressed himself again to McGreal: "But 
 you must have known the passage, sir?" 
 
 "Neither reef nor passage. I was never here in 
 my life," replied the sailing master of the Lurline. 
 
 "By God! Then, it was the hand of a Higher 
 Power!" exclaimed Captain Stoddard. "This For 
 mosa coast is treacherous. I know every inch of it. 
 But you will come and breakfast aboard? " 
 
 "With pleasure," replied McGreal. 
 
 "And these gentlemen?" continued Captain 
 Stoddard. " The ladies sent me with the invitation." 
 
 He had turned toward the gangway as he spoke. 
 
 "The ladies!" exclaimed Allison. "None of us 
 would disappoint the ladies. We will come across 
 as soon as we can dress." 
 
 "But will you not come into the cabin before 
 going over the side, Captain Stoddard?" asked 
 Went worth. 
 
 "By all means," urged Allison. "We have no 
 ladies on board, but we have the sailor 's next at 
 traction. There is a very special whisky in her stores 
 and the steward makes a cocktail calculated to 
 make a man weep from the memory of it." 
 
 "I'll tell you," replied Captain Stoddard, turning 
 back as he spoke, "the fine art of making cocktails 
 is one that has never lacked a patron in me." 
 
 At that McGreal waved him to take the lead up 
 the companionway running up over the break of the
 
 AN ARTIST IN COCKTAILS 207 
 
 poop. The visitor was thus first on the Lurline's 
 quarterdeck, and led the way into her cabin. So 
 it fell out that neither of his three hosts saw his ex 
 pression change, nor noted the start he gave when 
 he caught sight of the steward, Di Sousa, standing 
 at the head of the cabin table, nor did either notice 
 the momentary hesitancy of his step as he put his 
 foot into the cabin. And, if they had been noticed, 
 the start and the hesitation would have been ascribed 
 naturally to the sudden coming into a strange place. 
 
 If the appearance of Stoddard there had any 
 effect on Di Sousa, the steward had better command 
 of himself and did not show it. It seemed to Went- 
 worth and Allison, indeed, that the Eurasian ex 
 celled himself in the mixture that he achieved that 
 morning. And it may have been that the agitation 
 of Captain Stoddard found the safety valve of an 
 outlet in the remark with which he set down his 
 glass after draining it. 
 
 "Gentlemen," he said, "it is the most seductive 
 that I ever tasted ! " 
 
 He drank another on invitation, but would have 
 no more. "It would not be safe," he said. "After 
 three of them a man might go home and steal his 
 own chronometer." 
 
 Moreover, he spoke of his duty to return to the 
 ladies with an acceptance of their invitation to 
 breakfast. 
 
 "Speaking of the ladies, Captain Stoddard," said 
 Allison, " will you give them our apologies for remiss-
 
 208 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 ness for failing to call while we were in Manila? We 
 were greatly hurried, and we were not aware, until 
 we got well up into the China Sea, that the Petrel 
 was Miss Graeme's yacht." 
 
 It was a shot with a purpose, and it went home. 
 Captain Stoddard started, and lost countenance. 
 Then he got his face back, laughing a little. 
 
 "You know the Petrel is Miss Graeme's yacht?" 
 he exclaimed. " That was intended to be a surprise." 
 
 "We saw Miss Graeme and Mrs. Penworthy on 
 the deck of her after you put to sea," replied Allison. 
 "We will be very glad to get a nearer view of them. 
 The ladies are old friends of ours." 
 
 "Well," said Captain Stoddard, still smiling, "I 
 haven't told you anything. And it may be that the 
 ladies will still have a surprise for you on board the 
 Petrel!" 
 
 "It will be pleasant, naturally," said Allison, 
 politely. 
 
 "Being in the hands of the ladies," agreed McGreal, 
 with the gallantry of a true sailor. 
 
 Captain Stoddard smiled, and bowed. "I must 
 leave you, gentlemen," he said, leading the way to 
 the deck. And the next moment he turned to shake 
 hands at the head of the yacht's gangway, at the 
 foot of which his yawl rode lazily. 
 
 "I want to know," he said to McGreal in a low 
 tone, almost at the moment of leaving, "whether 
 that chap has his red game cock with him? " 
 
 "Di Sousa? Why, yes," replied the sailing master
 
 AN ARTIST IN COCKTAILS 209 
 
 of the Lurline. And then, gathering that the ques 
 tion was a rather peculiar one, he asked in his turn: 
 "Why do you want to know? " 
 
 But Captain Stoddard had run down the gangway, 
 and leaped lightly into his yawl. To himself, as he 
 took the tiller ropes and ordered the men to give way, 
 he muttered: "I'll fix that damned spy, anyhow!"
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 ON BOARD THE GREEN YACHT 
 
 CAPTAIN STODDARD left the people on 
 the Lurline in a very considerable flutter. 
 Although neither Allison nor Wentworth 
 had heard his last question, each had enough from 
 the visit to ripple his placidity, and McGreal, who 
 was puzzling himself principally over the matter of 
 the game cock, had no light upon it. And in the 
 bustle of preparation for the breakfast he would 
 have no time to question Di Sousa. Also, there was 
 left by Stoddard's manner something of a doubt 
 in the captain's mind which would have made him 
 chary of speaking to his steward. 
 
 "What do you know about that?" asked Went 
 worth of Allison, as they turned to go down into the 
 cabin for their bath and to dress. 
 
 "Yachting courtesy, maybe!" laughed Allison. 
 
 "Rot!" 
 
 "That's what it would be, under ordinary cir 
 cumstances," agreed Allison. "In this case, it 
 may have the added touch of a pretty woman's de 
 sire to be agreeable to people she likes." 
 
 "It is a great deal more," insisted Wentworth. 
 "Why should she follow us to disclose herself here,
 
 ON BOARD THE GREEN YACHT 211 
 
 when she could have done that so much more easily 
 at Manila?" 
 
 "My dear boy," said Allison, "being at this writing 
 of sound and disposing mind, I tell you, with all 
 solemnity and earnestness, that when it comes to 
 attempting to fathom the motives of a woman, I 
 am always and altogether out of my depth. But 
 we did not give the lady much of a chance at 
 Manila." 
 
 "There was chance enough, if she had wanted us 
 to know that she was in that part of the world," 
 insisted Wentworth. 
 
 Allison smiled, noting here an unconscious as 
 sertion of a right to criticize. "I suppose there was/' 
 he said. "And there is this supposition: She left 
 us at sea, thought to be safe and following the Neried. 
 She does not know what happened last night: 
 whether we have lost the Neried, or whether we are 
 ourselves in condition to continue the chase. And 
 it may have occurred to her it would be obvious 
 to you and me that when people are hunting the 
 same quarry success is more apt to crown united 
 effort made with understanding." 
 
 "It depends upon the purpose of each hunter's 
 hunting, does it not?" 
 
 "Somewhat. But even hunters who hunt with 
 different purposes may agree up to the time of 
 finding." 
 
 "Anyway, the Neried is gone!" exclaimed Went 
 worth.
 
 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "Which fact is not known to the lady or will not 
 be until Captain Stoddard tells her." 
 
 Each went to his own cabin at that, and within 
 half an hour both were rowed with McGreal to the 
 Petrel in the Lurline's yawl, hailed, and were re 
 ceived at the head of the gangway by Captain 
 Stoddard. Margaret Graeme and her aunt, Mrs. 
 Penworthy, waited for them on the after deck 
 where the yacht's sailors had already spread the 
 awning, and the breakfast was served there in the 
 open air. 
 
 "Good morning, Miss Graeme!" said Wentworth 
 and Allison together, removing their hats as they 
 stepped over the break of the poop. 
 
 "Welcome on board the Petrel /" she said, coming 
 forward with extended hand, to Allison first, and 
 smiling most graciously. Very plainly Captain 
 Stoddard had said nothing to her of the loss of the 
 Neried. So the wise man spoils no breakfast but his 
 own. 
 
 Margaret merely shook hands, as with old friends, 
 with Allison and Wentworth. Her greeting of 
 McGreal had something more in it, something of 
 graciousness, something of true womanly sweetness 
 which put the sailorman at his ease at once, awaken 
 ing in his mind that sense of the superiority of the 
 male creature a woman knows so well how to arouse. 
 It was very cleverly done. Allison, watching her, 
 smiled at the art of it. But it was in her manner 
 more than in her words, for this was all that she
 
 ON BOARD THE GREEN YACHT 213 
 
 said: "I am very glad to meet you, Captain McGreal. 
 We saw how you ran the Lurline in last night. 
 A master of the sea rules the world, sir.*' 
 
 Mrs. Penworthy was a little more precise in her 
 greeting, but it was nothing to hurt. Indeed, the 
 slightly formal manner of the elder woman, as a foil, 
 enabled the younger to carry off the situation better. 
 And maybe there was art in that, too. 
 
 "Captain Stoddard tells me that you recognized 
 us at sea," Margaret said, turning to Allison. "I 
 think you were most impolite not to signal as much 
 to us." 
 
 "The lady speaks first," replied Allison, laughing. 
 
 "I would know you anywhere in the world," said 
 Wentworth in a low tone, going very close to her. 
 And she smiled at him, saying nothing. 
 
 "Come, gentlemen," she said to the others, as 
 the steward set a silver coffee urn on the table, "let 
 us sit down. I have heard that all men are bears 
 before they have broken their fast. And we are 
 most curious to hear how you escaped the fury of 
 that appalling storm." 
 
 She took the head of the table, motioning McGreal 
 to the foot. And then as they sat she had Wentworth 
 on her right hand and Allison on her left. Captain 
 Stoddard sat next to Wentworth, and Mrs. Pen- 
 worthy was beside Allison. 
 
 And it fell to Wentworth, as it seemed, naturally, 
 although it may have been because his powers of 
 description were the best, to tell the story of the
 
 214 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 storm and the escape, and the thrilling incident of 
 the burning of the Neried. At that, indeed, the 
 breakfast was all forgotten, and the breakfast table 
 became a mere ground for the play of the primal 
 human emotions leaping out through the torn veil 
 of the conventions. 
 
 To the three guests it was an old tale. Told 
 at that table solemnly, and with the feeling of a man 
 who fears that he speaks of the tragic death of his 
 own father, who brings to a sister's heart the knowl 
 edge that her brother has been swallowed up in the 
 uncontrollable fury of the elements, it affected those 
 who knew the tale with a deep and quiet sadness. 
 But to those on board the Petrel it was as the 
 tearing aside of the curtain of doom, a glimpse 
 into that abyss which waits always on the feet of 
 men. 
 
 Wentworth, speaking in low tones, looking about 
 him as he spoke with his own eyes dimmed, saw 
 Margaret Graeme go white, and grasp at the top 
 of the table as if for support. He saw Mrs. Pen- 
 worthy slip down into her chair, gasping for the 
 first time in her life showing in public that she felt 
 the burden of her years. He saw Captain Stoddard, 
 who had himself said nothing of the loss of the Neried, 
 half start up, as though he would have stopped the 
 relation, and then subside into his chair, gathering 
 understanding that the tale was on the lips of the 
 right man to tell it. 
 
 Margaret recovered self-command first. She was
 
 ON BOARD THE GREEN YACHT 215 
 
 the hostess, trained to the part, and the younger of 
 the two women. 
 
 "The Neried gone!" she exclaimed. And then, in 
 a tone so low that Wentworth scarcely -caught the 
 words: "Poor Robert!" 
 
 Her eyes dropped. It seemed that, for a moment, 
 she breathed a prayer. And then she looked, with 
 level brow, at Wentworth. 
 
 "Our quest is at an end, John," she said. 
 
 In those few words she told him the tale of how 
 she had followed him across the sea to help him, 
 the one man in the world who had made to her the 
 deep appeal of the man to her womanhood. For 
 the moment those others at the table had no ex 
 istence, for her or for Wentworth. 
 
 "It is at an end," replied Wentworth. "My 
 father and your brother! They are gone to their 
 account, Margaret." 
 
 It was the first time he had called her by that 
 name, as it had been the first time she had addressed 
 him by his. 
 
 " May God have mercy ! " she said. 
 
 "Amen!" answered Wentworth.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 "THE NAVAL SUPPORTS ARE COMING UP" 
 
 THE shock of the disregard of the conventions 
 by Margaret and Wentworth caused Mrs. 
 Pen worthy to gather her wits together a little. 
 She came to the rescue of the situation at the break 
 fast table with a commonplace, the chaperon's 
 instinct. 
 
 "I think, dear," she said to Margaret, in a faint 
 voice which she yet contrived, plucky old woman 
 that she was, to hold fairly steady, "that I will have 
 another cup of coffee." 
 
 The Iqok of admiration that the old lady got at 
 that from McGreal should have repaid, and did help, 
 her. 
 
 "The old one is a peach, by God!" muttered the 
 sailor, under his breath. And then aloud, with 
 something of a feeling that the diversion should be 
 helped: "There seems to be something doing among 
 our Japanese friends on shore!" 
 
 It completed the diversion, as a matter of fact. 
 Every one at the breakfast table, even Margaret and 
 Wentworth for a moment, glanced toward the village 
 on the beach, and saw the people and the soldiers 
 buzzing about there as bees buzz around a hive dis- 
 
 216
 
 "SUPPORTS ARE COMING UP" 217 
 
 tiirbed. The villagers were running in and out of 
 their huts; the soldiers were tumbling out of their 
 quarters in the village houses and arming hastily 
 to gather near the guns on the beach; a trumpet was 
 sounding the alarm; and, presently, a trooper riding 
 one shaggy pony in harness, and leading a second, 
 galloped along the strand toward the brass field 
 piece. He leaped to the ground as he reached the 
 gun and, with the help of some of his fellows, hur 
 riedly hitched the team to the piece. Meanwhile, 
 a company of troops was hastily forming, and from 
 the forest on the hills behind the town the camphor 
 cutters could be seen running to the cover of the 
 village, some throwing their axes behind them as they 
 ran. And the next moment there came a scattering 
 volley from the covert of the trees. 
 
 "By jove!" cried Allison, "an outbreak of the 
 natives! And we can watch it as from a box in the 
 theatre!" 
 
 "And take a hand in it, too," cried Captain Stod- 
 dard, leaping up from the table and stepping to 
 the poop rail. "I want nothing better than a chance 
 at these Formosan pirates!" 
 
 "For'ard there, Mr. Wilson!" he yelled. "Get 
 the jacket off that gun, and hoist some ammunition 
 from the f orehold ! Tumble it up lively, now ! " 
 
 "Aye, aye, sir!" the reply came, as the mate bustled 
 the men about to obey orders. 
 
 "I can supply you gentlemen with Lee-Metford 
 rifles," said Stoddard, turning to Margaret's guests.
 
 218 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "They have a range of three thousand yards. That 
 should just about put a bullet into the front of that 
 line of trees. It may be possible to pick off a savage 
 or two." 
 
 "If you will put me aboard the Lurline, Captain 
 Stoddard," said McGreal, who had sent his yawl back 
 to his own yacht, "I will get the jacket off her gun, 
 and arm her men. It would be too bad not to give 
 the pirates all the squadron has. Miss Graeme 
 will excuse me, I am sure? " with a bow in Margaret's 
 direction. 
 
 "I have always wanted to see men in battle," 
 she said, looking at him with shining eyes. 
 
 "It might be a good notion to get our hooks up and 
 run in closer," said Allison, and Wentworth, who had 
 risen from the cable, drew nearer to the side of Mar 
 garet. Both young men had the battle light in 
 their eyes although each held himself in strong 
 repression. 
 
 "Good!" cried Captain Stoddard. "And we'll 
 show our colours, too, by God! Honest flags will 
 give the little Japs assurance of sympathy and help 
 it may be." 
 
 They had all risen from the breakfast table now, 
 of course. McGreal, turning to leave them, said 
 to Allison, who was closest to him: "You two will 
 stay with the ladies, I suppose? " 
 
 Allison, by a gesture, indicated Wentworth and 
 Margaret, left standing together, a little apart, and 
 McGreal, followed to the head of the gangway by
 
 "SUPPORTS ARE COMING UP" 219 
 
 Captain Stoddard, went over the side into the Petrel's 
 yawl, manned to carry him to his own vessel. 
 
 "Oh, before you go, Captain McGreal," said the 
 sailing master of the Petrel, "don't tell Di Sousa I 
 asked about his game chicken, will you?" 
 
 McGreal stopped before taking his seat in the 
 stern of the yawl. "Why did you ask about that 
 game cock, anyway?" he queried. "I wanted to 
 ask you. " 
 
 "Another time I will explain. I have had my 
 eye on that chicken for some time." Then, to the 
 men in the yawl: "Give way there, men!" 
 
 The yawl drew away, giving McGreal no chance 
 to press the question, and Captain Stoddard went 
 back to his own quarterdeck. He saw there, first 
 of all Margaret and Wentworth standing apart, with 
 clasped hands, regardless now of all that went on 
 around them. They would have stood thus, the 
 man and the woman, if the whole world had been 
 there to look on. 
 
 "You followed me because you loved me, Mar 
 garet?" Wentworth said, while Mrs. Pen worthy 
 nearly fainted, and all the bustle of the preparation 
 for battle went on aboard the yacht. But the man 
 and the woman were at the supreme moment. 
 
 "Yes," she said. 
 
 He took one step nearer. 
 
 "You still love me?" 
 
 "Would I be here, John?" She blushed as she 
 said it, but she went on, bravely: "Would I have
 
 220 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 dared to ask you on board? I followed you, be 
 cause I loved you, to help you save your father from 
 my brother. And in that I have failed." 
 
 "It was the will of God! " he said, solemnly. "You 
 haveifailed in nothing else. And we have each other. " 
 
 "If you will have my brother's sister? " 
 
 "Or you, my father's son?" 
 
 It may have been merely a fortunate chance that, 
 at the moment of the meeting of their lips, Allison 
 shouted to draw attention to a movement on shore. 
 Or it may have been that the fortunate chance was 
 taken advantage of. The friendship of men goes 
 far. And it served, at all events. Even Mrs. 
 Penworthy looked away, at the shout from the couple 
 who were recklessly rough riding over all the fences of 
 her chaperonage. It is a real mercy, when an elderly 
 and precise woman can thus be spared. 
 
 This, it was, Allison had shouted : 
 
 "Look! The battle! It develops on the right!" 
 
 There, on the beach, the company of Japanese 
 soldiers was moving around toward the low, wooded 
 point shutting in the little harbour on the southward, 
 and the ponies were drawing the brass field piece 
 in the same direction. Under the whips of the 
 officers, too, a lot of the natives of the town had taken 
 hold by long ropes and were helping to get the gun 
 forward, while there was a huddle of the black men 
 moving along in straggling groups, behind the soldiers. 
 
 Captain Stoddard touched a bell, the engines of 
 the Petrel began to cough, and the yacht swung
 
 "SUPPORTS ARE COMING UP" 221 
 
 around, free of her anchors which had already been 
 hoisted inboard, and moved along parallel with the 
 advancing company on the beach. The captain 
 touched Allison on the shoulder, and pointed toward 
 the Lurline. The yacht, too, was gliding toward the 
 wooded point. 
 
 "The naval supports are coming up!" said Captain 
 Stoddard.
 
 CHAPTER XXVH 
 
 IT is THE "NERIED" 
 
 IT WAS, perhaps, three miles from the anchorage 
 of the two yachts to the point. And as the 
 Petrel moved slowly forward with the Lurline 
 swinging in behind her, both going at half speed 
 to keep abreast of the troops, she swung in more and 
 more toward the shore. Both yachts had broken 
 out their colours; and they made a pretty sight as 
 they glided through the still waters. 
 
 Naturally, with the brass six-pounder showing on 
 the forward deck of each, and with the men of the 
 crew, each armed with a Lee-Metford rifle, lining 
 the rails of the vessels on the shoreward side, the 
 plain purpose of the yachts to take some part in 
 the coming fight did not escape the attention of the 
 officer in command of the Japanese troops ashore. 
 
 Within half a mile of the point the soldiers came 
 to a halt. From beyond the point the sharp crack 
 ing of rules indicated that the firing was heavier. 
 
 The Japanese officer in command held a short 
 consultation with his second, and from the deck of 
 the Petrel both could be seen to gesticulate with some 
 emphasis. Then the lieutenant stepped toward the 
 beach, unfurled a small flag, and began to wave it 
 
 222
 
 IT IS THE "NERIED" 
 
 backward and forward in front of his face to some 
 measured, purposeful movement. * 
 
 "Wigwag!" cried Captain Stoddard. "And he 
 spells out the words in English ! " 
 
 Then, turning to his mate, standing at his side : 
 
 "Give him the signal, Mr. Wilson! I can read 
 his message. He wants to know our business. Tell 
 him we go into the battle on his side, and under his 
 orders." 
 
 In a moment more a line of bright signal flags 
 fluttered from the mast head of the Petrel, and al 
 most at the same instant the Lurline showed the 
 same flags. The Japanese lieutenant fell back to 
 his place. The company formed up and moved 
 forward. The soldiers had accepted the naval sup 
 ports. 
 
 From the decks of the yachts their people watched 
 the unfolding of the line of the bay shore as they 
 might have watched the unrolling of a panorama. 
 The picture was a most beautiful one. And it had 
 the added interest that attends upon the great moving 
 picture of life, that at the end of the film the catas 
 trophe would come. What scene of vivid action 
 involving the development of this catastrophe would 
 the turning of the point reveal? 
 
 Of all those who watched, only Went worth and 
 Margaret Graeme, humanly absorbed in each other, 
 wandered in thought in the slightest from the ex 
 ternals of the scene in which they were also actors. 
 He told her, as they stood together apart on the
 
 224 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 deck of the Petrel, how he had followed the man he 
 believed to be his father although there was still 
 a baffling doubt across the world; and of his motive 
 in that pursuit. And she told him how, knowing 
 of his quest, and knowing that her own wayward 
 brother had been in command of the Halcyon, she 
 had determined to follow, too, and give her help to 
 the man she loved. That was the woman's first 
 purpose. 
 
 Her plan had been easy enough to carry out. She 
 was her own mistress, the mistress of her own fortune, 
 and there was her aunt to play propriety. When 
 Allison sailed on the Korea, she went north to Van 
 couver and took the Empress of India. Sailing four 
 days later, she had beaten him by three days into 
 Hongkong. 
 
 When he bought the Lurline, she purchased the 
 Petrel, which arrived in the port about the same time. 
 Allison did not know that he was being followed, and 
 money procured her the services of a local detective 
 agency to keep her advised as to his movements. 
 Captain Stoddard, an old school friend of Mrs. 
 Penworthy but long a vagrant adventurer in the 
 China Seas, had been found by a fortunate chance 
 in the Hongkong Hotel and readily took command 
 of the Petrel, with a commission to get her ready for 
 sea. 
 
 It was a simple matter enough, after following the 
 Lurline to Manila, to find out about Captain Graeme's 
 orders to take command of the Neried, and then to
 
 IT IS THE "NERIED" 225 
 
 follow the Lurline again, knowing that her people 
 would keep track of the tramp steamer. Margaret's 
 point of ignorance was as to the position of her 
 brother in the affair. It had been her purpose to be 
 present when the steamer was overtaken, to save her 
 brother, it might be, or her lover. And she had not 
 meant to reveal the fact that she was in pursuit until 
 that time. In the position of being the element un 
 expected, she would gain strength. 
 
 But the storm, and the Lurline *s unexpected ar 
 rival in the port of refuge, and her own anxiety lest 
 something should have happened to Wentworth, led 
 to a change in her plan in that regard. And she 
 had revealed herself. 
 
 Little time as these mutual explanations had taken, 
 that interval had sufficed to put the Petrel well up 
 to go around the point. Naturally, the two yachts 
 being out from the shore some hundred yards, those 
 on board would get a glimpse into the next bight 
 of the coast before the soldiers on the beach could see 
 what it was that they were advancing against. And 
 with a mighty sailor oath Captain Stoddard saw, 
 and leaped in his excitement to point ahead. 
 
 "By the living God!" he cried. "By the living 
 God! TheNeried!"
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 THE BATTLE WITH THE FORMOSANS 
 
 THE words thrilled every heart on board 
 the Petrel. Margaret and Went worth, ab 
 sorbed as they were in the wondrous selfish 
 ness of their love, looked away, each from the other, 
 to that point in the common view that had suddenly 
 become the centre of the human interest of all. 
 
 A great iron steamer, painted dull black, splotched 
 here and there with big daubs of red, having a double 
 funnel and two sticks and with the marks of fierce 
 flames all about her forward hull, lay stranded on the 
 rocks of the reef at a little distance from the shore in 
 the shallows. The reef ran close in here, marking 
 the entrance to a bight sheltered by high, rocky 
 points; and terrific seas must have run in the storm 
 just at the place where the steamer struck. Whelmed 
 m these seas, the fire in her had been all but extin 
 guished, but little wreaths of smoke eddying upward 
 from the forward hatch showed where the embers 
 in her still smouldered. 
 
 Resting on the rocks close in, she had a strong 
 list to the port side. And from the line of trees 
 fringing the beach, and from a hundred sampans 
 that clustered and ran backward and forward in 
 
 226
 
 THE BATTLE WITH FORMOSANS 227 
 
 the shallows between the ship and the shore, a thou 
 sand frantic, yelling Formosans were attacking her. 
 Those on shore ran out into the still water for a little 
 way and fired at close range from their nondescript 
 guns, and ran back, screaming, to the cover of the 
 trees. Those in the sampans sent their craft dash 
 ing forward to fire at will in running volleys, and 
 sought to clamber up the high, smooth hill of her as 
 she lay. Beaten, they fell back to gather courage 
 for new assaults while making room for other boats. 
 
 And of those who ran out from the cover of the 
 trees down into the water many did not come back 
 again, but lay writhing in screaming agony, or quite 
 stark and silent on the sand. And the deck of more 
 than one sampan was slippery with blood which 
 dripped down and reddened the lagoon and the line 
 of foam on the reef where the lazy billows broke. 
 
 For the men in the steamer, although they did 
 not fire one shot to a hundred of their assailants, 
 yet had been so placed for the defence by a master 
 of tactics that every shot told. Rifles blazed, now 
 and again, from her open ports and from the shelter of 
 her bulwarks. Two men, skilled marksmen, crouched 
 in the forward crosstrees, and two more in the main. 
 And the men on the deck were so changed and shifted 
 to cover threatened points as to make the small crew, 
 reserving fire until the shots could tell, seem on the de 
 fensive at every spot and in sufficient numbers. In 
 deed, it seemed that every shot from the steamer was 
 followed by the scream of a stricken savage.
 
 228 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 Only two men were in plain sight on the vessel. 
 Those two, each with a rifle in his hands and a couple 
 of revolvers belted to his sides, stood high on the half- 
 burned bridge forward, exposed to the full fire of 
 the Formosans. And each, from time to time, would 
 raise his gun and pick off a savage as coolly as though 
 it had been an affair of trapshooting. 
 
 One of the two, the heavily bearded one, Went- 
 worth knew to be the man he sought. And if that 
 man was not his father, surely Nature had for once 
 cast two shapes of humanity in the same mould. 
 Barring the long beard, the man in every line, in every 
 motion of his body, was startlingly like Elliot Went- 
 worth. 
 
 The other man on the bridge Margaret recognized 
 at once. There stood and fought her lawless brother, 
 and he seemed, with that other at his side, to bear a 
 charmed life. Many a wild savage must have aimed 
 his shot at the pair, aloft there, in plain view and at 
 easy distance, directing the fighting of the ship and 
 themselves sending red death swiftly among their 
 foes. But neither man seemed, so far, to have been 
 even scratched. 
 
 And just as the wonder of it came to the mind of 
 Margaret she saw her brother's rifle raised to draw 
 a bead on a f oeman fly up in the air. The stricken 
 man reeled and fell before his companion could leap 
 to catch him. And even as the bearded one sprang 
 to help, he, too, went down with a bullet in his fore 
 head.
 
 THE BATTLE WITH FORMOSANS 229 
 
 Then Captain Stoddard gave his engineer the jingle 
 bell, and the Petrel dashed ahead, full speed, right 
 into the middle of the fleet of sampans swarming 
 about the stern of the Neried. Two of the frail 
 boats of the Formosans she caught and crushed, and 
 the Lurline, rushing right on behind her, added two 
 to that. 
 
 The sampan men fled, in wild panic, for the shore, 
 many of them leaping into the sea to their death, at 
 the same moment that the company of Japanese 
 soldiers doubled around the point and charged down, 
 after one volley, firing at will as they came into the 
 crowd of natives on the beach, who were likewise 
 swept by a couple of shots from the brass guns of 
 the yachts and another from the field piece of the 
 land forces. 
 
 The men on the yachts, and one of the women, 
 firing at will, and with precision, burned the savages 
 as they took to their heels, breaking for the cover 
 of the timber. Directed by McGreal, inspired by 
 the example of Oleson and the fierce fighting energy 
 of that white savage, Andressen, Allison's piratical 
 mixture held stable, under the eye of the Japanese 
 soldiery. The battle, indeed, was over in a very few 
 minutes after the arrival of reinforcements for the 
 men in the steamer. No savage band that ever 
 swarms to murder will abide disciplined attack. 
 
 The Japanese soldiers burned what was left of the 
 sampan fleet, and followed the fugitives into the 
 forest. There was desultory shooting among the
 
 230 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 trees for the better part of the day. But the For- 
 mosans knew their own country, and it is likely that 
 most of them got away. 
 
 The Japanese captain, after the retreat of the 
 savages, met Allison and Wentworth and the cap 
 tains of the two yachts on the deck of the wrecked 
 steamer, and thanked them handsomely for the help 
 given him in routing the islanders. And then, being 
 a Japanese and a gentleman, he desired his respects 
 paid to the ladies, secluded with their sorrow, and 
 sent his post surgeon to look after the two men 
 wounded on the bridge of the Neried. He would 
 hold his men at the place for several days to hunt 
 down the savages, he said, and asked that the two 
 yachts might remain near the Neried during that 
 time. 
 
 At once on boarding the steamer Wentworth 
 had had his wounded father carried to his own cabin 
 on board the Lurline. He lay there, pale and un 
 conscious, and Wentworth, sitting beside him, chafing 
 his cold hands and waiting for the closed eyes to 
 open, could doubt no longer. This man, the man 
 who had posed as an Englishman, this fugitive with 
 bandaged head who had fled so far to meet the bullet 
 that, striking his skull, had yet glanced without 
 penetrating the brain; this wreck who lay uncon- 
 conscious now, with all his troubles left behind in 
 the night into which his soul was wandering, was the 
 great banker, the public-spirited citizen, his father.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 "HIS NAME IS NORMAN AINSWORTH" 
 
 KlBERT GRAEME, under Captain Stod- 
 dard's direction, was taken on board the 
 Petrel. In the white-and-green cabin of the 
 yacht, on the captain's own bed, he lay dying, and 
 knew his destiny had found him. And his old aunt, 
 forgetting the conventions of a lifetime in the pres 
 ence of the grisly end of all the conventions, knelt 
 beside him to weep and pray. 
 
 "So this is the end, Margie," Graeme said, turn 
 ing to his sister who sat on a low chair beside his 
 bed, holding his hand. He had gone back to the 
 baby name of her childhood at the last. He did 
 not ask how she had come there, nor how his 
 aunt had come; nor seem at all surprised to see 
 them. It may be that the soul begins, a little, to 
 cease to consider distance as it prepares to take its 
 long flight. 
 
 Margaret, with womanly strength commanding 
 her natural emotion, pressed the hand she held, and 
 smoothed back the tangled hair of the dying man. 
 The Japanese surgeon had shaken his head when he 
 saw Graeme, and left a stimulating draught, after 
 the dying man had refused an injection of morphine. 
 
 231
 
 232 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "I want to know my death," he said. "I have 
 known what a man may of life. 
 
 "And so," Graeme repeated, after the surgeon had 
 gone, "this is the end! It is well enough. The 
 ending fits the rest." 
 
 Margaret's lips moved silently, and she smoothed his 
 hair. It was the mother touch, and it soothed him. 
 
 "You pray for me, sister?" he said. Then, after a 
 little pause: "It does not matter. A man's death 
 bed is not made harder by a good woman's prayers." 
 
 He lay silent, with closed eyes. He had been shot 
 through the groin, and moaned from the pain of the 
 wound. But he mastered himself with an effort. 
 Margaret administered the stimulant left for him 
 by the Japanese surgeon, and then, for a long time, 
 sat silent, still smoothing his hair. 
 
 "Robert," she whispered, at last. "Robert!" 
 
 He opened his eyes at that, and looked at her, 
 strangely. 
 
 "Did you call me, dear?" he asked. 
 
 "Who was the man with you in the Neried ?" 
 
 "Norman Ains worth." The answer came with 
 out the least hesitancy. 
 
 "You know him by no other name?" 
 
 "That was his name. He had no other. He 
 called himself Norman Ainsworth, and Harran 
 called him that, as did the lawyer, Chester." 
 
 "Mr. Harran?" she cried. 
 
 "Of course. Old Harran! You know him well 
 enough, and so do I. He got me to go to San Fran-
 
 "HIS NAME NORMAN AINSWORTH" 233 
 
 cisco after Ains worth. I was to deliver him where- 
 ever he wanted to go. He seemed only to want 
 to go with me to travel. He had no money, as far 
 as I could find out, but, as I had been well paid, I 
 let him go. I wish I hadn't, now. He might have 
 been alive yet if he had stopped at some port. And 
 he was a good fellow, although he was crazy in the 
 head. That is, he was a bit absent at times, and 
 he thought he was an Englishman. That was his 
 one delusion. He was entirely harmless. And he 
 stood by me like a man in storm, and fire, and battle." 
 
 "Mr. Harran!" she repeated, and, again, "Mr. 
 Harran? Are you strong enough, Robert, to tell me 
 how it was that Mr. Harran got you your passenger? " 
 
 "I have told you!" he said, a little peevishly. 
 " Can't a woman even let a man die in peace? Harran 
 wired me at Pedro to come up and get a passenger 
 for the Halcyon. There was to be $5,000 in it for 
 me. But I knew the old fox, and I wanted specifica 
 tions. And it was to help a man away with the loot 
 of widows and orphans a bank defaulter. I knew 
 that Harran was making his profit of the loot, too, 
 but that was nothing to me." 
 
 Margaret was weeping softly, still holding his hand 
 and still smoothing his hair. He looked at her, but 
 he did not falter. There came a strange look into 
 his eyes, as though his soul, loathing itself, yet 
 scorned to hold anything back from her condemna 
 tion. And she only wept for him. 
 
 "You would have the tale," he said. "It was
 
 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 nothing to me, a crime the more in a lawless life! 
 I have thought, since then, watching Ainsworth, 
 that he was the gentlest criminal that I had ever seen, 
 and I have lived with sinners. But it made no 
 difference to me when Harran made his offer. He 
 knew what my life had been, and I knew. And I had 
 served him before. I was simply to let a man stow 
 away, so as not to become involved with the law and 
 her owners, and to carry the passenger wherever he 
 wanted to go.'* 
 
 He paused, groaning, and lay silent, yet still with 
 his naked soul in his eyes. 
 
 "Robert," she said, at last, forcing her tears down, 
 f 'did you know of the failure of the Bank of the 
 Pacific?" 
 
 "The Bank of the Pacific? I may have known. 
 Of course some bank had failed. I do not remember 
 that I heard the name." 
 
 He was silent again, and she waited. When he 
 resumed the relation it was with the set purpose ap 
 parent in his tone to go on with it to the end. 
 
 "We had a good run up from Pedro," he said, 
 "although I lost a man there whom I had depended 
 on. Running in past Alcatraz, we picked up a swim 
 mer close to the island, nearly spent and delirious 
 when taken from the water, and laid him in my cabin. 
 When I dropped anchor in the stream, Harran came 
 off in a launch to tell me that I was too late, that my 
 passenger had drowned himself in the bay. I didn't 
 care a great deal about that, being more concerned
 
 "HIS NAME NORMAN AINSWORTH" 235 
 
 with the way the old tightwad was trying to squeeze 
 me in paying for the steamer's run up from Pedro; and 
 with the risk I had run with her owners in having come 
 at all. Much he cared whether I lost my job or not ! " 
 His voice was growing weaker, and he motioned 
 for another dose of the stimulant. 
 
 "It was only when the old man followed me into 
 the cabin to hand me the amount finally agreed upon," 
 he went on, "that Harran saw the man we had 
 picked up in the bay. I thought, at first, that he had 
 gone mad. 
 
 "'That's your passenger!' he screamed. 'That's 
 your passenger! Where in the name of Christ did 
 you get him?' 
 
 "It didn't take long to tell him. He paid me 
 on the nail cash, and some bonds that I sold in 
 Honolulu. He said the man's name was Norman 
 Ains worth. And he sent his trunk aboard after dark, 
 and told me to get out of the port as quickly as I 
 could. I was willing enough. I cleared her and 
 went out that night. The lawyer stayed with me 
 pretty much all the time I was ashore, and both 
 Harran and the lawyer told me not to let the pas 
 senger out of my hands in port, whatever happened. 
 But the passenger did not come to himself until 
 we got well outside the Heads next morning. If 
 he wanted to go back, he did not say so. I called 
 him Norman Ainsworth, and although he hesitated 
 sometimes just at first when he heard the name 
 he answered to it, and called himself Ainsworth.
 
 236 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 That is all, as to him. There has been much evil 
 in my life besides, Margaret." 
 
 "God will pardon, dear!" she said. And then, 
 very softly: "Can you tell me what happened at 
 Honolulu, dear?" 
 
 "You seem strangely interested in this man," 
 he said. 
 
 "Yes, dear." 
 
 "Well, Harran cabled me to take the Tenyu Maru 
 for the East, and to take Ainsworth with me. That 
 gave me the first intimation that somebody was seek 
 ing my passenger. I sounded Ainsworth, but he 
 seemed to know no more than a child. Indeed, in 
 many ways he was like a child. Harran had cabled 
 $1,000 with his message, and as that looked good to 
 me, I took passage for the Far East. At Hongkong 
 I found orders from my owners to go down to Manila 
 and get ready to take the Neried out to Iloilo for 
 hemp. Harran cabled us there to hurry, and then 
 I knew that my passenger was being followed. But 
 if it was a chase, I could keep it up as long as the 
 next man. And I did not think the law was in it 
 yet; or Harran would not have been game to do the 
 cabling. I was as good a fighter, man to man, as 
 anybody who might be on the track. Besides, I had 
 come to like Ainsworth, and I was determined to save 
 him, whatever he might have done. We did hurry 
 out of Iloilo, and then came the typhoon, and the fire, 
 and my loss of a second steamer. It is well enough. 
 WJien the sea turns against a man his time is at hand.*'
 
 "HIS NAME NORMAN AINSWORTH" 237 
 
 Once again he lay silent, only groaning at in 
 tervals. And Margaret, stooping over him, weeping 
 for him, bent still lower to whisper: "And your 
 passenger, Robert? Forgive me, dear, but I have a 
 reason for wanting to be very sure. You never 
 knew him by any other name? " 
 
 "I am dying," replied Robert Graeme, looking 
 up at her. "His name is Norman Ainsworth." 
 
 He closed his eyes, and all around them there 
 drifted a light fall, as of ashes. Only once did he seem 
 to revive. Margaret, from time to time, put the stimu 
 lating draught to his lips, and he took it, and his flut 
 tering breath showed that life still lingered. But over 
 his whole face that light fell as if ashes had sifted down. 
 
 It was after the administration of the stimulant 
 that he started up in bed, throwing Margaret's hand 
 from him, and seeming to grope for a moment, as one 
 in the dark. Then his eyes cleared. He stared at the 
 woman sitting beside him, clear-eyed, now, facing the 
 death of a wayward loved one. And recognition came 
 back slowly into the face of the one who was passing. 
 
 "Margie!" he cried, going back once more to the 
 childish name he had used to call her. "Sister 
 Margie! You here? And Aunty Pen? Then, it 
 was a dream! And I will not be a naughty boy any 
 more, Aunty Pen! Sure and honest I will not!'* 
 
 He settled back on his pillow very slowly, with a 
 long, tremulous sigh. And the tangled hair that 
 Margaret Graeme still smoothed and smoothed was 
 a dead man's hair.
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 A SPY AND A GAME CHICKEN 
 
 THEY buried him under a wide-branching 
 camphor tree on the shore of that wild island 
 near where he had fought his last fight. And a 
 platoon of the Japanese soldiers fired a military salute 
 over his grave. That was fitting. He had died like 
 a soldier, and he had lived at war with mankind. 
 
 Turning from the grave, where Wentworth stood 
 with bared head supporting the woman he loved 
 while Allison gave his attention to Mrs. Pen worthy, 
 Captain Stoddard of the Petrel noted the spy, Di 
 Sousa, in earnest consultation with the Japanese 
 captain. And a moment later the Eurasian went 
 tracking through the forest from the spot where the 
 grave was toward the village. At once the captain 
 hurried his people aboard the Petrel. He had a 
 purpose in that. It was in furtherance of his purpose 
 that he asked Captain McGreal, as he shoved off from 
 the shore, to send aboard to him from the Lurline 
 Di Sousa's prized game chicken. This McGreal 
 readily agreed to do. He would have done it without 
 Captain Stoddard's assurance that possession of the 
 bird was necessary to the success of a play which 
 would be explained later. 
 
 238
 
 A SPY AND A GAME CHICKEN 239 
 
 The yachts had gone back to their anchorage 
 in the little harbour at once after the funeral, and 
 when he got the game cock Captain Stoddard carried 
 it ashore with him in his yawl, carefully hidden in a 
 burlap sack. Using expedition in his movements, 
 he beat Di Sousa into the village easily enough. And 
 he waited for his man with full confidence at the door 
 of the hut where the Japanese had set up their tele 
 graphic instruments in connection with the cable 
 from Formosa to Nagasaki. 
 
 "Hi, Di Sousa!" he exclaimed, as the spy, warm 
 with walking, came trudging up to the door of the 
 hut. "You know me? " 
 
 "Sar, yes," replied the Eurasian. "I know you. 
 You beat me at Macao, it is ten years ago, because 
 that I did report to the officer of the French of your 
 smuggling arms to the Black Flags." 
 
 "And would have got me shot if I had not been 
 smart enough to get away ! " said Stoddard. 
 
 "Sar, that was my duty. But, sar, I know you! 
 My bones hurt, sometimes, when I sleep." 
 
 "Very good," said Captain Stoddard to that, not 
 the least disturbed. "Then you know what I can 
 do. I will, if you please, take that cablegram that 
 you are about to send to your employers in Manila. 
 And you will come aboard the Petrel with me." 
 
 "Sar," replied Di Sousa, "I am free mans. And 
 I will not. I will report to Japanese officer." 
 
 "Oh, will you?" cried Stoddard, opening the sack 
 as he spoke, and drawing out from it the red game
 
 240 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 cock, which he held, with affected carelessness, 
 by the head. "Then I will wring this rooster's 
 neck." 
 
 "Madre di Dios ! Good senor! Good Captain 
 Stoddard," cried Di Sousa, "keel me, sar! Beat me! 
 Bote do not keel the cheecken!" 
 
 The man's English lapsed, as he became excited. 
 Captain Stoddard gave the cock a careless whirl 
 by the head. 
 
 "Give me the cablegram," he said. 
 
 Di Sousa had dropped on his knees, holding out 
 his hands imploringly. He reached for an inner 
 pocket, now, and drew out and handed a folded 
 paper to his tormentor. 
 
 "Sar, eet is here!" he cried. "I pray you, for 
 the holy name of God, do not keel the cheecken!" 
 
 Stoddard took the paper, opened it, and glanced 
 at it. "In cipher," he said, shortly. 
 
 "Sar, eet was the order," said Di Sousa, still kneel 
 ing, to the amazement, and perhaps a little to the 
 amusement, of the few straggling villagers who had 
 gathered about the hut. "I pray you, spare the 
 cheecken!" 
 
 "Get up!" said Stoddard, taking the spy roughly 
 by the neck and pointing him toward the Petrel's 
 yawl, which lay on the strand. "There is the road! 
 March!" 
 
 He kept the spy ahead of him to the boat, the 
 villagers following along, and once there, tossed 
 the game cock to its owner. Di Sousa caught it
 
 A SPY AND A GAME CHICKEN 241 
 
 eagerly, and smoothed its ruffled plumage, and 
 crooned over it as a mother croons over her child. 
 
 "Pobrecito!" he muttered. "The insult! And 
 a cock that was never beatened ! " 
 
 And while he mourned, and soothed his pet, he 
 was landed safely aboard the Petrel, and turned over 
 to the custody of the mate of that vessel. The 
 mate was accustomed to obey orders and had such 
 orders as made it very sure that no report of the 
 future doings of either yachting party would get to 
 San Francisco through the agency in Manila which 
 had sent out Di Sousa. 
 
 "I am very sorry to deprive you of the services 
 of your cabin steward," said Captain Stoddard to 
 Wentworth and Allison and Captain McGreal a 
 little later, going on board the Lurline to explain 
 his scheme. "But I knew that fellow had been a 
 police spy. I had some experience myself with him, 
 down at Macao, a few years ago. A man does not 
 spend ten years on the China coast without learn 
 ing to keep his eyes open. And when I saw that chap 
 on your yacht, I made up my mind to keep watch 
 on him. Of course he would make for the nearest 
 cable office, after what happened to-day, and I was 
 there first. I have made him read his cipher dispatch 
 to me, and all this would have been known in San 
 Francisco by now if I had not taken a hand when 
 I did." 
 
 "How'd you come to think of the game cock?" 
 asked Allison, with a smile.
 
 242 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "Moral suasion," replied Stoddard. "That cock 
 comes of a particular strain he has bred a long time. 
 And it is always better to avoid mere brute force." 
 
 "I suppose we will have to make our own cocktails, 
 now," said Allison, sadly.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 SHADOW AND SUNSHINE 
 
 THAT evening, after the unmasking of the 
 spy, Margaret and Wentworth sat together 
 on the deck of the Petrel, and Margaret told 
 her lover all that her dying brother had said with 
 reference to his passenger. 
 
 "He gave no other name than Norman Ainsworth, 
 dear," Margaret said. "Robert was told that he 
 was a fugitive, a defaulter whom Harran, for a pur 
 pose of his own, wanted kept out of the way. Har 
 ran and Chester were to have put him on board the 
 Halcyon in San Francisco Bay, but by a most strange 
 coincidence Robert picked him up, swimming but 
 near spent, off Alcatraz. Harran found him there, 
 in Robert's cabin, and hurried the steamer to sea. 
 Robert discovered, when his passenger came to him 
 self, that his mind was enfeebled." 
 
 "What was it that destroyed his mental poise, 
 I wonder?" mused Wentworth. 
 
 "Could it have been the result of that auto ac 
 cident? They must have played upon him shame- 
 fully." 
 
 "Has he recovered consciousness?" asked Mar 
 garet. 
 
 243
 
 244 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 "No. The Japanese surgeon, whom I left with 
 him in my cabin on the Lurline, says that he has had 
 in the past some great physical shock, leading to a 
 gradual loss of himself. I had thought that he re 
 covered completely from that auto accident, the only 
 physical shock I have ever known him to sustain. 
 He never complained. Whatever it was, the Japa 
 nese surgeon says that the shock of this present 
 wound in the head, if he recovers it, may serve to 
 counterbalance the old shock. But it is only a 
 chance. The surgeon also says it is possible that he 
 may awaken to complete imbecility. The wound 
 itself is not mortal. Reason may be utterly de 
 stroyed." 
 
 He sighed deeply as he spoke. 
 
 "Ah, well," he went on. "I have my life's duty 
 before me. I must watch and care for him. I will 
 help him back to his old place in the world, if I may. 
 There is much to be cleared away. I must ease his 
 way to another world, if it is to be that he will come 
 no more to the daylight of man's reason in this." 
 
 "It is our life duty, dear heart!" whispered Mar 
 garet, taking his hand, and holding it. 
 
 The two yachts, in company, sailed out through 
 the opening in the reef next day, and squared away 
 for Hongkong. The crew of the Neried had been 
 divided between them, and the boy who had wept 
 alone in the stern of the burning ship took the vacant 
 place as cabin steward on board the Lurline al-
 
 SHADOW AND SUNSHINE 245 
 
 though he did not know a cocktail from soft toddy, 
 as Allison said, plaintively. Each sailor in the crew 
 of the burned ship had a wonderful tale to tell of how 
 the steamer all afire in her forward hold, driven on 
 before the storm and driving with her engines in a 
 mad effort to reach the beach had struck the sharp 
 reef and been caught and whelmed in the tremen 
 dous seas that drove clear over her, flooding the open 
 hatches, and all but extinguishing the flames. They 
 were seas such as not even the oldest seaman among 
 them had ever seen before, and their force had left 
 the Neried stranded where the . natives had found 
 and attacked her next morning.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 THE WICKED CEASE FROM TROUBLING 
 
 BEING an extract from a letter written by 
 Mr. Frederick Upson, of San Francisco, and 
 addressed to Mr. and Mrs. John Wentworth, 
 on board the yacht Petrel, harbour of Manga Riva, 
 Fiji Islands. 
 
 Oh, you two turtle doves! To go sailing off there 
 across the sunlit tropic seas while we toil and moil 
 in this great mill whose grist is gold, only and 
 always gold! And, that reminds me! I have 
 gathered from the bin of the mill a very considerable 
 quantity of that same grist, which I have deposited to 
 the order of the male member of your Happiness 
 Association (Unlimited). This particular grist I 
 have taken care to deposit with my own banker, 
 where it will be entirely safe, and where it is subject 
 to draft. 
 
 Allison came into port safely in the Lurline, after 
 sailing right slap across the Northern Pacific with 
 his pirate crew, every villain of which is devoted to 
 him. He delivered your letters, and the* spy, Di 
 Sousa, into my hands. I laughed and laughed 
 when I heard how that sturdy old reprobate, 
 
 46
 
 THE WICKED CEASE TROUBLING 247 
 
 Stoddard, used a game rooster to hold up a cable 
 gram to the private detective agency in Manila, and 
 then kidnapped the detective on the ground bodily. 
 
 Di Sousa sails for the Far East in the China next 
 Wednesday, and if a golden salve may heal a wounded 
 spirit, he will go away happy. I regret that the 
 real artistry of mixing cocktails must go back to 
 that far country with him. I tried to get him to 
 teach Brooks, who seems to have fastened himself 
 upon me for my sins, but that villain never could 
 catch the knack of mixing and drinking in reason 
 able moderation at the same time. And so Di Sousa 
 carries his art across the seas. They seem to have 
 all the delights of life beyond Suez. You will be 
 glad to hear that the game chicken, which Di Sousa 
 is taking home with him, is pert and cocky. And so, 
 let the pair of them go! 
 
 With the weapons that Allison put into my hands, 
 coming back to more serious concerns, my game was 
 easy. The fact that E.W. was alive, and apparently 
 on the road to complete recovery of reason, made 
 a strong card. The information E. W. had already 
 given relative to the sequestration of certain trust 
 securities, in which Harran and Chester figured, 
 put the proof into our hands that these two, and 
 these two alone, had known and traded upon E. W.'s 
 failing mentality following that hurt on the head in 
 the Park auto accident from which all the balance 
 of his friends thought he had made complete re 
 covery.
 
 248 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 The discovery of that condition, in fact, armed 
 us with the absolute knowledge that Harran and 
 Chester had as free access to the bank's vaults as 
 E. W. himself had after they had discovered his 
 weakness. The fact that these two arch scoundrels 
 had planned to shanghai E. W. on board the Hal 
 cyon, in effect, and then had taken advantage of the 
 trick fate played him in being picked up by that 
 very steamer to hurry her out of port, gave us the 
 moral certainty that they had driven him to frantic 
 desperation on the day the bank closed its doors. 
 Probably he had not meant to come back, when he 
 swam out into the bay from the bathing place at 
 North Beach. It seems certain, at all events, that 
 he had no clear realization of his condition, nor of 
 what he did. But his own action, and the accident 
 of his being picked up by the Halcyon, served the 
 original purpose of Harran and Chester as well as 
 they themselves could have served it. They got him 
 out of the way, and the world believed him dead, and 
 could blame him as it liked. 
 
 The certificate of the English army surgeon at 
 Hongkong, in line with the opinion of the Japanese 
 surgeon, was of the most value. That opinion alone 
 showing that the patient suffered from delusions 
 following a hurt on the head and would probably 
 recover his mental poise completely by reason of the 
 counteracting nervous shock from the gunshot 
 wound, which would neutralize the effect of the for 
 mer injury would have given us the line we needed,
 
 THE WICKED CEASE TROUBLING 249 
 
 even if E. W. himself had not directed our efforts to 
 some extent by what he has already been able to 
 tell. And, lastly, there was the disastrous mistake 
 of Chester in letting out of his own hands the bonds 
 sold by R. G. in Honolulu. Altogether, I considered 
 my case pretty complete. 
 
 And it was. I called on Chester in the fullest 
 confidence that I could make him crawl. You 
 should have seen us sparring! It was a real lesson 
 in free-hand courtesy between enemies who hated 
 each other. I don't believe we called a thing in the 
 world by its right name during the whole course of 
 the talk. 
 
 But when it came to the showdown, I had the 
 #oods on him all right. And we arrived at results. 
 That is to say, I arrived at results. Chester found 
 it necessary to telephone for Harran after an exceed 
 ingly uncomfortable half hour. 
 
 The old man came down to the bank in a tearing 
 rage. It was cyclonic, really typhoonic, if you can 
 get a clearer realization of my meaning from that 
 descriptive adjective. It really looked as though he 
 thought that he could bluster the thing out, until I 
 showed him a card or two in my hand, and hinted at 
 the possible return of E. W. to San Francisco, clothed 
 and in his right mind. 
 
 Then he whines. And his whining was to such 
 purpose that I have been able to put a million to 
 John's credit with my bankers. I was careful to 
 rtore this spoil in that safe place. And I will Ir*
 
 250 THE TYPHOON'S SECRET 
 
 Harran alone for the present, unless I hear some more 
 talk about that United States senatorship. If that 
 conies up again, something is likely to happen. 
 
 There is nothing else here; except that Allison has 
 gone back to Honolulu in the Lurline. 
 
 And, so, sail on, you turtle doves, across the sunny 
 waves! If E. W. fully recovers health and strength, 
 with the sea air, and the restful life on the yacht, and 
 the contemplation of the peaceful picture of the hap 
 piness of his children, it will be time enough to talk 
 then of bringing him back to the battlefield. 
 
 But it is a matter for John to decide, or for E. W. 
 himself, perhaps. I have things in line at this end. 
 The decision can wait. It would be nothing new, 
 nor very surprising, for this town to have its gods 
 pulled down about its ears with a run. San Fran 
 cisco has set up many gods and will set up many 
 more. 
 
 THE END 
 
 THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS. GARDEN CITY, NEW YOXK
 
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