“I’ll send you the steward; he’ll fix you out from the slop-chest.  We’re always well supplied.”

I was glad to see him go and closed the door on him with a sigh of relief.  His eyes seemed to exercise a peculiar influence over me, a snakelike charm, against which I had to constantly battle.  I threw the bundle of charts into the upper bunk, and unscrewed the glass of the port to gain a view without, and a breath of fresh air.  There was nothing to see but a small vista of gray sea, blending into the gray mist, and the waves on this side ran so high I was compelled to close the port to keep out the spray.  I sat down on the stool, staring about the compartment, realizing suddenly how well fortune had served my cause—­the chance to impersonate the drunken sailor; the meeting with Watkins, my chance words to Estada on deck, and now this translation from forecastle to cabin.  It had all occurred so quickly, almost without effort on my part, I could do little but wonder what strange occurrence would be next.  What, indeed, was there for me to do except to await developments?  Only one thing occurred to me—­I must discover some means immediately of communicating with Dorothy Fairfax.

The importance of this could not be overestimated.  With myself quartered aft, and eating in the cabin, we were bound to meet sooner or later; and the girl must previously be warned of my presence aboard, or in her first surprise at the recognition, I should be instantly betrayed.  Nothing would escape Estada, and the slightest evidence that we two had formerly met, would awaken his suspicion.  My only hope of success lay in my ability to increase his faith in my pledges.  The necessity of having a competent navigator aft alone accounted for my promotion.  The Portuguese neither liked nor trusted me; he hated and despised my race; he would have me watched, and would carefully check over my figures.  I should be compelled to serve him faithfully and without arousing the slightest question in his mind, in order to establish myself in his esteem, or gain any real freedom aboard.  Yet, if I was to serve the girl, there must be, first of all, intelligent cooperation between us.  She must not only know of my presence on the Namur, but also the purpose actuating me.  I had reached this conclusion, when a light hesitating knock sounded on the door.

“Who is there?”

“The steward, Senor, with your clothes?”

“Bring them in.”

Gunsaules entered, the garments over his arm, and shuffled in his peculiar gliding manner across to the bunk where he laid out the pieces carefully one by one, evidently proud of his selection.

“Quite a beautiful piece of goods, Senor,” he ventured, speaking so softly I could barely distinguish the words above the crash of the waves on the ship’s side.  “And most excellently tailored.  I do not remember whether these came out of the Adair or La Rosalie—­the French ship most likely, for as you see, Senor, there is quite the Parisian cut to this coat.  I mark these things for I was once apprenticed to a tailor in Madrid.”