“I know more than that, Nat,” he whispered.  “Listen!  A little while ago—­say two weeks back—­you were becalmed off the head of Beaver Island, and one dark night you were boarded by two boat-loads of men who made you and your crew prisoners, robbed you of everything you had,—­and the next day you went back to Chicago.  Eh?”

Nathaniel stood speechless.

“And you made up your mind the pirates were Mormons, enlisted some of your friends, armed your ship—­and you’re back here to make us settle.  Isn’t it so, Nat?”

The little old man was rubbing his hands eagerly, excitedly.

“You tried to get the revenue cutter Michigan to come down with you, but they wouldn’t—­ho, ho, they wouldn’t!  One of our friends in Chicago sent quick word ahead of you to tell me all about it, and—­Strang, the king, doesn’t know!”

He spoke the last words in intense earnestness.

Then, suddenly, he held out his hand.

“Young man, will you shake hands with me?  Will you shake hands?—­and then we will go to St. James!”

Captain Plum thrust out a hand and the old man gripped it.  The thin fingers tightened like cold clamps of steel.  For a moment the face of Obadiah Price underwent a strange change.  The hardness and glitter went out of his eyes and in place there came a questioning, almost an appealing, look.  His tense mouth relaxed.  It was as if he was on the point of surrendering to some emotion which he was struggling to stifle.  And Nathaniel, meeting those eyes, felt that somewhere within him had been struck a strange chord of sympathy, something that made this little old man more than a half-mad stranger to him, and involuntarily the grip of his fingers tightened around those of his companion.

“Now we will go to St. James, Captain Plum!”

He attempted to withdraw his hand but Captain Plum held to it.

“Not yet!” he exclaimed.  “There are two or three things which your friend didn’t tell you, Obadiah Price!”

Nathaniel’s eyes glittered dangerously.

“When I left ship this morning I gave explicit orders to Casey, my mate.”

He gazed steadily into the old man’s unflinching eyes.

“I said something like this:  ’Casey, I’m going to see Strang before I come back.  If he’s willing to settle for five thousand, we’ll call it off.  And if he isn’t—­why, we’ll stand out there a mile and blow St. James into hell!  And if I don’t come back by to-morrow at sundown, Casey, you take command and blow it to hell without me!’ So, Obadiah Price, if there’s treachery—­”

The old man clutched at his hands with insane fierceness.

“There will be no treachery, Nat, I swear to God there will be no treachery!  Come, we will go—­”

Still Captain Plum hesitated.

“Who are you?  Whom am I to follow?”

“A member of our holy Council of Twelve, Nat, and lord high treasurer of His Majesty, King Strang!”