“He was not.”  Captain Blaise banged his hand on the table.  “He killed three men, yes; but bad men, and killed them in fair combat.”

“Hm-m.  A man to let alone that; but nothing of that was known—­not then.  However, he took the Governor’s professional duellist out behind a row of palms one sunny morning and shot him—­a beautiful bit of work.  It was the vastest surprise—­a shock.  But a duel, lawful possibly in your country is not so in ours, Captain, and—­”

“And is his daughter with him?”

“When she is not at the Governor’s house—­yes.”

“What!  Why there?”

“I don’t know, unless it is the only house in that country where a young lady of her position—­and then her beauty—­”

“Under that old satrap’s roof?  But here, Rimmle, what is the Governor going to do with Cunningham?”

“Well, Captain, if it should happen that she will marry the Governor’s son, why Cunningham might be allowed—­you know how, Captain, ho! ho!—­surely, to escape.  Especially as nobody seems to mourn the man he shot.  But when she seemed slow to fall in with their wishes, and as Cunningham had converted all his property into gold and diamonds and shipped them or hid them—­though no search has unearthed them—­preparatory to shooting the Governor’s friend, why they grew suspicious and threatened to push matters.  Cunningham was nominally under arrest always.  And then he fell sick.  How sick?  Hard to say.  But should he die, or be punished—­imprisoned, say—­for the duel, consider it.  She is a beautiful girl, true, but human, and in time in that lonesome country where white gentlemen of social position are so scarce—!  And, after all—­the Governor of Momba’s son and—­”

“Rimmle”—­Captain Blaise had stood up to look through an air port—­“it’s a fair wind for me.  Shall I put you ashore?”

“Ashore?  Why, yes, yes!  Bless me, I’ve had quite a stay, haven’t I?  But if you care to try again, Captain, my friend Hassan is into Momba.  He will be aboard, no fear.  If you do business with him, Captain, why, draw on me, and it’s money in my pocket.”

“If I do business of that kind this cruise, Rimmle, I promise you I’ll do it with Hassan.”

“Thank you, Captain.  Speedy voyage to you, and don’t forget Hassan.  Good-by, sir, to you.”

Within the hour we sailed for Momba.

III

A squadron of corvettes and sloops o’ war put their glasses on us lazily as we neared Momba; but with our Dutch bow and stern, our stumpy spars, no self-respecting war-ship was bothering the Triton.  They let us pass without so much as a hail.

Captain Blaise planned to cross Momba Bar that night, all the more surely to cross because the watchers ashore, seeing us hang on and off in the late afternoon, would probably report that we were waiting for morning.  So we hauled her to in the dusk where, were it light, we would have seen, under its three fathom of water, Momba Bar lying white and smooth and quiet as a sanded deck as we passed on.  With the wind coming low and light from the land that was; but were it a high wind and from the sea, there would be no going over that bar at night or any other time.