“And now, Captain,” said he genially, “what have you been doing with yourself?  Still on the Baltic-Mediterranean?”

“No, Mr. Chayne.  I left that some time ago.  I’m on the Blue Cross Line—­Ellershaw & Co.—­trading between Havre and Mozambique.”

“Where’s Mozambique?” Liosha asked me.

I looked wise, but Captain Maturin supplied the information.  “Portuguese East Africa, ma’am.  We also run every other trip to Madagascar.”

“That’s a place I’ve never been to,” said Jaffery.

“Interesting,” said the Captain.  He poured the little bottle of soda into his whisky, held up his glass, bowed to the lady, and to me, exchanged a solemnly confidential wink with Jaffery, and sipped his drink.  Under Jaffery’s questioning he informed us—­for he was not a spontaneously communicative man—­that he now had a very good command:  steamship Vesta, one thousand five hundred tons, somewhat old, but sea-worthy, warranted to take more cargo than any vessel of her size he had ever set eyes on.

“And when do you sail?” asked Jaffery.

“To-morrow at daybreak.  They’re finishing loading her up now.”

Jaffery drained his tall glass mug of beer and ordered another.

“Are you going to Madagascar this trip?”

“Yes, worse luck.”

“Why worse luck?” I asked.

“It cuts short my time at Pinner,” replied Captain Maturin.

Here was a man, I reflected, with the mystery and romance of Madagascar before him, who sighed for his little suburban villa and plot of garden at Pinner.  Some people are never satisfied.

“I’ve not been to Madagascar,” said Jaffery again.

Captain Maturin smiled gravely.  “Why not come along with me.  Mr. Chayne?”

Jaffery’s eyes danced and his smile broadened so that his white teeth showed beneath his moustache.  “Why not?” he cried.  And bringing down his hand with a clamp on Liosha’s shoulder—­“Why not?  You and I. Out of this rotten civilisation?”

Liosha drew a deep breath and looked at him in awed amazement.  So did I. I thought he was going mad.

“Would you like it?” he asked.

“Like it!” She had no words to express the glory that sprang into her face.

Captain Maturin leaned forward.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Chayne, we’ve no license for passengers, and certainly there’s no accommodation for ladies.”

Jaffery threw up a hand.  “But she’s not a lady—­in your silly old sailor sense of the term.  She’s a hefty savage like me.  When you had me aboard, did you think of having accommodation for a gentleman?  Ho! ho! ho!  At any rate,” said he, at the end of the peal, “you’ve a sort of spare cabin?  There’s always one.”

“A kind of dog-hole—­for you, Mr. Chayne.”

Jaffery’s keen eye caught the Captain’s and read things.  He jumped to his feet, upsetting his chair and causing disaster at two adjoining and crowded tables, for which, dismayed and bareheaded—­Jaffery could be a very courtly gentleman when he chose—­he apologized in fluent French, and, turning, caught Captain Maturin beneath the arm.