She threw a handful of biscuit to the gulls, and there was fighting and screaming almost in touch of the hands.  Then of a sudden the red rim of the sun vanished behind the settling landscape, and all the grim loneliness of the sea rose up to greet them.

“It is lonely; let us go and prepare for dinner.  Look!” pointing to a bright star far down the east.  “And Corsica lies that way.”

“And also madness!” was his thought.

“Oh, it seems not quite true that we are all going a-venturing as they do in the story-books.  The others think we are just going to Funchal.  Remember, you must not tell.  Think of it; a real treasure, every franc of which must tell a story of its own; love, heroism and devotion.”

“Beautiful!  But there must be a rescuing of princesses and fighting and all that.  I choose the part of remaining by the princess.”

“It is yours.”  She tilted back her head and breathed and breathed.  She knew the love of living.

“Lucky we are all good sailors,” he said.  “There will be a fair sea on all night.  But how well she rides!”

“I love every beam and bolt of her.”

Shoulder to shoulder they bore forward to the companionway, and immediately the door banged after them.

Breitmann came out from behind the funnel and walked the deck for a time.  He had studied the two from his shelter.  What were they saying?  Oh, Fitzgerald was clever and strong and good to look at, but . . . !  Breitmann straightened his arms before him, opened and shut his hands violently.  Like that he would break him if he interfered with any of his desires.  It would be fully twenty days before they made Ajaccio.  Many things might happen before that time.

Two or three of the crew were lashing on the rail-canvas, and the snap and flap of it jarred on Breitmann’s nerves.  For a week or more his nerves had been very close to the surface, so close that it had required all his will to keep his voice and hands from shaking.  As he passed, one of the sailors doffed his cap and bowed with great respect.

“That’s not the admiral, Alphonse,” whispered another of the crew, chuckling.  “It’s only his privit secretary.”

“Ah, I haf meestake!”

But Alphonse had made no mistake.  He knew who it was.  His mates did not see the smile of irony, of sly ridicule, which stirred his lips as he bowed to the passer.  Immediately his rather handsome effeminate face resumed a stolid vacuity.

His name was not Alphonse; it was a captious offering by the crew, which, on this yacht, never went further than to tolerate the addition of a foreigner to their mess.  He had signed a day or two before sailing; he had even begged for the honor to ship with Captain Flanagan; and he gave his name as Pierre Picard, to which he had no more right than to Alphonse.  As Captain Flanagan was too good a sailor himself to draw distinctions, he was always glad to add a foreign tongue to his crew.  You never could tell when its use might come in handy.  That is why Pierre Picard was allowed to drink his soup in the forecastle mess.