“Think it’s funny, do you?” my new friend reproached me.  “Well, I don’t; and neither did the folks who had cabins taken and who threw them up last week when they heard how the San Pietro went down on this same route.  We’re five plumb idiots—­that’s what we are—­five crazy lunatics!  I’d never have come a step, not with wild horses dragging me if it hadn’t been for Jim Furman being pretty near popeyed, looking for a chance to cut me out and sail.  We’ve got fifteen hundred reservists downstairs, and a cargo of contraband.  What do you know about that as a prize for a submarine?”

“Well,” I said vaingloriously.  “I can swim.”

My eyes were wandering, for the girl in the fur coat had entered, with the dark, watchful-eyed man—­was it pure coincidence?—­close behind.  The steward ushered her to a table; the man followed at her heels.  I dare say I glared.  I know my muscles stiffened.  The fellow was going to speak to her.  What in blazes did he mean by stalking her in this way?

“Excuse me,” he was saying, “but haven’t we met before?”

The girl straightened into rigidness, looking him over.  Her manner was haughty, her ruddy head poised stiffly, as she answered in a cold tone: 

“No.”

He was watching her keenly.

“My name’s John Van Blarcom,” he persisted.

Again she gave him that sweeping glance.

“You are mistaken,” she said indifferently.  “I have not seen you before.”

He nodded curtly.

“My mistake,” he admitted.  “I thought I knew you,” and turning from her, he sat down at the one table still unoccupied.

“So his name’s Van Blarcom,” whispered my ubiquitous neighbor.  “And the Italian chap over there is Pietro Ricci.  The steward told me so.  And the captain’s name is Cecchi; get it?  And I know your name, too, Mr. Bayne,” he added with a grin.  “The steward didn’t know what was taking you over, but I guess I’ve got your number all right.  Say, ain’t you a flying man or else one of the American-Ambulance boys?”

I mustered the feeble parry that I had stopped being a boy of any sort some time ago.  Then lest he wring from me my age, birthplace, and the amount of my income tax, I made an end of my meal.

On deck again I wondered at my irritation, my sense of restlessness.  The little salesman was not responsible, though he had fretted me like a buzzing fly.  It was rather that I had taken an intense dislike to the man calling himself Van Blarcom; that the girl, despite her haughtiness, had somehow given me an impression of uneasiness—­of fear almost—­as she saw him approach and heard him speak; and above all, that I should have liked to flay alive the person or persons who had let her sail unaccompanied for a zone which at this moment was the danger point of the seas.

My matter-of-fact, conservatively ordered life had been given a crazy twist at the St. Ives.  As an aftermath of that episode I was probably scenting mysteries where there were none.  Nevertheless, I wondered—­though I called myself a fool for it—­if any more queer things would happen before this ship on which we five bold voyagers were confined should reach the other side.