“I can’t let you do that,” she objected.  “Isn’t there some place where I can hide?” But they reassured her and left.

When they had gone, she crouched trembling upon her seat for a long time, gazing fixedly before her.  “I’m afraid!” she whispered; “I’m afraid.  What am I getting into?  Why do men look so at me?  I’m frightened.  Oh, I’m sorry I undertook it.”  At last she rose wearily.  The close cabin oppressed her; she felt the need of fresh air.  So, turning out the lights, she stepped forth into the night.  Figures loomed near the rail and she slipped astern, screening herself behind a life-boat, where the cool breeze fanned her face.

The forms she had seen approached, speaking earnestly.  Instead of passing, they stopped abreast of her hiding-place; then, as they began to talk, she saw that her retreat was cut off and that she must not stir.

“What brings her here?” Glenister was echoing a question of Dextry’s.  “Bah!  What brings them all?  What brought ‘the Duchess,’ and Cherry Malotte, and all the rest?”

“No, no,” said the old man.  “She ain’t that kind—­she’s too fine, too delicate—­too pretty.”

“That’s just it—­too pretty!  Too pretty to be alone—­or anything except what she is.”

Dextry growled sourly.  “This country has plumb ruined you, boy.  You think they’re all alike—­an’ I don’t know but they are—­all but this girl.  Seems like she’s different, somehow—­but I can’t tell.”

Glenister spoke musingly: 

“I had an ancestor who buccaneered among the Indies, a long time ago—­so I’m told.  Sometimes I think I have his disposition.  He comes and whispers things to me in the night.  Oh, he was a devil, and I’ve got his blood in me—­untamed and hot—­I can hear him saying something now—­something about the spoils of war.  Ha, ha!  Maybe he’s right.  I fought for her to-night—­Dex—­the way he used to fight for his sweethearts along the Mexicos.  She’s too beautiful to be good—­and ’there’s never a law of God or man runs north of Fifty-three.’”

They moved on, his vibrant, cynical laughter stabbing the girl till she leaned against the yawl for support.

She held herself together while the blood beat thickly in her ears, then fled to the cabin, hurling herself into her berth, where she writhed silently, beating the pillow with hands into which her nails had bitten, staring the while into the darkness with dry and aching eyes.

CHAPTER II

THE STOWAWAY

She awoke to the throb of the engines, and, gazing cautiously through her stateroom window, saw a glassy, level sea, with the sun brightly agleam on it.

So this was Bering?  She had clothed it always with the mystery of her school-days, thinking of it as a weeping, fog-bound stretch of gray waters.  Instead, she saw a flat, sunlit main, with occasional sea-parrots flapping their fat bodies out of the ship’s course.  A glistening head popped up from the waters abreast, and she heard the cry of “seal!”