This subject had been considered before the vessels sailed from Alexandria, and the commander declared that he could not adopt the scheme of Scott, if they were to be required to utter no end of falsehoods to Morris; and Louis absolutely refused to do so. They had finally compromised by making the owner a committee of one to confer with the subject of the difficulty when the time for action came. Like the others, Morris was to be pledged to secrecy for the peace and comfort of the mothers. If he refused to give the pledge, the plan of Captain Scott was to be abandoned, and the Maud was to place herself immediately under the wing of the Guardian-Mother again. The time for action on this subject had come.

"I will go aft and have a talk with Morris; and I am only afraid he will fly off at the want of confidence in him we have shown," said Louis.

"But his case is not a whit different from your own; for you have a mother in the cabin as well as he," added the captain.

"But we have concealed everything from him for months; but Morris is as good a fellow as ever sailed the seas, and he will be reasonable."

"I pledged myself to secrecy, and I think we had better make the 'Big Four' a society for the protection of this secret till the end of the voyage."

"We will consider that at another time," replied Louis as he moved aft.

He found Morris still looking about in order to solve what was a mystery to him, as it must have been to the engineers and the cook; but they were paid employes, and it was not proper for them to ask any questions.

"Anything broken down, Louis?" asked Morris, as his watch-mate took a seat at his side.

"Nothing at all," replied the owner. "Do you believe, Morris, that you could keep a very important secret if the peace and happiness of your best friends on earth depended upon it?"

"I know I could, even from my mother, from whom I never kept a secret except once, when I heard the doctor say something about the health of Blanche last winter, not long before we sailed in the yacht. I knew that it would worry the life out of her," replied Morris very seriously.

"This is a case just like that; and if the secret came out it would worry the life out of your mother and mine, and perhaps seriously affect the health of Miss Blanche."

"There is my hand, and I will pledge myself to any honest secret you may impart to me; for I know you would not lead me to do anything wrong."

"I would jump overboard before I would lead you astray, Morris,"

protested Louis as he took the offered hand, and the pledge was exchanged.

It required two hours to tell the whole story of the operations of Captain Mazagan, begun at Constantinople four months before, including the discovery of the plot of the conspirators in the cafe at Gallipoli.

Morris was astonished at the explanation given him of several incidents with which he was familiar. He quite agreed with Louis as to the necessity of keeping the secret; for his mother would worry herself into a fit of sickness if she learned the truth. He agreed that there was no alternative between abandoning the excursion, which would be a great grief to him, and confining the secret to those who now knew it; and he repeated his pledge with more earnestness than before.

CHAPTER IV

THE POSITION OF THE THREE STEAMERS

The conference in the standing-room of the Maud ended, and all the "Big Four" were in possession of the secret upon the keeping of which the continuation of the delightful excursion voyage depended. They stood on a perfect equality now, and each was as wise as the others. When Louis went forward, Morris went with him; and after the result of the interview had been announced, Scott grasped the hand of the newly initiated, and Felix followed his example.

"I can see that you are all glad to keep me no longer in the dark," said Morris. "You must have been walking on gla.s.s all the time for fear that I should break through, and upset your plan to keep me behind the curtain."

"That is so," replied the captain. "We had to shut up tight while you were in the pilot-house; and as Louis is in your watch, I stopped the Maud partly to give him a chance to talk with you, and partly to carry out the manoeuvre agreed upon."

"But I can't see why it was considered necessary to keep me in the dark," added Morris. "Am I supposed to be any more leaky than the rest of you?"

"I don't believe any one thought so," replied Louis. "You remember that at Gallipoli, Flix and I went ash.o.r.e in one of the two harbors, taking Don with us to talk Turkish, though His Highness and Captain Mazagan did their business in French, which they supposed no one near them could speak or understand; and I happened to be the only one of our party who took in all that was said. When we returned to the Guardian-Mother I told Captain Ringgold all about it, in the presence of Flix. The commander immediately directed us to say not a word about it to any person. Even Captain Scott was kept in the dark till he and I were on the verge of a quarrel in Pournea Bay."

"That is putting it a little too strong, Louis," interposed the captain.

"I should not have quarrelled with you under any circ.u.mstances; I could not have done so."

"But I interfered with you in your command because I understood the situation, and you did not; and Captain Ringgold told me to tell you all there was to be told," Louis explained. "But he was not willing you should be posted, Morris; for he feared that you might unintentionally betray the secret to your mother. We have got along so far without lying, and I believe the commander would throw up the voyage rather than have any of us go beyond simple concealment without falsehood. As he says, we are acting a lie, though we are doing it for the health, comfort, and happiness of those we love the best on earth. The biggest lies are sometimes told without the utterance of a vocal word."

"I am satisfied, fellows, and I am sure Captain Ringgold has acted from the highest of motives. Now I should like to know something about the manoeuvre in which you are engaged."

Captain Scott explained it in full. Felix had gone to his station in the bow, to observe the movements of the Guardian-Mother and the Fatime.

From there he had gone to the hurricane deck, in order to obtain a better view. After an absence of half an hour he came into the pilot-house again, with his gla.s.s under his arm; for it had now become the emblem of his occupation.

"The ship is so far off that I can't tell whether or not she is still rushing things; but I judge by her distance that the engine is making things lively in the fire-room," said he.

"How about the Fatime?" asked the captain. "I can still see her."

"The Fatty is sodjering."

"What do you mean by that, Flix?"

"She is wasting her time, and appears to be making not more than four knots," replied Felix. "I judge that Captain Mazagan does not feel quite at home."

"You think our movements bother him?" suggested Louis.

"Not the least doubt of that! The ship is going off at sixteen knots an hour, and will soon be hull down, and we are lying here 'like a painted ship upon a painted ocean.'"

"Coleridge!" exclaimed Morris, amused to hear Felix quote from a poem.

"In other words, he can't make out what we are driving at; for the Maud has always kept under the wing of the Guardian-Mother," added the captain. "But it is about time to give him something to think of."

As he spoke, Captain Scott rang the gong in the engine-room to go ahead, and the screw began to turn again.

"Now keep your weather eye open tight, Flix!" and he threw the wheel over, and fixed his gaze upon the compa.s.s in front of him. "You needn't watch the G.-M. very closely, but give me the earliest notice of any change in the course of the pirate; for I can hardly make her out now."

"How far is it from here to Port Said?" asked the lookoutman.

"To where? I don't know where Port Sed is," replied the captain, p.r.o.nouncing the word as Felix did.

"You don't know where the entrance to the Suez Ca.n.a.l is!" exclaimed the lookout.

"That is what you mean, is it?"

"Of course it is; and that is what I said," protested Felix.

"You said Port Sed."

"I know it; if S-a-i-d don't spell Sed, what does it spell?" demanded Felix.

"It spells S-a-h-i-d out here when you mean the port at the entrance of the Suez Ca.n.a.l," replied the captain quietly and with a smile.

"Oh, you have become an Arabian scholar!" exclaimed Felix with a hearty laugh.