"You will excuse what has seemed to be my hurry in getting you over here, sir, but I take it that your sailing into this port just now coincides with the arrival of the Vose crowd in this city to-day."

Mr. Fletcher Fogg first, and now Mr. Fogg's employer, had given advance information which antic.i.p.ated Mayo's knowledge. The young man had been having some special training in dissimulation, and he did not betray any surprise. He bowed.

"It's better for you to talk with me before you allow them to make a fool of you. I am prepared to take that steamer off your hands, as she stands, at a fair appraisal, and I will give bonds to a.s.sume all expenses of the suit brought by the underwriters."

"There has been no suit brought by the underwriters."

Mr. Marston raised his eyebrows. "Oh! I must remember that you are considerably out of the world. The underwriters make claim that the vessel was not legally surrendered by them. Have you doc.u.ments showing release? If so, I'll be willing to pay you about double what otherwise I shall feel like offering. Take a disputed t.i.tle in an admiralty case and it's touchy business."

Mayo remembered the haphazard manner in which the steamer had been transferred, and he did not reply.

Marston's manner was that of calm, collected, cool business; his air carried weight. More than ever did Mayo feel his own pitiful weakness in these big affairs where more than honest hard work counted in the final adjustment.

"How much did you pay your big lawyers to stir up this suit by the underwriters?" he blurted, and Marston's eyelids flicked, in spite of his impa.s.sivity. There was instinct of the animal at bay, rather than any knowledge, behind Mayo's question.

"Why should you suggest that I have anything to do with such a suit?"

"You seem almighty ready to a.s.sume all liability."

"I'm not here to have childish disputes with you, sir. This is straight business."

"Very well. What do you want?"

"Have you doc.u.ments, as I have suggested?"

"I have my bill of sale. I take it for granted that the folks who sold to me are backed by papers from the underwriters."

"That's where you are in error, unfortunately. You are all made party to a suit. Time clause, actual abandonment, right of redemption--all those matters are concerned. Of course, it means injunction and long litigation. I suggested a.s.suming liabilities and stepping in, because I am backed by the best admiralty lawyers in New York. I repeat the offer Mr. Fogg made to you."

"You admit that Mr. Fogg made that offer for you or your interests, do you?"

"Well, yes!" admitted Marston. "We allow Mr. Fogg to act for us in a few matters."

"I am glad to know it. There has been so much cross-tag going on that I have been a little doubtful!"

"Kindly avoid sarcasm and temper, if you please! Do you care to accept the offer?"

Mayo glared at the financier, looking him up and down. Furious hatred took away his power of sane consideration. He was in no mood to weigh chances, either for himself or for his a.s.sociates. He doubted Marston's honesty of purpose. He knew how this man must feel toward the presumptuous fool who had dared to look up at Alma Marston; he was conscious that the magnate must be concealing some especial motive under his cold exterior.

Whether Marston was antic.i.p.ating blackmail from Mayo's possession of the doc.u.ments or had hatched up ostensible litigation in order to force the bothersome amateurs out of the _Conomo_ proposition, the young man could not determine; either view of the situation was equally insulting to those whom he made his antagonists.

"Well!" snapped the magnate, plainly finding it difficult to restrain his own violent hatred much longer in this interview. "Decide whether you will have a little ready cash and a good position or whether you will be kicked out entirely!"

"I don't want your money! You're trying to cheat me with fake law business even while you are offering me money! I don't want your job! I have worked for you once. I'll never be your hired man again."

"If I did not know that you have a better reason for standing out in this fashion, I'd say that you have allowed, your spite to drive you crazy, young man."

"What is that better reason?"

"Blackmail! You propose to trade on a theft."

Mayo struggled for a moment with an impulse that was almost frantic; he wanted to throw the packet in Mar-ston's face and tell him that he lied.

Again the young man felt that queer sense of helplessness; he knew that he could not make Marston understand.

"Mayo, I have tried to deal with you as if you were more or less of a man. I was willing to admit that my agents had injured you by their mistakes. I have offered a decent compromise. I have done what I hardly ever do--bother with petty details like this!"

That impulse to deliver the papers to Marston was then not so insistent; even Mayo's rising anger did not prompt him to do that. The wreck of a man's life and hopes dismissed flippantly as petty details!

"Seeing that I am not able to deal with you on a business man's basis, I shall handle you as I would handle any other thief."

Mayo turned to leave, afraid of his own desperate desire to beat that sneering mouth into shapelessness.

At the head of the companionway stood half a dozen sailors, armed with iron grate-bars.

"If those papers are on you, I'm going to have them," stated the financier. "If they are not on you, you'll be glad to tell me where they are before I get done with you."

The captive halted between the master and the va.s.sals.

"I'm going to crucify my feelings a little more, Mayo," stated Marston.

"Step forward here where those men can't hear. It's important."

Marston knocked softly on a stateroom door and his daughter came forth.

She gasped when she saw this ragged visitor, and in her stare there was real horror.

"I haven't been able to sift this thing to the bottom. By facing you two, as I'm doing, I may be able to get the truth of the case," said Marston, with the air of a magistrate dealing with malefactors. "Now, Alma, I'll allow you a minute or two to use your tongue on this fine specimen before my men use their bars."

"I heard what my father offered you. You must take it."

"I have other men to consider--honest men, who have worked hard with me."

He trembled in their presence. Her appearance put sane thoughts out of his head and choked the words in his throat. He saw himself in a mirror and wondered if this were not a dream--if it had not been a dream that she had ever loved him.

He wanted to put out to her his mutilated hands which he was hiding behind him. He yearned to explain to her the man's side of the case. He wanted her to understand what he owed to the men who had risked their lives to serve him, to make her realize the bond which exists between men who have toiled and starved together.

"You have yourself to consider, first of all. Much depends. In your silly notions about a lot of paupers you are throwing my father's kindness in his face!"

He stammered, unable to frame coherent reply.

"Be sensible. You have no right to put a heap of sc.r.a.p-iron and a lot of low creatures ahead of your personal interests."

There was malice in Marston's eyes. He saw an opportunity to make Mayo's position even more false in the opinion of the girl.

"I'll be entirely frank, Mayo. In spite of our personal differences, I want your services--I need them. I have found out that you're a young man of determination and plenty of ability. I'll put you ahead fast if you'll come over with me. But you must come clean. No strings on you with that other crowd."

"I can't sell 'em out. I won't do it," protested Mayo. He did not exactly understand all the reasons for his obstinacy. But his instinct told him that Julius Marston was not descending in this manner except for powerful reasons, and that he was attempting to buy a traitor for his uses.

"How do you dare to turn against my father?"

"I--I don't know! Something seems to be the matter with me." He wrenched at his throat with his hand.