he must have speech in private with the steward. Consequently he
lingered at table until Mr. Reardon finished his breakfast and went
below; whereupon Mr. Schultz intimated to the steward, in his direct
blunt fashion, that for the remainder of the voyage, Riggins--for that
was the steward's name--was to consider himself deaf, dumb and blind;
the penalty for reconsideration within the hearing of Mr. Reardon
being a swift and immediate excursion, personally conducted by Mr.
Schultz, to Davy Jones's locker! Following this earnest exhortation,
Riggins, never a robust person mentally or physically, came abruptly
to the conclusion that this was one of those occasions where silence,
if not exactly golden, was at least to be preferred to great riches.






CHAPTER XIII





IT may appear strange that during the days and nights Michael J.
Murphy lay on his bed of pain Terence Reardon did not once pass the
little open window of the skipper's state-room. Not, however, that the
latter watched for him, for he did not. He believed that Reardon, like
himself, was a prisoner; although, had the chief passed the window and
had the captain observed his passing, the complacence of Herr von
Staden and his patriotic company would have received a jar much