future. Presently he went to the window, and gazed out. Tides
of night and mystery, flooding in from the farther, dark,
mysterious ocean, all but submerged lower Manhattan; high and
beautiful above these waves of shadow, triumphing over them and
accentuating them, shone a star from the top of the Woolworth
building; flecks of light indicated the noble curve of that great
bridge which soars like a song in stone and steel above the
shifting waters; the river itself was dotted here and there with
moving lights; it was a nocturne waiting for its Whistler; here
sea and city met in glamour and beauty and illusion.

But it was not the city which called to Cleggett. It was the sea.

A breeze blew in from the bay and stirred his window curtains; it
was salt in his nostrils. . . .And, staring out into the
breathing night, he saw a succession of pictures. . . .

Stripped to a pair of cotton trousers, with a dripping cutlass in
one hand and a Colt's revolver in the other, an adventurer at the
head of a bunch of dogs as desperate as himself fought his way
across the reeking decks of a Chinese junk, to close in single
combat with a gigantic one-eyed pirate who stood by the helm with
a ring of dead men about him and a great two-handed sword
upheaved. . . . This adventurer was--Clement J. Cleggett! . . .

Through the phosphorescent waters of a summer sea, reckless of
cruising sharks, a sailor's clasp knife in his teeth, glided
noiselessly a strong swimmer; he reached the side of a schooner
yacht from which rose the wild cries of beauty in distress,
swarmed aboard with a muttered prayer that was half a curse,