"Oh, it came to me," she smiled. "You will know how, all in good time. But I can tell you why you lost it, if you care to know. It was stolen from you—as you stole it yourself, you know," she rippled—"but with different motives. You lost it in order that you might be kept hot in the service of its original."
"Then it worked! Have I ever cooled? It seems to me that I have been required to keep cold and hold off."
"Yes, Captain. Events have turned out rather differently from our expectations, but they are running smoothly now. You may safely have the picture. And I believe you will find little restraint upon your actions from now on."
The skipper gazed at the photograph for some time without speaking, then he laid it down on the table and said quietly:
"I don't want it now. If that picture ever takes a place in my cabin again, it will be placed there by Miss Sheldon. That is not very likely to happen. Thank you, just the same, Mrs. Goring, and if I never know how it was lost, it won't bother me much. I'll go aboard and move my ship down river. Coming, Gordon?"
Gordon embraced Mrs. Goring again and kissed her, totally unembarrassed by Barry's presence, then followed the skipper out and down to the wharf. As they paddled out to the ship, Barry eyed the schooner narrowly but saw nothing unusual aboard her. He wondered about all those silent figures he had seen entering her hold the night before; but somehow in the past hour he had lost much of his interest in Leyden's ship. He felt a growing desire to get away out of the river into the clean salt ocean.
The Barang's crew had made great progress with their work; and Rolfe hailed as they approached the side to say that the ship was ready to drop down at high water. Out in midstream Bill Blunt and a boat's crew were returning after laying out an anchor to a great coir-fiber hawser, springy and stout, and a glance at the shores showed rapidly rising water.
"Get a strain on the hawser and keep taking in," ordered Barry as soon as he got on deck. "Gordon, if you want to harden up, take a handspike and have a turn at the capstan. Where's Little, Rolfe?"
"Little?" Jerry Rolfe looked alarmed. "I haven't seen Mr. Little since you went ashore, sir."
"I seen him a-swimmin' over by the schooner, awhile agone," remarked Blunt, bringing the boat painter aft to make the boat fast astern. "I thought he wuz goin' arter you, sir."