"And while Miss Petrovitch has been wearing her heart out with anxiety to save her father, this heartless woman has been deceiving her—to whom she owes everything—and adapting our means to secure her own ends."
"It looks like it—does it not?" said Jimmy. "Now, what do you intend doing? Remember, you have two traitors to deal with—Madame Bernstein and Mr. Maas."
"I don't know what to do," replied poor Browne, "It is sufficiently vexatious. I shall have to tell Miss Petrovitch, and it will break her heart. As for Maas, we must consider what is best to be done with him. I'll have no mercy on the brute."
"Oh yes, you will," argued Jimmy. "Whatever you are, you are not vindictive, Jack. Don't try to make me believe you are."
Leaving the two men together, Browne went in search of his sweetheart. When he found her, he summoned up all the courage he possessed and told her everything from the beginning to the end. She was braver than he had expected, and heard him out without comment. Only when he had finished, she rose from her seat, and asked him to excuse her, saying that she would go to her cabin for a little while.
A little before sunset that afternoon a small brig was sighted, five miles or so away to the south-west. A course was immediately shaped to intercept her. Her attention having been attracted, she hove to and waited for the boat, that Mason warned her he was sending. When she put off the third officer was in charge, and MacAndrew was sitting beside him in the stern sheets. They returned in something under an hour, and immediately on his arrival on board MacAndrew made his way to the smoking-room, where he was closeted with Browne for upwards of an hour. After that he went below with Jimmy Foote.
The orb of day lay like a ball of fire upon the horizon when they reappeared. This time they escorted no less a person than Maas himself, who looked as if he were scarcely awake. Without inquiring for them or asking leave to bid his host and hostess farewell, he disappeared down the accommodation-ladder, and took his place in the boat alongside, and his traps were bundled in after him. Half an hour later the boat returned, but this time Maas was not in her. MacAndrew ascended to the deck, and once more made his way to the smoking-room. He found Browne and Jimmy there as before.
"They will land him at Tomari in the Kuriles in three months' time," he reported, with what appeared to be considerable satisfaction.
"Tomari is the capital of Kunashiri Island," said Jimmy, who had turned up a copy of the China Sea Directory during the short silence that followed. "It has a permanent population of about one thousand five hundred souls, which is largely increased in summer time by fishermen."
"You are sure he will be quite safe," asked Browne. "Scoundrel and traitor though he is, I shouldn't like to think that any harm would befall him."