The steward brought them in a meal, but it was a little while before Savine appeared again. He opened a box of cigars, and though he said nothing that seemed to indicate that Harper’s company was not altogether necessary the latter rose.
“I guess I’ll go out and see how she’s getting along,” he said.
Then there was a little silence, until Appleby glanced at the commander.
“I have been thinking hard during the last half-hour, and I am now going to tell you exactly what happened on the night I met Miss Harding in Santa Marta,” he said. “I scarcely think you have heard it in quite the same shape before, and I was not sure that it would have been altogether advisable a little while ago.”
“I don’t know that it is necessary. Still, you might go on.”
Appleby told his story with almost brutal frankness, and then looked the commander in the eyes.
“If you have the slightest doubt on any point you may never have such an opportunity of getting rid of it again,” he said.
Savine smiled a little, though there was the faintest tinge of darker color in his bronzed cheek.
“I never had any, and now there is nothing I could do which would quite wipe out the obligation I feel I am under to you,” he said.
He stopped with a curious little gleam in his eyes, and Appleby felt that he had made another friend who would not fail him. Then he turned the conversation, and Savine told him that he was engaged on special service on the Cuban coast when he saw the boat and decided to intercept her in the hope of acquiring information. Hostilities were certain, but he hoped to put his guests on board a steamer he expected to fall in with on the morrow.