A pink finger touched the lips so invitingly offered; golden-bronze hair, capped with a tam-o'-shanter, bobbed and moved away, then came again as the blue eyes searched about the gloom of the cabin.
A sound of more oars in locks struck up the wind; a voice warned from the quarter-deck; and a shuffle echoed along the deck in the lee of the galley house.
"Who—why did you come to me?"
The lips closed doubtfully and then opened. "You will know soon enough," said the girl. "I'm going now. Be careful, Mr. Stirling. Be very careful, for my sake. Don't do anything that would endanger your life—or the captain's."
"Are you the captain's——?"
Stirling never finished the question. A white pallor drove the colour from the girl's cheeks, and she was gone even as he stared out through the open porthole. Her footfalls sounded along the deck, died away aft, and there came then the heavier feet of a sailor. He rounded the corner of the galley house, peered over the rail to the north and east, and then strode by Stirling.
A heavy capstan bar was over his shoulder, an open knife gleamed from his belt, his jaw was set and thrust slightly outward. Stirling recognized in him one of the Frisco dock rats who had been most aggressive in the attack when Whitehouse had hurled the belaying pin.
Stirling turned and glanced at the panels of the door; they were not strong. He lifted his shoulder and faced about. He could break to freedom in one bull-like lunge; afterward would come the severing of the anchor line and the casting away of the ship.
He dwelt upon the exact situation and eyed the velvet beyond the porthole. The stars were paling. They had changed from white light points to yellow specks; they swam and danced in the morning's haze. An Arctic sun would soon be leaping the eastern horizon.