“Go on,” she said, “you must explain fully now.”
“Well, to be blunt, the yacht is in the hands of Captain Brack and the crew.”
“Yes?”
“You saw Captain Brack, Miss Baldwin; I saw that you studied him with interest.”
“Yes!” she said eagerly, and at the sudden play of excitement in her expression I once more felt the old familiar chill creeping up my spine.
The power, the fascination, the dominant will of Captain Brack suddenly took on new possibilities. How would those terrible, compelling eyes affect a woman, a young girl? How had they affected her? For it was obvious that Miss Baldwin’s brief meeting with him had left its mark.
“He has,” said she, “such strange eyes.”
“Miss Baldwin,” I said, “when you came on board the crew practically was in a state of mutiny. Captain Brack sided with them. The crew is composed of a choice lot of brutes, ex-criminals, who may do Heaven knows what.”
Miss Baldwin stood firmly upright and looked at me, her eyes alight with excitement. Her thin nostrils widened and trembled.
“Oh, how you thrill me, Mr. Pitt!” she said. “Tell me honest truth—you’re not joking? Is it really true, about the mutiny and the crew of choice brutes?”