“I promise to obey orders.”

“If I wanted you, Mr. Gray, I should have sought your help.”

“It is one thing or the other—a wriggle down a rope or a high diving act.”

“You have no right to impose such an alternative on me.”

“I hate it myself, and I can’t dive worth a cent. You will hear a beastly flop when I strike the damp.”

“Mr. Boyle—I call on you to hold him.”

Boyle explained luridly that the American was doing a balancing act on the rail eight feet above his head. Elsie, taking her eyes off Suarez for an instant, discerned Gray’s figure silhouetted against the sky. She yielded.

“There is a rope ladder fastened to the lowest rail, near where the canoe was moored,” she said.

“Is there to be any catch-as-catch-can business, Boyle?” demanded Gray.

“No. All this is d—d unfair to me.”