"It is a strange story, Doctor Thayer," said Agatha somewhat reluctantly; "but some time you shall hear it. I must tell it to somebody, for I need help. My name is Agatha Redmond, and I am from New York; and this gentleman is James Hambleton of Lynn—so he told me. He risked his life to save mine, after we had abandoned the ship."
"I don't doubt it," said Doctor Thayer gruffly. "Some blind dash into the future is the privilege of youth. That's why it's all recklessness and foolishness."
Agatha looked at him keenly, struck by some subtle irony in his voice. "I think it is what you yourself would have done, sir," she said.
The doctor thrust out his chin in his disconcerting way, and gave not the least smile; but his small blue eyes twinkled.
"My business is to see just where I'm going and to know exactly what I'm doing," was the dry answer. He turned a watchful look toward James, lying still there between them; then he knelt down, putting an ear over the patient's heart.
"All right!" he assured her as he came up. "But we never know how those organs are going to act." Satisfying himself further in regard to James, he waited some time before he addressed Agatha again. Then he said, very deliberately: "The ocean is a savage enemy. My brother Hercules used to quote that old Greek philosopher who said, 'Praise the sea, but keep on land.' And sometimes I think he was right."
Agatha's tired mind had been trying to form some plan for their future movements. She was uneasily aware that she would soon have to decide to do something; and, of course, she ought to get back to New York as soon as possible. But she could not leave James Hambleton, her friend and rescuer, nor did she wish to. She was pondering the question as the doctor spoke; then suddenly, at his words, a curtain of memory snapped up. "My brother Hercules" and "Charlesport!"
She leaned forward, looking earnestly into the doctor's face. "Oh, tell me," she cried impulsively, "is it possible that you knew Hercules Thayer? That he was your brother? And are we in the neighborhood of Ilion?"
"Yes—yes—yes," assented the doctor, nodding to each of her questions in turn; "and I thought it was you, Agatha Shaw's girl, from the first. But you should have come down by land!" he dictated grimly.
"Oh, I didn't intend to come down at all," cried Agatha; "either by land or water! At least not yet!"