"Are you, my friend, Renie?"

"Yes; I am your friend."

"If you are my friend, why did you betray me to the smugglers?"

"I was not your friend then, I am your friend now. I can serve you and you can serve me! Your life is in danger. You will never return if you go out in the yacht to-night. I had prepared you for your doom, but now I will save you, and again I tell you that there's better game ashore."

"Why should I trust you! do you not confess to having betrayed me?"

"I only knew you then as a government detective; now I know you are a man."

"You must have made the latter discovery very suddenly."

"I did."

"When?"

"When you knocked Sol Burton down; that man meant me harm. I could have defended myself against him, but a greater peril menaces me to-night."