CHAPTER II
I
Clement Seadon got up from his bunk almost as soon as he had sat down on it. He was young, that is, he preferred swift action to deep thinking.
“It’s no good arguing about this,” he told himself. “It’s no good telling one’s cautious soul that outside the cinematograph and the painted pages of fiction, pretty young women aren’t the victims of gangs of rogues in this the twentieth century. She is. I’ve seen her. I’ve seen the gang and already felt them at work.... I’ve had circumstantial evidence pumped into me by that hurtling little lawyer. It all sounds mad. It all sounds untrue. But it happens to be true. I’ve got to do something.”
He made a stride towards the door. He stopped.
“Ah, yes,” he reflected. “I’ve got to do something—what?”
He suddenly realized how easy it was to say “I’ve got to do something.” How hard it was to do anything at all.
What could he do? Rush out and confront the gang with their villainies—idiotic idea. He’d probably be put into irons as an irresponsible madman. There wasn’t any evidence. If there had been any, the little lawyer would have acted upon it, the criminal gang would have been slapped into jail before the ship sailed. Heloise—what a really suitable name for her, Heloise; how it fitted her curious, slim, rather exaltè kind of beauty—Heloise would have been rescued even before she started for Canada.... The voyage would not have been undertaken....