All the appointments of the yacht were of the most luxurious order.  She possessed every imaginable contrivance for the comfort of those who voyaged in her.  Her state-cabins were a miracle of elegance and ease.

Saltash never took a valet when he went for a voyage.  The steward attended to his clothes, and he waited on himself.  He liked as much space as he could get both on deck and below.

He pushed open the door of his cabin and felt for the switch of the electric light.  But he did not press it when he found it.  Something made him change his mind.  The faint light of stars upon rippling water came to him through the open porthole, and he shut himself in and stepped forward to the couch beneath it to look forth.

But as he moved, another influence caught him, and he stopped short.

“Is anyone here?” he said.

Through the wash of the water he thought he heard a light movement, and he felt a presence as of some small animal in the space before him.

Swiftly he stepped back and in a moment his hand was on the switch.  The light flashed on, and in a moment he stood staring—­at a fair-haired, white-faced lad in a brown livery with brass buttons who stood staring back at him with wide, scared eyes.

CHAPTER III

THE GIFT

Saltash was the first to recover himself; he was seldom disconcerted, never for long.

“Hullo!” he said, with a quizzical twist of the eyebrows.  “You, is it?  And what have you come for?”

The intruder lowered his gaze abruptly, flushing to the roots of his fair hair.  “I came,” he said, in a very low voice, “to—­to ask you something.”

“Then you’ve come some distance to do it,” said Saltash lightly, “for I never turn back.  Perhaps that was your idea, was it?”

“No—­no!” With a vehement shake of the head he made answer.  “I didn’t think you would start so soon.  I thought—­I would be able to ask you first.”

“Oh, indeed!” said Saltash.  And then unexpectedly he laid a hand upon one narrow shoulder and turned the downcast face upwards.  “Ah!  I thought he’d marked you, the swine!  What was he drubbing you for?  Tell me that!”

A great purple bruise just above one eye testified to the severity of the drubbing; the small, boyish countenance quivered sensitively under his look.  With sudden impulse two trembling hands closed tightly upon his arm.

“Well?” said Saltash.

“Oh, please, sir—­please, my lord, I mean—­” with great earnestness the words came—­“let me stay with you!  I’ll earn my keep somehow, and I shan’t take up much room!”

“Oh, that’s the idea, is it?” said Saltash.

“Yes—­yes!” The boy’s eyes implored him,—­blue eyes with short black lashes that imparted an oddly childish look to a face that was otherwise thin and sharp with anxiety.  “I can do anything.  I don’t want to live on charity.  I can work.  I’d love to work—­for you.”