“Likely as not,” said Captain Cable, setting down his empty cup, “we three’ll not meet again.  I have had dealings with many that I’ve never seen again, and with some that have been careful not to know me if they did see me.”

“We can never tell,” said Martin, optimistically.

“Of course,” the captain went on, “I can hold me tongue.  That’s agreed—­we all hold our tongues, whatever the newspapers may be likely to pay for a word or two.  Often enough I’ve read things in the newspaper that I could put a different name to.  And that little ship of mine has had a hand in some queer political pies.”

“Yes,” answered Martin, with his gay laugh, “and kept it clean all the same.”

“That’s as may be.  And now I’ll say good-bye.  I’ll be calling on your father for my money in three days’ time—­barrin’ fogs.  And I’ll tell him I left you well.  Good-bye, Petersen; you’re a handy man.  Tell him he’s a handy man in his own langwidge, and I’ll take it kindly.”

Captain Cable shook hands, and clattered out of the cabin in his great sea-boots.

Half an hour later the Olaf was alone on that shallow sea, which seemed lonelier and more silent than ever; for when a strong man quits a room he often bequeaths a sudden silence to those he leaves behind.

IV

TWO OF A TRADE

“His face reminds one of a sunny graveyard,” a witty Frenchwoman had once said of a man named Paul Deulin.  And it is probable that Deulin alone could have understood what she meant.  Those who think in French have a trick of putting great thoughts into a little compass, and, as the hollow ball of talk is tossing to and fro, it sometimes rings for a moment in a deeper note than many ears are tuned to catch.

The careless word seized the attention of one man who happened to hear it—­Reginald Cartoner, a listener, not a talker—­and made that man Paul Deulin’s friend for the rest of his life.  As there is point de culte sans mystere, so also there can be no lasting friendship without reserve.  And although these two men had met in many parts of the world—­although they had in common more languages than may be counted on the fingers—­they knew but little of each other.

If one thinks of it, a sunny graveyard, bright with flowers and the gay green of spring foliage, is the shallowest fraud on earth, endeavoring to conceal beneath a specious exterior a thousand tragedies, a whole harvest of lost illusions, a host of grim human comedies.  On the other hand, this is a pious fraud; for half the world is young, and will discover the roots of the flowers soon enough.

Cartoner had met Deulin in many strange places.  Together they had witnessed queer events.  Accredited to a new president of a new republic, they once had made their bow, clad in court dress, and official dignity, to the man whom they were destined to see a month later hanging on his own flagstaff, out over the plaza, from the spare-bedroom window of the new presidency.  They had acted in concert; they had acted in direct opposition.  Cartoner had once had to tell Deulin that if he persisted in his present course of action the government which he (Cartoner) represented would not be able to look upon it with indifference, which is the language of diplomacy, and means war.