like.  Or, ye might do this!” He rose after a moment’s cogitation and with a face of profound mystery opened the door and beckoned Renshaw to follow him.  Leading the way cautiously, he brought the young man into an open unpartitioned recess beside her state-room.  It seemed to be used as a store-room, and Renshaw’s eye was caught by a trunk the size and shape of the one that had provided Rosey with the materials of her masquerade.  Pointing to it, Mr. Nott said in a grave whisper:  “This yer trunk is the companion trunk to Rosey’s. She’s got the things them opery women wears; this yer contains the he things, the duds and fixins o’ the men o’ the same stripe.”  Throwing it open he continued:  “Now, Mr, Renshaw, gals is gals; it’s nat’ral they should be took by fancy dress and store clothes on young chaps as on theirselves.  That man Ferrers hez got the dead wood on all of ye in this sort of thing, and hez been playing, so to speak, a lone hand all along.  And ef thar’s anythin’ in thar,” he added, lifting part of a theatrical wardrobe, “that you think you’d fancy—­anythin’ you’d like to put on when ye promenade the wharf down yonder—­it’s yours.  Don’t ye be bashful, but help yourself.”

It was fully a minute before Renshaw fairly grasped the old man’s meaning.  But when he did—­when the suggested spectacle of himself arrayed a la Ferrieres, gravely promenading the wharf as a last gorgeous appeal to the affections of Rosey, rose before his fancy, he gave way to a fit of genuine laughter.  The nervous tension of the past few hours relaxed; he laughed until the tears came into his eyes; he was still laughing when the door of the cabin suddenly opened and Rosey appeared cold and distant on the threshold.

“I—­beg your pardon,” stammered Renshaw hastily.  “I didn’t mean—­to disturb you—­I”—­

Without looking at him Rosey turned to her father.  “I am ready,” she said coldly, and closed the door again.

A glance of artful intelligence came into Nott’s eyes, which had remained blankly staring at Renshaw’s apparently causeless hilarity.  Turning to him he winked solemnly.  “That keerless kind o’ hoss-laff jist fetched her,” he whispered, and vanished before his chagrined companion could reply.

When Mr. Nott and his daughter departed, Renshaw was not in the ship, neither did he make a spectacular appearance on the wharf as Mr. Nott had fondly expected, nor did he turn up again until after nine o’clock, when he found the old man in the cabin awaiting his return with some agitation.  “A minit ago,” he said, mysteriously closing the door behind Renshaw, “I heard a voice in the passage, and goin’ out, who should I see agin but that darned furrin nigger ez I told yer ’bout, kinder hidin’ in the dark, his eyes shinin’ like a catamount.  I was jist reachin’ for my weppins when he riz up with a grin and handed me this yer letter.  I told him I reckoned you’d gone to Sacramento, but he said he wez sure you was in your room, and to prove it I went thar.  But when I kem back the d——­d skunk had vamosed—­got frightened I reckon—­and wasn’t nowhar to be seen.”