So, with much mystery, I asked him to describe the “situation,” and he did so with the exactness of one who believes that within an hour every word he speaks will be cabled to the White House.

When I was leaving he said:  “Oh, there’s a newspaper correspondent after you.  He wants an interview, I guess.  He followed you last night from the capital by train.  You want to watch out he don’t catch you.  His name is Jones.”  I promised to be on my guard against a man named Jones, and the consul escorted me to the ship.  As he went down the accommodation ladder, I called over the rail:  “In case they should declare war, cable to Curacoa, and I’ll come back.  And don’t cable anything indefinite, like ‘Situation critical’ or ‘War imminent.’  Understand?  Cable me, ’Come back’ or ‘Go ahead.’  But whatever you cable, make it clear.”

He shook his head violently and with his green-lined umbrella pointed at my elbow.  I turned and found a young man hungrily listening to my words.  He was leaning on the rail with his chin on his arms and the brim of his Panama hat drawn down to conceal his eyes.

On the pier-head, from which we now were drawing rapidly away, the consul made a megaphone of his hands.

“That’s him,” he called.  “That’s Jones.”

Jones raised his head, and I saw that the tropical heat had made Jones thirsty, or that with friends he had been celebrating his departure.  He winked at me, and, apparently with pleasure at his own discernment and with pity for me, smiled.

“Oh, of course!” he murmured.  His tone was one of heavy irony.  “Make it ‘clear.’  Make it clear to the whole wharf.  Shout it out so’s everybody can hear you.  You’re ‘clear’ enough.”  His disgust was too deep for ordinary words.  “My uncle!” he exclaimed.

By this I gathered that he was expressing his contempt.

“I beg your pardon?” I said.

We had the deck to ourselves.  Its emptiness suddenly reminded me that we had the ship, also, to ourselves.  I remembered the purser had told me that, except for those who travelled overnight from port to port, I was his only passenger.

With dismay I pictured myself for ten days adrift on the high seas—­alone with Jones.

With a dramatic gesture, as one would say, “I am here!” he pushed back his Panama hat.  With an unsteady finger he pointed, as it was drawn dripping across the deck, at the stern hawser.

“You see that rope?” he demanded.  “Soon as that rope hit the water I knocked off work.  S’long as you was in Valencia—­me, on the job.  Now, you can’t go back, I can’t go back.  Why further dissim’lation?  Who am I?”

His condition seemed to preclude the possibility of his knowing who he was, so I told him.

He sneered as I have seen men sneer only in melodrama.

“Oh, of course,” he muttered.  “Oh, of course.”

He lurched toward me indignantly.