“Can’t help it now, Mr. Massy.  After all, a man has a right to shut himself up in his cabin in his own time.”

“Not to get drunk.”

“I heard him swear that the worry with the boilers was enough to drive any man to drink,” Sterne said maliciously.

Massy hissed out something about bursting the door in.  Mr. Van Wyk, to avoid them, crossed in the dark to the other side of the deserted deck.  The planking of the little wharf rattled faintly under his hasty feet.

“Mr. Van Wyk!  Mr. Van Wyk!”

He walked on:  somebody was running on the path.  “You’ve forgotten to get your mail.”

Sterne, holding a bundle of papers in his hand, caught up with him.

“Oh, thanks.”

But, as the other continued at his elbow, Mr. Van Wyk stopped short.  The overhanging eaves, descending low upon the lighted front of the bungalow, threw their black straight-edged shadow into the great body of the night on that side.  Everything was very still.  A tinkle of cutlery and a slight jingle of glasses were heard.  Mr. Van Wyk’s servants were laying the table for two on the veranda.

“I’m afraid you give me no credit whatever for my good intentions in the matter I’ve spoken to you about,” said Sterne.

“I simply don’t understand you.”

“Captain Whalley is a very audacious man, but he will understand that his game is up.  That’s all that anybody need ever know of it from me.  Believe me, I am very considerate in this, but duty is duty.  I don’t want to make a fuss.  All I ask you, as his friend, is to tell him from me that the game’s up.  That will be sufficient.”

Mr. Van Wyk felt a loathsome dismay at this queer privilege of friendship.  He would not demean himself by asking for the slightest explanation; to drive the other away with contumely he did not think prudent—­as yet, at any rate.  So much assurance staggered him.  Who could tell what there could be in it, he thought?  His regard for Captain Whalley had the tenacity of a disinterested sentiment, and his practical instinct coming to his aid, he concealed his scorn.

“I gather, then, that this is something grave.”

“Very grave,” Sterne assented solemnly, delighted at having produced an effect at last.  He was ready to add some effusive protestations of regret at the “unavoidable necessity,” but Mr. Van Wyk cut him short—­very civilly, however.

Once on the veranda Mr. Van Wyk put his hands in his pockets, and, straddling his legs, stared down at a black panther skin lying on the floor before a rocking-chair.  “It looks as if the fellow had not the pluck to play his own precious game openly,” he thought.