Dangerous Cargo by Hulbert Footner Page B

but sat down in two chairs and waited
until his work brought him behind us. “Jim,” said Mme. Storey, “there’s a bad
situation up forward.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” said Jim guardedly. “Bad as it can be.”
    “How does Les Farman stand with the crew?”
    “Stands high, mum, though not what you’d call popular, being as he was
formerly an officer like. But he don’t lay back on it, mum. He does his work
cheerful, and no shirking. Keeps pretty much to himself as you might say, but
all hands respects him…Anyhow, they are all for him now,” he concluded
significantly.
    “Exactly,” said Mme. Storey. “Jim, in order to keep the situation from
getting worse, I’ve got to have a talk with Les Farman without anybody
knowing anything about it.”
    “That won’t be so easy to bring about, ‘m,” said Jim. “Les can’t come in
your part of the vessel, and if you went in his part everybody would
certainly know about it.”
    “Where is he now?” she asked.
    “I don’t know, ‘m. But I could go and fetch me a fresh pail of warm water
and sort of look about like.”
    “Go to it!”
    Jim returned in about ten minutes with an innocent inscrutable look on his
gnarled face. He immediately set to work wiping down the wall behind us, and
spoke out of the corner of his mouth.
    “Les was sleeping in his bunk, ‘m. Wa’nt nobody else near so I woke him up
and told him what you said. Les said ‘Fine business!’ He was just wishing he
could talk with you. Said you had the coolest head aboard the ship.”
    “This is too much,” said Mme. Storey, smiling.
    “Les said it would be too risky for you to come to him,” Jim went on. “He
said he’d watch his chance and come to you. He can slip into your corridor by
the door from the well deck. He said shortly after one would be the best
time, when all the guests were up in the dining saloon. Please to leave the
door of your sitting-room unlocked, he said, so he can slip in without
waiting to knock, hoping that it’s not too much of a liberty.”
    “Oh, not in the least!” said Mme. Storey with a twinkle in her eye.
----
XIII. — PLAYING THE GAME
    THE Buccaneer was like a funeral ship. A pall of
horror and dread hung over her. It was so difficult to keep up pretences with
each other that the guests remained in their own cabins for the most part. We
went to ours. Our charming sitting-room was like a haven of refuge where we
could relax and say what we pleased.
    In the middle of the morning, while we were there, a tap came at the door,
and upon being told to enter, Emil and Celia ran in. As soon as the door
closed they melted into each other’s arms and kissed, regardless of us.
    “Well!” said Mme. Storey.
    “Please,” said Celia, blushing adorably, “can we stay in here awhile? It’s
so comfy here.”
    “Surely!”
    The instant permission was given they forgot about us. Plumping down on a
little sofa, they kissed again as frankly and innocently as Adam and Eve
before the fall.
    “Why do you come here?” asked Mme. Storey dryly.
    There is no place else on the ship where we feel “safe,” said little Celia
naively.
    “But I say!” said Mme. Storey with mock severity. “I can’t have you using
my chaste sitting-room as a rendezvous for your clandestine love!”
    They dropped each other and stared at her in affright.
    “This isn’t playing the game!”
    “But I did what you told me to,” said Celia eagerly. “I told my mother
about us.”
    “And what did she say?”
    “She took it beautifully. Much better than I expected. She said if I was
truly in love with Emil she was sure everything would come right in the
end.”
    “What!” cried Mme. Storey. “Do you mean to tell me that Sophie threw over
her billionaire son-in-law without a word?”
    “Not a word!” said Celia. “She said she would never be the one to stand in
the way of her child’s true happiness.”
    “Hm!” said Mme. Storey dryly. “How do