Isle o' Dreams. Frederick Ferdinand Moore

and was taking on a cargo of best steaming coal for Kamrangh Bay. This knowledge enabled Togo to destroy the Baltic fleet in the Tushima Straits. And a stevedore made something like a million dollars out of a cargo of canned salmon by hearing some cockney give his theory about how the blockade could be run to Port Arthur.

      Vanderzee made some of his profits out of a little room at the far end of his bar, where a man could sit hidden by tawny tapa curtains rove on a bamboo pole, and have privacy while he heard what was being said at the bar. The room had a marble-topped table and two chairs.

      Two men were inside of an afternoon, playing at cribbage. One was short and heavily built, with powerful shoulders threatening to break through the seams of his white drill jacket. His black hair was clipped close to his skull, making his ears appear to stick out amazingly. He had black moustaches which grew down over his mouth, masking it. His face was brown and rough hewn. A straw hat, curled up into a grotesque shape, lay at his feet like some distorted bivalve. Its owner had an air of authority about him, even a touch of dominance in the way he scanned his cards or moved the pegs in the board. When his arm went out to the table, it moved with a ponderous steadiness. His brown and hairy hand had the slow, powerful sweep of a derrick-boom.

      His companion was thin and angular, quick-eyed and nervous in his movements, as though he moved on a gear of higher speed than his opponent in the game. He crouched over the table when he shuffled the cards or played them, without lifting his elbows from the table, in the fashion of a jealous dog with a bone. He wore a blue cap with a polished black visor, tilted back on his head, giving him a rakish, devil-may-care aspect. His long and lean face, cut with wrinkles, was twisted into a sly grin, as if he thought he had the advantage of the other man.

      The tapa curtains were closed. The alcove was lighted from two of the narrow windows, cut so high in the wall that they gave no view of the Mole and the street outside unless a man were to climb on a chair and get his shoulders on a level with the bamboo rafters, where the tiny lizards prowled in the dust and hunted flies.

      The roar of the docks surged through dull and confused, a medley of clanking hatch-covers, complaining tackle, deep-throated protests of donkey-engines, outlandish commands from stevedores, and the yelps of high-strung little tugs bossing the lighters.

      Vanderzee pottered at his books behind the bar, smoking a china pipe. His watchful eye was on his Chinese boy polishing the brasswork of the taps. The last of the noon idlers had gone, and the door leading to the Mole was shut against the hot breeze lifting from the sun's glare on the river.

      Then a beam of light whipped across the floor with a shuffle of feet on the stone steps outside. Captain Dinshaw tottered in, gasping for breath and shaking with excitement.

      "Van!" he cried, weakly, making for the bar. "I'm rich!"

      The black man grunted, and put his pipe in his mouth, staring past Dinshaw at the door as if he expected to see a pursuing party burst in and attack the old man, who seemed spent from running.

      "Who's der drouble?" he growled. "For v'y you roon?"

      "I've hauled the wind!" cried Dinshaw, dropping his parcel on the bar, and throwing up his hands in a gesture of wild delight.

      "My luck's turned! I'm a rich man, I tell ye!"

      "Vell," remarked Vanderzee with stolid calm. "If you puy a monkey in some oder blaces, don'd pring him here to me. You vant me droubles to haff der bolice mit, hey? A few trinks you get, der sun your het in, und—dronk der Cuartel in und my license I loose maype."

      "I'll make ye rich!" persisted Dinshaw, in his high-pitched, quivering voice, and giving no heed to the admonitions of the black man and not in the least disconcerted by the lack of welcome. "I'm goin' to my island!"

      "Der more kvicker, der more petter," said Vanderzee, and humped his shoulders up with a convulsive shrug. "Maype you prink it back und anchor it off der lighthouse, hey?"

      "Jarrow'll take me in the Nuestra," continued Dinshaw, now as if talking to himself. "I'll be rich and have good soup for supper. I've got the tide this time, an' no mistake. It's turned for me, as I allus said it would, and Jarrow'll head out for my island. I tell ye, man, it's all settled. Have ye seen Jarrow?"

      "Charrow petter nod see you. Crassy you iss."

      "He'll want to see me, an' don't forget," said Dinshaw, wagging his head. "Jarrow's the man for me and——"

      The tapa curtains were thrust aside violently, and the short, squat man with clipped hair stood between them, glowering, one hand gripped into a fist, and the other holding the swaying fabric.

      "What's this of me and the Nuestra?" he roared. His moustaches puffed out at each word, and his jaw lifted to a pugnacious angle as he threw back his head. He screwed up his eyes into a sort of malevolent grin which did not extend below the bridge of his nose.

      Dinshaw blinked at him for a minute, taken aback by the picture of this man, who seemed about to charge into the room after him.

      "You said you'd go," said Dinshaw.

      "You lay off this blasted chin-chin about me and my schooner!" raged Jarrow. "I've heard enough of it!"

      "But I'm in soundin's, cap'n. We're bound out in the Nuestra for the island! We're goin——"

      "Git out!" snapped Jarrow, and clumping out into the room, lifted a hairy fist at the old man. But Dinshaw held his ground, and as Vanderzee cried out to take care, the captain merely pushed the old man back with a snort of rage.

      "But it's all settled, I tell ye!" insisted Dinshaw. "Hard and fast. We're to go——"

      "Then go!" snarled Jarrow. "Go jump off the Mole, and give me some rest and quiet. I got other things to 'tend to. How'm I to git a charter for the Nuestra, with you and yer slack jaw runnin' wild up and down the waterfront tellin' all hands and the ship's cook I'm goin' to yer blasted island in my schooner? Hop in the river, but keep clear o' me and mine! Won't have it from ye!"

      "Der sun his het in," said Vanderzee, with a significant nod toward Dinshaw. He wanted to avoid trouble. "He iss crassy."

      The tall, thin man now parted the curtains and came out, his long legs moving stiffly across the floor. He glanced at Dinshaw with a sneering, wicked eye and sniffed contemptuously. He gave the twisted straw hat to Jarrow, who pulled it open and clamped it over his clipped skull. They both turned to the bar.

      "Ye said ye'd go," piped Dinshaw. "Ye allus said ye'd take me, an' now's the chance. I ain't goin' to stay with Prayerful Jones no more. I'm goin to pack my dunnage an' take it aboard the Nuestra."

      "There ye go!" cried Jarrow, swinging toward him, and extending a brawny arm wrathfully. "Ye make fast to me like a devilfish! That's the tune ye've been singin' for years! 'Said ye'd go!' Same old story! Why, I——"

      He paused, as if at a loss for words to express his disgust, and pulled a cigar from his pocket. He bit the end from it with a twisting motion of his head. The tall man sighed wearily.

      "Ach!" said Vanderzee. "No harm. Who iss to giff mind to vat he say? He iss crassy."

      "There's a-plenty to give mind to it," snarled Jarrow. "Didn't I lose a charter last dry season to bring wood from Mindoro? What with this booby-bird goin' round Manila with word I'm to take the Nuestra to his fool island, who's to want my boat? Here I am now, lookin' to sign up a gover'ment hay charter, and he'll put me high and dry if this word is passed along again. I won't have it. I'll see the police."

      "Can't ye let me tell——?" began Dinshaw.

      "Come along of me, Peth," said Jarrow. The angular man, who had arranged the upper part of his body in such manner that the bar afforded possibilities for rest, unfolded himself and moved toward his companion.

      "I'll make ye all rich," wailed Dinshaw.

      "You'll cost me a pretty penny, that's what!" exploded Jarrow, turning back from the door. "I never said I'd take ye, and ye can git that out of