in the doorway. Came to me the minute you went out; greeted me as an old friend, though I never saw her in my life before. D' you know her?"

Little stared hard at the retreating figure, trying to glimpse her face. The woman turned, gazing up the track towards Samarang, and the vivid sunlight irradiated her face with startling clearness. It was a striking face, full of mature loveliness, yet holding something in the deep expressive eyes that hinted at more than a woman's share of hard contact with the world.

"No," Little said slowly, "never saw her, Barry. But I believe I'd like to meet her at that. Some queen, hey? What's she want?"

"Wanted a passage in my ship!" exploded Barry. "See here, Little, I thought this job was on the quiet. I haven't said a word to anybody," and he fixed an accusing eye on Little.

"Me too," retorted the ex-salesman, as warmly returning the other's quiz. "Maybe you're oversensitive, though. How much did she seem to know?"

"Can't tell," hesitated Barry. "Perhaps she startled me by simply talking ship. I suppose almost anybody can spot me for a sailor. But she seemed to be so darned certain that I was in command of a vessel leaving Surabaya, and she asked me for a passage, and be darned if I savvee why, since even Hawkeye himself couldn't tell where the ship is bound for, unless we blabbed it."

"What did you tell her?"

"That my ship was bound for Europe," grinned the sailor. "She came right back, too; said that's just where she wants to go. She was urging me to sell her a berth when you came in and saved me."

Little glanced out again then suddenly pulled Barry from the window.

"Come out and watch the crowd," he said. "Some of these people are worth watching. The Samarang train is due." With the announcement Little leaped from the train and impatiently awaited his companion.

"Easy to see the people worth watching," laughed Barry, joining him.

Little walked up the platform towards the knot of folks with whom the lady was last seen, and the sailor followed with an indulgent grin. Together they reached the locomotive of their train, and like a vision the strange lady emerged from nowhere and approached them, smiling brilliantly.

"How do you do, Mr. Little," she greeted, and Little's politeness was scarcely proof against his astonishment. He stared in amazement at her ready use of his name. And he was certain now that he had never set eyes on this radiant being before. The lady prattled on, with a note of reproof: "Captain Barry refuses to accommodate a lady in distress. Won't you persuade him to sell me a passage in his ship, Mr. Little?"

Little was sharp-witted. But even he was nonplussed to find their errand so obviously known in part. As for Barry, simple, straight sailor that he was, he was dumbfounded.

What the outcome might have been was left in doubt. The warning whistle of the incoming train jarred the warm air, and the crowd surged every way, creating a diversion that precluded reply. The train from the north drew in and disgorged its passengers, voluble or stolid, according to whether they were of the native subjects or the Dutch masters. Out of the scrambling chaos of chugging trains, first, second, and third-class passengers were directed or driven to their respective locations amid hoarse or shrill orders of guttural European or musical Javanese trainmen.

Until the last few passengers were mounting the train steps, Barry and Little lingered, watching the human kaleidoscope and awkwardly conscious that they made poor figures before the lady at their side. Then they were attracted by an altercation going on farther along the station platform, and when they turned again the mysterious lady had as mysteriously vanished.

"She's gone!" breathed Barry, with relief.

"Good egg!" echoed Little, then seized Barry's arm. "Come on, Barry, we must hustle too. Gosh! See that?"

A mild-mannered, soft-eyed Javanese porter had set down a heavy suitcase and was apparently trying to persuade its white owner to pay his small fee for carrying it. The white man, keen-faced, overbearing, immaculately dressed, cursed the porter in venomous Low Malay and picked up the suitcase himself. As he turned to board the train, leaving the fee unpaid, the porter trotted beside him with outstretched palm, asking civilly enough for his wage. The white man swung around, kicked him viciously, and sprang on the train, leaving his victim squirming in agony on the platform.

"Here, I'm going after that duck!" gritted Barry, buttoning his jacket and starting forward. "That's the sort of white man that makes me glad I'm sun-tanned brown!"

"Not here—not now," warned Little, seizing the sailor's sleeve. "We've got to hustle to keep our seats, son. Ain't that sort o' thing regular with white men in a black man's land? It is with these lordly Dutchmen, anyway."

"Regular? Huh! Not if I can stop it," snorted Barry. "Would you see a dog kicked like that? Not much you wouldn't. I don't like that white man."

"We'll sure agree not to like him, Barry, old scout; but for the love o' Mother Dooley don't start something that'll tie our hands this early in the game."

Little led his obstinate friend to his seat, and until their fellow travelers melted away in the crowd at the Surabaya station he kept a wary eye on him. Barry snorted like a pugilist stung hard on the nose when the white corrector of insistent coolies marched from the station as if he owned the town; and the ex-salesman was forced to use all his diplomacy to restrain Barry from an outbreak.

"Have a heart, Cap, have a heart," he pleaded, when Barry barely escaped collision with a speeding barouche while following with his eyes his unknown enemy. "We're a pair o' tourists, remember. You'll get all the scrapping you can handle when we get away from here. If you go after every white fellow you see slugging a coolie, we'll have no time to attend to our own business."

"You're boss of the job; I'm dumb," grunted Barry. "All the same, I'd pass up Houten's proposition for the pleasure of pushing that chap's jib three inches further inboard. Let's get something to drink. I'm on fire."

Little led the way to a quiet hotel whose veranda commanded a wide view of the harbor and the Island of Madura across the straits. He had stopped here many times in his capacity of salesman, had sold the landlord a typewriter, and was still a welcome guest in spite of it. Ordering two tall schooners of imported beer, the only kind drinkable even in that hotel, he took the proprietor aside and made some inquiries. Presently he sauntered back to Barry.

"Going up town, Jack," he announced. "Too late for the bank. I'll go to the banker's villa for our gulden. Unless the bottom drops out of the Barang, she'll be in before morning, and we can't lose any time.

"When you've lowered that bar'l o' beer into your hold—more nautical stuff, see?—you get busy too. Mynheer host tells me Leyden's schooner, the Padang, is hauled out for caulking. The job's done. They float her on this evening's tide. He says Leyden drops in about sundown whenever he's in town. He'll surely be here to-night, being busy about his ship.

"Now, old salt, that schooner can sail rings around any shovel-nosed old boat with those funny little crosspieces on her masts. Houten admitted that. We must hinder that schooner, long enough to beat her to the Sandang River. That's your job, sailor. But don't pull stuff raw enough to get us clapped into the calaboose. Report back here. I'll be back like a shot. Then we'll camp on Leyden's trail and size him up."

Barry set down his